On Thu, 20 Dec 2001 05:21:02 -0800, "Mike" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc. _______________________________________________ Webware-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/webware-discuss
