Date: 3 Feb 2000 Corsac's note: IMHO, my best attempt to manipulate spam. (Blind354) wrote: > A little while back, I was browsing through newsgroups, scratching my ass, wondering at the mess my life had become, > just like you are now, and came across an article similar to 'the', but less definite, which I'd never seen before. Since I wanted to learn more about it I went to a search engine to look for it and found over a million matches! Obviously, this was something big. The first one I checked was a letter like > this that said you could make thousands of dollars within > weeks with only an initial investment of $6.00! > So I thought," Yeah, right, this must be a scam", But since I hadn't figured out yet what 'a' meant, I couldn't understand that thought. I was going to continue my search, > but like most of us, I was curious, so I kept reading. Unlike most of us, I actually believed what I was reading. > Anyway, it said that you send $1.00 to each of > the 6 names and address stated in the article. You then place longhorns on your head, dress yourself in skins, go out on the street, and threaten to gore people. Steal the wallets/purses of the first 5 people who faint, look inside to find their addresses, and use them to create a new list. Then, you put > your own name and address in the bottom of the list at #6, if you haven't been arrested for doing the steps given above, > and post the article in at least 200 newsgroups. (There are > thousands) No catch, that was it. So after thinking it was about to start earning me money, I was surprised to see my email account flooded with rather alarming threats and vile imprecations, and my account suspended shortly thereafter. I figured I must've done it wrong, so I decided to do the whole bit > over, and talking to a few people first, I thought about trying to improve the system; I bought 5 P.O. Boxes under fake names so I could get more money by having a list with all my addresses on > it. > I figured what have I got to lose except 6 stamps and $6.00, my dignity, my freedom, and the respect of my family and friends, > right? Like most of us I was a little skeptical and a little drunk. One night when I was at a bar, smashed, I was dialing random numbers for prank phone calls and happened to dial a lawyer, so I took the opportunity to tell him all about this little scheme. He was shocked and said that I should be very > worried about the legal aspects of it all. So I checked it > out with the U.S. Post Office (1-800-725-2161) and they were horrified, but that wasn't what I wanted to hear, so I hung up and called my bookie ( a guy called High Roll), who > confirmed that it is indeed legal! Then I invested the money and celebrated by going out and getting a hooker for a > measly $6.00. Well GUESS WHAT!!... within 7 days, I started getting a terrible itching in my groin. I'd much rather've been > getting money in the mail! I was shocked! I figured it would just go away, but it didn't. I ended up being given a new drug treatment by my doctor, and it cured the itching all right, but also burned away at my stomach and kidneys from inside. Before long I was part of a class-action lawsuit against the drug manufacturer, and people from all over started sending me money to help out with the legal fund! I thought that it > would end soon, but the money just kept coming in. In my first > week, I made about $25.00. By the end of the second week I was in so much pain I was barely conscious, but they told me I > had made a total of over $1,000.00! In the third week I was starting to go into kidney failure, but the legal fund now > had over $10,000.00 and it's still growing. This is now my > fourth week and I have made a total of just over $42,000.00 > and it's still coming in rapidly. It's certainly worth the price of a functioning pair of kidneys, and all it cost was > $6.00, and 6 stamps. > THIS IS ABSOLUTELY LEGAL! And I owe it all to not knowing a simple, common indefinite article! Joel T.