Earlier this week, Facebook announced it would start trading its stock publicly later in 2012. However, some people who thought they were getting a head start on buying Facebook shares have now discovered that the "stock" is worthless. Earlier this week, an Oshkosh, Wisconsin woman was arrested and is now facing 31 felony counts for allegedly selling fake Facebook stocks to at least five people.

The local TV news web site Fox11Online.com reports that Marianne Oleson, 46, sold the fake Facebook stock in part to pay for work done to her home by Randy Stafford. Stafford said that when she could pay for his work, she offered him what she said was $28,000 of Facebook shares.  Stafford actually paid $10,000 for the stock, and accepted the other $18,000 as the payment for his work.

Reuters reports that Oleson told her victims she had received a total of $1 million in Facebook stock because her daughter was somehow acquainted with Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg.

One of the most highly anticipated initial public offerings in recent history could become a reality this week. The Wall Street Journal reports via unnamed sources that Facebook could file the papers to start publicly trading its stock as early as Wednesday, February 1. The article does add that the Wednesday filing date could be pushed back with some of the company's executives thinking about holding off for a few weeks before sending the papers into the US Security and Exchange Commission.

The article also reports that Facebook is close to picking Morgan Stanley over Goldman Sachs as its lead underwriter. Morgan Stanley was the underwriter behind a number of tech-based IPOs in 2011, including LinkedIn, the Facebook-based game publisher Zynga and more.

When its stock does go up for sale the total worth of the social networking service could be as high as $100 billion.