Aden

Many newcomers stumble across the NIA and are unaware that it is a pump 'n dump scam operation. Here is a brief history of the NIA.

1999 - 2000: 15-year-old Jonathan Lebed uses the Internet to pump n' dump penny stocks he owns. Lebed was the only minor prosecuted by the SEC and settled with them with a $300k fine, keeping half a million for himself.

Late 2007 - 2008: YouTube user "George4Title," aka RPF member "ghemmiger" (banned), who is a jobless guy in Southern California, volunteers much time and effort to the Ron Paul 2008 grassroots campaign and the liberty movement. Because he is jobless he also tries to make some money off the liberty movement, mainly through his YouTube partnership channel. To rack up views he makes sensational videos that range from semi-true to down right deception.

2008: George4Title catches Lebed's eye. "Lebed.biz" becomes a sponsor of George's YouTube channel. Lebed.biz sends out newsletters which pump n' dump penny stocks. Nobody seems to remember Lebed or to equate Lebed.biz with pump n' dumping, so this goes on until 2009 without any controversy.

Early 2009: Gold and Silver had been hammered for a number of months. Because of this Peter Schiff's client's accounts were down. A handful of bloggers and investors point this out and attacked Schiff as a know-nothing investor. (It is important to point out that they were only looking at clients who went to Europac at the height of gold, and tried to close their accounts when gold was at the lowest. Historically Europac clients do pretty well). Hoping to capitalize on this Schiff-bashing trend, George4title flew to New Jersey where he and Lebed made the video, "Peter Schiff Was Wrong 2008." Their goal was probably to get a bunch of disgruntled Schiff fans into their camp, so that they would subscribe to Lebed's newsletter and thus buy into his pump n' dump scheme. youtube.com/watch?v=r08_ivotIi8&

The video backfired on George and caused an uproar to the point that he temporarily deleted all his videos and vowed to leave YouTube. Instead of joining them the Internets came to the defense of Schiff and attacked George and Lebed. A week later George started up his YouTube channel again, announcing that he cut his ties with Lebed. A few days after that, he took on a "new" sponsor, the NIA or National Inflation Association. It was only a few days or weeks that went by when people discovered that the new NIA was really the old Lebed.biz repackaged. youtube.com/watch?v=_iUuZ7JWb2U

Late 2009 - Early 2011: The controversy died down and NIA put Lebed behind the scenes while George and Gerard Adams became the face of NIA. They started making pretty decent documentaries, some of them really good. Their goal was to get people to watch the videos and sign up for their news letter, where they pump n 'dump stocks.

May 2011: Peter Schiff ends up on NIA's mailing list and recognizes their letter as a pump n' dump scam. Schiff's revelation: youtube.com/watch?v=e8M7Q9T4NfI& Follow up by Schiff: youtube.com/watch?v=nZItpZ0TWXk&