Reaming is a harsh word, but if that how you feel, then be my guest. In my world, it is just part of doing business!
Perhaps they are allowing because it is not happening beyond finra's threshold and until it becomes a problem to them and the SEC, you and everyone else involved in the stock has to pay the high price. You would think that after almost 2 decades of technical innovations, they would have this problem covered, but....
No one is paying the fake print. It simple presents a fraudulent picture of supply / demand at a given price.
Simple: Don't be tempted to trade illiquid stocks. Don't even try to look at them. Heck, the YTEN example previously mentioned isn't even in the Russell Microcap index You should see the shit that trades as OTC! It's like a ma and pa diner decided to go public and issue stock... Market cap under $0.1M. Useless liquidity. High volatility.
Hell of a whistle blower claim if you can document this. The dark pools that use the TRF have been tagged on a number of occasions for misreporting to the TRF.
Doubt there's a whistle blower case here, but u never know. Example, 50 cent spread yest , and they print some 100 share Finra crap on the offer to make the hod. Not even close to the previous trade. Never trades near that again . WTF do you call that? Not talking about something that trades 2000 shares a day. There's enough trading in it to not have outlier prints polluting the tape.
For all the effort I would file a whistle blower claim. Look at all the pool fines that have been levied. About the same effort as writing a post here.