The Truth About the Stock Suits (Michael Dinowitz)

My name is Michael Dinowitz. I've been in the ColdFusion community since before there was one. I'm also a founding member of Team Allaire which means I answer tech questions for Allaire on their forums. You would think that this would give me insider information, wouldn't you. Well, it doesn't. I lost over $35,000 this year dealing with the Allaire stock and that was on margin, which means it's really gone. If anyone should be wanting their money back, it would be me. The thing is, I can't get it back. Allaire isn't going to send me a check and neither is anyone else. I did this to myself.

Now a lot of people are saying that Allaire hid information about their losses behind good reports. They say that important clients got insider information and the rest of us were screwed. I don't think this is true.

But this doesn't matter because some people do believe it. Not only people but lawyers. Now this is where it gets fun. You have a strong tech company with a stock that went down. Rather than say ok, it happens, these lawyers swoop in like vultures to do even more damage. They want to sue Allaire for the people. That's a lie. They want to sue Allaire to line their own pockets. Did they buy Allaire stock and get hurt? Probably not. Do they want to help those who got hurt by the stock fall? Definitely not.

A class action suit is hard to prove, takes a long time and usually gets settled. The settlement is less than the suit itself and the result is a nice fee for the lawyers and pennies on the share for the clients. The net result is that the company is hurt more, the clients are still upset or more so and the law firms make their cash. It's for this reason that I REFUSE to be part of any of these suits. I REFUSE to help do more damage to a company that can recover from all this. I REFUSE to make someone rich on my back.

This is my personal choice and not an advocacy. If you had a million shares and will make something back, then go ahead and sue. No judgment on my part. I'm going to take this as a loss and watch the company recover. Oh, I'll also probably be sued by some law firm for something and have Allaire upset at me for writing this. It doesn't really matter though, because someone had to say something. Someone had to tell the truth about what's going on and why.

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