Business News and Information

Five vocal critics of Allied Capital Corporation (ALD), a public company that provides loans to smaller companies, claim they are victims of pretexting--impersonating an individual to obtain confidential information.

The company has denied any role in the alleged pretexting to obtain home telephone bills and the use of Social Security numbers to open an online account. The term pretexting become known to all two months ago with the disclosure that Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) had hired investigators to do some corporate spying.

Allied isn't the only hedge fund being accused of disseminating false information to drive their stocks down. Biovail Corp. (BVF), a Canadian pharmaceutical company, sued the hedge fund giant SAC Capital and others. Five months later, Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. (FFH), a Canadian insurance company, filed a similar lawsuit, seeking $5 billion, according to this NYTimes.com article.