Penny Lover: A Trader Pinches His Way To Profits

A California man may have figured out a novel way to make money at home with little effort, but the alleged penny-pinching scheme may land him in jail.

Michael Largent, of Plumas Lake, has been indicted on nine counts of fraud for allegedly creating thousands of accounts creating a script to open up more than 58,000 online brokerage accounts at E-Trade and Schwab.com using bogus information and aliases, including cartoon characters, Wired.com reported on Tuesday.

As is customary when new accounts are linked to bank accounts, the brokerages sent “micro-deposits”–anywhere from 1 cent to $2–to verify that the bank account number and routing data were accurate, which totaled about $50,000, according to the indictment. He then allegedly transferred the money to pre-paid debit cards.