Natch the AIM listed uber dog Sabien (SNT) never got around to mentioning it but, like Purplebricks (PURP) today, it was censured by the Advertising Standards Agency, ASA, back in January 2013. Good companies just do not need to mislead clients.

Yesterday I flagged up the crazy valuation of Doorsteps.co.uk and how, egged on by some misleading marketing, it had managed to raise large sums on crowd funding website Crowdcube. Thus it now has cash - which it will burn fast on its flawed business model - but which will put even more pressure on prices and volumes at Purplebricks (PURP). Sadly it is not an isolated case. Meet I Am The Agent Limited.

A March AGM update saw Premier Veterinary Group (PVG) “confident in the prospects for the US business and has agreed to significantly increase PVG's investment commitment in the current financial year in the US”. An update today includes a narrower focus of resources in the US “until such time that the changes the group is implementing to improve sign up rates take effect and are sustained”. And there’s worse…

I apologise to another Anglo-Irishman for the misquote. The advertising watchdog the ASA has for the fourth time in 18 months slammed Purplebricks (PURP) for lying to potential customers. Let's bve clear: companies with a good product can afford to tell the truth. Natch Purplebricks says it has changed its adverts and there is nothing to worry about. But that is on just two days data....

At last we have the details of the RTO of an e-commerce womenswear operation into cash shell Orogen (ORE). It is game on - this one will soar.

Hello, Share Monkeys. I’ve not covered ASOS (ASC) before, as I know it causes a lot of us some pain. I hardly know one investor, among my city gang, who has not sold the damn shares too early. Everybody knows the legend. ASOS is the share which is probably the most quoted when we lament to friends how much we could have made.

Last year I noted Cloudcall (CALL) going from ‘clearly enough cash to reach break-even’ to £3.77 million placing in less than 5 months. It stated on that placing that it would see it able to capitalise on “near term growth opportunities, without the working capital constraints which have hitherto restricted our rate of growth”. Just over a year later though there’s now a “proposed placing to raise £5.7million… to capitalise on near term growth opportunities”. Hmmm…

With ZAI Corporate Finance losing its Nomad status on Thursday, its client companies are running out of time to book in a replacement to avoid suspension. And that brings us to ShareProphets AIM-China Filthy Forty play Northwest Investment Group (NWIG) – the investment company which, after seven years, has invested not a cent.

Yesterday I discussed Doorsteps.co.uk which claims that it will flog your house for £99. I now look more closely at its history and the utterly shameless way that Crowdcube raised £400,000 for it; at the fact free and unquestioning BJ's its 19 year old founder has received from Fleet Street and speculate about how bad its metrics really are. That it has raised cash so easily is bad news for Purplebricks as it is now funded to nibble at its market share and so will be others until they all go bust. But it will be too late for Purplebricks by then. I then have hot gossip on Telit (TCM) which shows up the FT's dictation from PR men taking hacks for the fools they are and reinforces the shorting case big time. I cover UK Oil & Gas (UKOG) and Conroy Gold & Natural Resources (CGNR), both need to place ASAP and in both cases it will be ugly. I also remind you again what UKOG is NOT saying.

Yesterday revelations on Sky and a company statement made clear that all is not well at Interserve (IRV), for all the positive noises about constructive  discussions with its lenders, Sky revealed that a syndicate of lenders including Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC had called in Ernst and Young amid fears about the balance sheet. Noting also that the balance sheet is painfully thin, as per its recent interims statement, and the calamitous profit warning last month suggesting that the company had no idea of the eventual magnitude of the provision needed associated with its exit from its energy-from-waste business, as well as questions over current trading and you already have pretty good reasons to get out.

In my opus magnus on BCA Marketplace (BCA), the Big Short, I highlighted in Red Flag 4 point 1 the operating leases with no break clause until 2031 and noted that adding these to the balance sheet would double the apparent debt burden.

On a 3rd October announcement that Lyndon Davies had agreed to join as CEO, Hornby (HRN) non-executive director and Interim Chairman David Adams was “delighted to welcome Lyndon to the board”, adding “Hornby will continue with its turnaround plan”. There’s today a “Trading Statement and Directorate Change” announcement…

I have never written about Merlin Entertainment (MERL) before but i have certainly visited one of its leisure facilities religiously at least once a year for the last five years or so. Yes, I can attest that Legoland is actually damn good, clean family fun and due to the fifty minutes I spent in the queue for the new Ninjago ride the other month I have changed my specialist subject for any future Mastermind appearance. 

What on earth is clueless Nomad SP Angel thinking? Its client MySquar (MYSQ) last week issued a (lack of) profits warning which means that it has either committed securities fraud or merely a massive breach of AIM Rule 11. Investors need to know what its sales were in July (as opposed to the July-September average given) in order to know how bad this will be. I have pressed SP Angel to force a statement and indeed the retained broker Beaufort has - to its enormous credit - also pressed but instead...

I last wrote about Falcon Media House (FAL) at the end of July following its year-end results (HERE) in which it stated that more funding would be needed despite only coming to the market in March. This morning it announced the form of such funding and it’s not pretty.

I was excited to see how Nuformix (NFX), the renamed company previously known as Levrett, would perform on debut yesterday as the LSE’s bulletin board in-house expert was predicting great things. Alas, it was all a bit of a damp squib but let’s hope at least that he managed to take a bit off the table during his ramp though.

Last week we had the shocking announcement of the culling of ZAI Corporate Finance as a Nomad by AIM, apparently due to a hip operation on one of its Qualified Executives. Of course, there is more to this than meets the eye, as discussed by Tom Winnifrith HERE. But aside from the actions of AIM as judge, jury and executioner – all behind closed doors – there is the issue of what happens to the clients of ZAI who use it as Nomad. Of twelve companies which announced they were looking for a replacement last week, we have now had two transfer – to Northland Capital Partners.

This has been a long time coming but there is now a new CEO at Reach4Entertainment (R4E), in Marc Boyan. At the same time Lord Michael Grade will step up to become Non Exec Chairman. But it is Boyan who matters…no offence Lord Grade...

Engineering group Pressure Technologies (PRES) “is pleased to announce” the result of a bookbuild. This is of a gross £5 million placing at 122p per share. This comparing to a prior closing 126p share price and more than 140p prior to a most recent trading statement at the end of August…

Hello, Share Twangers. A share which has given me a lot of pain, though (thankfully) I don’t think I’ve recommended it to you very much, is a telecoms giant which has seen better days. In fact, under two years ago the shares touched a fiver. Nowadays, they are less than three quid. But analysts at Barclays have just repeated their fairly long-standing target of 450p, which would cancel a big chunk of my loss.