On Thu, 20 Dec 2001 05:21:02 -0800, "Mike" <mhmh79@...> wrote:
>
>"Making over half million dollars every 4 to 5 months from your
>home for an investment of only $25 U.S. Dollars expense one
>time" THANKS TO THE COMPUTER AGE AND THE INTERNET!
Is it really possible there are still people on the Internet who are gullible
enough to believe in these things? I apologize for the radically off-topic
reply, but as a public service, I'd like to point out a few facts to anyone
who might still harbor any lingering hopes that this kind of thing can work.
I've made it a hobby to research and debunk Internet hoaxes and scams.
>Due to the
>popularity of this letter on the Internet, a national weekly news
>program recently devoted an entire show to the investigation of
>this program described below, to see if it really can make people
>money.
This is not true. No news weekly has ever done such an investigation, beyond
a brief "caveat emptor" warning. I've looked.
>The show also investigated whether or not the program was legal. Their
>findings proved once and for all that there are "absolutely NO Law
>prohibiting the participation in the program and if people can follow
>the simple instructions, they are bound to make some mega bucks with
>only $25 out of pocket cost".
This is also not true. Saying that something is legal does not make it so.
This program is what the legal trade calls a "pyramid scheme". It is illegal
under Federal law and most state laws. It is fraud.
The author invites us to "get a pencil and paper" and do the math. OK, let's
do the math. At the 4th tier, he says:
>Those 10,000 people send out 5,000 e-mails each for a total of
>50,000,000 (50 million) e-mails. The 0.2% response to that is
>100,000 orders for Report # 5.
And THEN what? Continuing on with his assumptions, the next tier will
involve 500,000,000 e-mails. Unfortunately, Neilsen places the total
worldwide Internet population at 429,000,000. Thus, by this point, EVERY E-
MAIL ADDRESS IN THE WORLD has been contacted. Unless you were the original
author or in his first tier, there is no one left for you to contact. Now, I
first saw this little e-mail scheme in 1988. This market was saturated in
the LAST Bush administration.
If you really have too much money, feel free to send it to me. I would be
happy to dispose of it for you.
--
- Tim Roberts, timr@...
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.
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