Raging Bull Chat Room Devotees Get Dose of 'Whopper'

If anyone needed further proof that Internet bulletin boards attract fools like winged vermin to a Shell No-Pest Strip, Steve Tracy offered it last week when he publicly "confessed" online that he was being paid to bash stocks.

In the week that followed, lots of the gullible folk still apparently didn't realize just how badly they were being had. So badly that Tracy, the originator of the little hoax, was sheepishly wondering if his prank had spiraled out of control.

"In my view, this thing has gotten totally ridiculous," he wrote in an email interview. "While at first I was pleased at the reception it received, I am quite dismayed that so many people would believe what I had thought to be an obvious joke." ...