From 2011: More on USA Technologies CEO George Jensen's suspension: Message Board Wars
Ed note:
Reposting just to point out USA Technologies' past indiscretion, when founder and CEO George P.Jenkins resigned in 2011 over his repeatedly pumping USAT shares on the Yahoo Finance message board for USAT., under a screen name that didn't reveal his name or position. Not sure what the correlation is between 2011 and today's problems, if any. One constant is current CEO Stephen Herbert, who was President/COO in 2011 before succeeding Jensen, also serving as chairman. A new outside chairman, Albin Moschner, took that position in January 2019 after being on the board since 2012, replacing Herbert, who remains CEO.
"Pressure to achieve sales targets gave rise to the premature and/or inappropriate recognition of revenues and reporting of connections [to USAT’s payment network] associated with certain of the examined transactions, typically occurring at or near the end of financial reporting periods,” the company said in a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
I have used the product, and it works well. One thought is that the vending business is controlled by shady operators in some areas of the country.
See USA Technologies gets dumped by auditor, loses half its value today"> #USAT">
Tom Paine
The announcement by Malvern-based USA Technologies on Wednesday that its chairman & CEO George Jensen has been suspended and is expected to resign from the company "in the near future" for posts he made to an internet message board naturally raises the questions: what did he post, and to which message board did he post it?
No further definitive information has come out about this that I've been able to find, although some posters at the Yahoo Finance message board for USA Technologies (USAT) have speculated about whether Jensen was one of the posters there. Yahoo Finance message boards are well known, particularly in the case of thinly traded stocks, for having some participants who might "pump the stock", perhaps having a personal interest in it or representing someone else's interest, or others who might try to depress a stock (although there is nothing at this time to suggest that was the case here, nor am I implying it). They are not good places to go for investment advice in general, although there may be some nuggets of truth. These boards can also evolve into platforms for bitter, sometimes personal attacks on company management, as was the case with Mr. Jensen.
Last year USA Technologies became so upset with some critical posters on the Yahoo board that it filed suit in Pennsylvania against two of them, claiming defamation and securities fraud, and alleging they had financial interests in denigrating the company. The company speculated that the posters may have had ties to a dissident shareholder group that was trying to initiate a proxy fight around that time. One of them, who posted under the name "Stokklerk", went to Federal Court in California to quash a subpoena requiring Yahoo to reveal his (or her) true identity. Stokklerk had called Jensen on the board a"known liar" who believes "humanity exists to be fleeced", among other things. A District Judge in San Francisco rejected the company's request, saying that a target of anonymous online attacks must have evidence that the postings violated its rights and caused serious harm before enforcing a subpoena. Stokklerk still posts on the Yahoo board.
Although USA Technologies has made some financial progress in recent years, it has a long history of losses and doubts remain about how it will fare against competing technologies. In its fiscal year ending June 30, USA Technologies lost about $6.5 million on revenue of just under $23 million.
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