Should your Web surfing take you to McWhortle Enterprises Inc., where you decide to invest in shares of this "established and well-known manufacturer of biological defense mechanisms," you will end up being told "If you responded to an investment idea like this . . . You could get scammed!"

While it may look like a great investment on "cyberpaper," McWhortle, its stock, even its entire line of biological defense mechanisms used by "Fortune 500 companies ... to protect their far-flung executives living in dangerous areas," are fake.

Using the best -- or worst -- tactics of stock market con artists, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) created the McWhortle Web site and quietly launched it in early January as a tool for warning investors who rush into investment opportunities on the Internet without investigating them fully.

Rather than using a standard agency press release to announce the fake Web site, SEC, with the cooperation of PRN Newswire, issued a fake company press release to promote it. The press release, seemingly issued by McWhortle Enterprises Inc., boasted that SEC had "pre-approved" the fictitious company's initial public offering. In reality, the SEC does not "pre-approve" IPOs.

PR Newswire sent the fake press release to hundreds of Web sites and Internet portals on Jan. 25. Three days later, the McWhortle Enterprises Web site had been visited by over 150,000 interested investors.

"We're thrilled with the response," said SEC Chairman Harvey L. Pitt. "In a perfect world, everyone would read our educational brochures before they ran into a scam, but they don't. What we're trying to do is warn investors while their guard is down. The next time, when they encounter a real scam, these investors won't let excitement cloud their better judgment."

Visitors to the McWhortle Web site find their judgment well and truly clouded by lofty claims about demand for the fictitious company's battery-powered biohazard detection device that "emits an audible beep and flashes when in the presence of all known biohazards." The site solicits investments in the company that, in three months, will be "worth more than 400 times the initial investment."

Visitors can listen CEO and President of McWhortle Enterprises, Thomas J. McWhortle III, cloud their judgment with an impressive audio interview and even read fictitious "testimonials" from a Wall Street securities analyst, a Fortune 100 CEO and a company customer.

"The Internet's like a big city, with good neighborhoods and bad neighborhoods, so you've got to be careful," said Joseph Borg, of the National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc. 

Other government agencies and law enforcement organizations were so impressed by the concept of McWhortle, Inc., that they will assist the SEC in setting up similar Web sites. The additional bogus sites will not be publicly identified and some have already been posted on the Internet. Happy hunting.

• SEC Investor Alert 
A warning to investors about investments that promise to pay sky-high returns for what are at best extremely risky propositions.