Message 1 (of 3): Subject: Re: *** UPDATE! *** The TRUTH about those "Fast Cash" postings! From: <74471.703@compuserve.com> Date: 1996/11/15 Well dude, I'm someone who tried it, and it DID NOT work. I don't know why, because it made perfect sense to me too. I didn't get rich, but I'll tell you what did happen: one $1 letter was returned, could not find addressee; I got one doller from Mexico; I got two chain letters; I got one business solicitation; and my online account was suspended for a few days with stern warnings that if I ever did this again, my account would be canceled for good. I also received numerous pieces of e-mail claiming that these schemes are illegal, and at the very least, tie up the internet with worthless junk. Now why would you think it's a good idea for us all to be mailing each other one-dollar bills? Exactly what is accomplished by that? Anyway, I got in big trouble for trying, wasted five stamps and three dollars, Just thought I'd add MY story to this tall tale. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message 2 (of 3): Subject: Re: Just try this, it will work From: pnord@exodus.valpo.edu (Paul Nord) sbolting@nemonet.com (Stephen Boltinghouse) wrote: Well, two weeks later, I began receiving bucks in the mail! I couldn't believe it! Not just a little, I mean big bucks! At first only a few hundred dollars, then a week later, a couple of thousand, then BOOM. By the end of the fourth week, I had received nearly $47,000.00. It came from all over the world. And every bit of it perfectly legal and on the up and up. I've been able to pay off all my bills and still had enough left over for a nice vacation for me and my family. Wow, that's amazing. Between the second and fourth weeks you actually opened and counted 47,000 pieces of mail! That would mean that during every waking minute, assuming that you never stopped to eat or pee, you would have had to open 10 pieces of mail! I just can't imagine opening 10 pieces of mail per minute for two strait weeks. Your fingers must really be sore! Not only that, but there are already 47,000 people out there who are expecting to recieve $47,000. So, if they get responses from just 2.2 Billion people, they'll be fine. That's only half of the population of the earth anyway. I just hope that those 2.2 Billion people don't ever expect to collect! Even at the present growth rate, the earth's population won't be large enough for that until the year 2500. Paul (Here are some supporting numbers --editor) Based on a factor of 47,000 in growth per generation of this scam, here's how the numbers crunch out: Generation Number of people involved in scam Year possible 1 47,000 1996 2 2,209,000,000 1996 3 103,823,000,000,000 2500 4 4,879,681,000,000,000,000 3000 5 229,345,007,000,000,000,000,000 3500 6 10,779,215,329,000,000,000,000,000,000 4000 Note that the current world population is only about 5 Billion. That's 5,000,000,000 on the above table. A factor of 47,000 in world population growth will take about 500 years at the current 2% annual growth rate. Also note that only .01 percent of those involved recieve their full payoff at each generation. The "overhead" costs involved in this service for postage and envelopes are going to run about 50%. It will be even more for most of the 2.2 Billion people in generation 2 who do not live in the United States and will have to pay overseas postage, curency exchange, a fee for a translater to read this message to them in the first place, and the trouble of organiazing their local government into providing reliable mail service in spite of the fact that they have no electricity or indoor plumbing. But, you can be sure that they read their email! ------------------------------------------------------------ Message 3 (of 3): Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 14:30:56 -0600 From: Barb Dijker To: webmaster@abuse.net Subject: suggestion Recently I have received many spam which are not only spam but promote illegal pyramid schemes for making money. The classic is the one that claims to be from Christopher Erickson and has been going in circles for a while now. While spam is questionably illegal, pyramid schemes are definitely illegal pursuant to USC Title 18 sections 1341-6. The reason is that so far they all still require using the USPS mail to send the money back. They are especially heinous forms of spam since they expressly encourage even more spam in response! The USPS is very interested in prosecuting pyramid scheme fraud like this. I suggest you add something to the web site that encourages people to notify their local USPS Postal Inspection Service office. All you have to do is call your local post office and ask them for the address to which fraud complaints should be sent. Then mail a printed copy of the entire message (including all headers) to that office. If the originating domain (not its ISP) is clear, then also include the whois entry for the domain. The USPS Postal Inspection Service office will process the complaint, notify the fraud headquarters in the region where the fraud is actually occuring, and involve other federal agencies as appropriate. If requested, the Postal Inspection Service will mail you a packet about mail fraud: exactly how it is defined and how to fight it. Spam is bad enough. The truly illegal stuff must stop. One of the pyramid scheme messages has the audacity to claim to be perfectly legal and cites some USC sections which don't really apply in an attempt to look official. It even claims to be from an attorney who has verified the legality of the scheme. [...] I've reported this one to the USPS already. Thanks for all your hard work. ...Barb