Apparent Fake Filing Says Artist Bought $88 Billion of Bank of America StockApparent Fake Filing Says Artist Bought $88 Billion of Bank of America Stock

By Dan Freed

Oct 19 (Reuters) - In the latest apparent spoof on a U.S.securities regulator's online filing system, a Chicago-areaartist with a fondness for inspirational quotes claimed to haveacquired about $88 billion worth of Bank of America Corp shares on Wednesday.

The filing did not appear to influence the stock price ofthe second-largest U.S. bank, which joins companies includingAvon Products Inc, Integrated Device Technology Inc and Berkshire Hathaway Inc to have had fakefilings attached to their ticker symbols on the U.S. Securitiesand Exchange Commission's Edgar system.

While the SEC did not respond to a request for comment andBank of America declined to comment, securities experts saidthere was no doubt the filing was a hoax.

In it, a company called YNOFACE Holdings Inc purportedly runby Antonio Lee said it had acquired 798.4 million Bank ofAmerica shares in an exchange on Aug. 15, and purchased another4.2 billion common shares and 100 million preferred shares onSept. 22.

The common shares alone would represent nearly half thebank's total market cap. Bank of America's largest shareholder,The Vanguard Group, has roughly 610 million shares, a stake ofless than 6 percent.

In an earlier filing, YNOFACE said it had implausibly raisedover $1 trillion for an art fund.

A quick Google search for Lee found several promotionalsites describing him as a "world renowned artist, and YouTubecelebrity specializing in acrylic painting."

A YouTube account characterizes YNOFACE as a company that"acquires, markets, and holds original art as a capitalappreciation investment based off the fundamental metrics."

Lee's Twitter posts showcase colorful paintings of a beach,elephants in love and a naked person with a bird's head, alongwith quotes like, "When an artist follows their intuition &dreams, society can only benefit." Its avatar is a painting of aman with a big red question mark over his face.

Reuters' attempts to reach Lee were unsuccessful.

While Bank of America appeared unscathed by the apparentscam, past phony filings have had real world consequences. Lastyear, Avon shares soared 20 percent on a filing about a faketakeover bid. The alleged fraudster was arrested earlier thisyear.

The SEC's vulnerability to phony filings has attracted theattention of Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, who wroteto the regulator last year to express his concern.

The YNOFACE filing is so bizarre it is more likely a prankthan a scam intended to generate profits, according to JayRitter, a finance professor at the University of Florida.

"Serious scamsters aren't so amateurish," he said. (Reporting by Dan Freed in New York; Editing by Lauren TaraLaCapra and Andrew Hay)