September 1998 Topics
Ampster (Amster), Blue Sky Laws,
Camouflage Passports,
Chi Tace Acconsente, Contestability,
Gazump, Human Engineering,
Pump and Dump, and
Vexation (Vexatious Litigant)
 

Blue Sky Laws protect the public
against securities fraud.
 

Fraud In Other Words: Professional Jargon and Uncensored Street Slang
By Larry C. Adams, CFE, CPA, CIA, CISA
 

Ampster (Amster)
Australian term for the accomplice of a showman or a trickster, planted in the audience to start the buying of tickets or goods.
John Ayto & John Simpson, Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang, Oxford University Press, Oxford, England, 1996, p. 4.
 

Blue Sky Laws
A common name for a variety of state laws protecting the public against securities fraud. The term is said to have been used by a judge who described certain speculative stocks as having no more value than a few feet of blue sky. Each state has its own securities distribution restrictions and guidelines which must be met by each issue offered in the state. The laws were intended to protect the public from buying stocks in fly-by-night operations, visionary oil wells, distant gold mines, nonexistent research, unproven medical cures, and other schemes.
“High-tech Firms Offer Best Return.” The Business Journal, November 28, 1997, p. 28.
 

Camouflage Passports
Fake passports that are sold by telephone, mail, or the Internet. The phony documents cost about $200 and look genuine. They are covered in institutional burgundy, flecked with stamps and seals. The convincing passports claim citizenship in familiar but extinct countries that have been renamed, like Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), British Honduras (now Belize), and New Hebrides (now Vanuatu). Some customers obtain the passports to evade hijackers or terrorists. German customers use the passports to avoid lingering resentment when they travel in Europe.
Claudia Kolker, “Fake Passports Touted as (Legal) ‘Camouflage’ for Travelers,” Houston Chronicle, The Arizona Republic, December 28, 1997, p. T11.
 

Chi Tace Acconsente
Italian phrase for “silence gives consent.” Failing to report suspicions of fraud allows the activity to continue to grow.
Kevin Guinagh, Dictionary of Foreign Phrases and Abbreviations, H. W. Wilson Company, New York, 1983, p. 37.
 

Contestability
The right of the insurer to deny coverage, make a contract void, or question the validity of a claim. Often the insurer has a specified period of time in which to contest a policy because the applicant supplied incomplete or misleading information on an application or claim.
Michael C. Thomsett, Insurance Dictionary, McFarland & Company, Jefferson, North Carolina, 1981.
 

Gazump (Gazumph, Gazoomph, Gazumpf)
A British term meaning to cheat (in a house purchase) by raising the price at the last  moment, after agreement has been reached but before contracts have been formalized. Gazumping was a widespread practice in the 1970s.
Tony Thorne, Dictionary of Contemporary Slang, Pantheon Books, New York, 1990, p. 199.
 

Human Engineering
A computer cracker simply walks into a business, steals an internal telephone directory, and calls back at an odd hour, pretending to be an employee with priority access. The cracker then pressures the person he has reached into disclosing a high level password under threat of being fired.
David Morse, Cyber Dictionary, Knowledge Exchange, Santa Monica, California, 1996, p. 69.
 

Pump and Dump
A scheme in which unscrupulous stock promoters and brokers artificially run up the stock price of a company to attract the attention and money of unsuspecting investors. The manipulators then sell their own stock for big profits. The scheme may involve illegal secret payments to brokers to tout the stock, free stock given as incentives to promoters, bribes to investors to get them to buy the stock, extortion, misleading statements to investors promising fat returns, boiler room tactics, and death threats to stockholders unwilling to go along with the plot.
Dawn Gilbertson, “Valley Financier Tied to Mob Plot,” The Arizona Republic, November 26, 1997, p. 1.
 

Vexation (Vexatious Litigant)
The injury or damage which is suffered by the tricks of another. A vexatious litigant files malicious suits to publicly annoy or embarrass his opponents. The habitual, agitating suits are filed even when they are not calculated to lead to practical results. Nuisance suits are filed by prisoners, political adversaries, real estate development opponents, corporate policy protesters, upset customers, and disgruntled employees. To block abuse of the court process, some courts require repeatedly vexatious litigants to show reasonable cause and obtain the court’s permission to file a suit.
Henry Campbell Black, Black’s Law Dictionary, West Publishing, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1979, p. 1403.
 

ã Copyright 1998 Larry C. Adams.
All rights reserved.
 

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