Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!ois.db.toronto.edu!jdd Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2 From: jdd@db.toronto.edu (John DiMarco) Subject: Re: Easy money Message-ID: <91Mar21.134510est.2071@ois.db.toronto.edu> Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto References: <246.27e77efe@mwk.uucp> Date: 21 Mar 91 18:45:33 GMT Lines: 63 tway@mwk.uucp (Bill Tway) writes: > > INSTRUCTIONS > ============ >Follow these instructions EXACTLY, and in 20 to 60 days you >will have received well over $50,000.00 cash, all yours. >This program has remained successful because of the honesty >and integrety of the participants. Please continue its >success by carefully adhering to the instructions. This is an extremely slimy scam, usually known as a pyramid scheme. Consider what he's asking you to do: - give 1 dollar to five different people, sight unseen. - donate your name and address to countless (junk) mailing lists. Now consider what he's offering you: - an opportunity to scam lots of other people the same way. If you think that the scam will work as well for you as it will work for the person at the top of the list, think again. Let's suppose you fall for the scam, and follow the instructions exactly. You send off your 5x$1, then post the message to 10 BBS's with your name in spot 10. Then suppose only one person for each BBS falls for the scam, responds to the message, and makes 10 postings to 10 different BBS's each, with your name in spot 9. Note that this posting has already hit 100 BBS's at this stage. Continuing the process, 1000 BBS's will see the posting with your name in spot 8, 10000 BBS's will see the posting with your name in spot 7, 100000 BBS's will see the posting with your name in spot 6, and 1 million BBS's will see the posting with your name in spot 5. Only then will you start receiving money. By this time, over 1.1 million BBS's have seen some variant of the message *you* posted. Now consider all the other people responding to this fellow's posting to this and quite possibly many other newsgroups. Now think: how many BBS's are there in the world? One hundred thousand? Probably many fewer than that. Now tell me: are you going to get *any* money from this scheme if you follow the instructions? In all probability, not a cent. The only people who will benefit from this scheme are those at the top of the list. If you were a con artist who wanted to make some money through such a scheme, you'd get a few friends (or aliases!) together, write up a list, make up a few fake testimonial letters and pass the result around. You sit back and rake in the cash, while all the gullible folk you're swindling rush around doing all the dirty work for you. By the time they get their turn to collect the promised cash, the "market" of gullible folk is saturated. That's why there are all sorts of laws, in both Canada and the US, outlawing pyramid schemes. This, by the way, has nothing to do with Apple IIs. I post it here in the hope of dissuading anyone from wasting money and effort in order to benefit swindlers. John -- John DiMarco jdd@db.toronto.edu or jdd@db.utoronto.ca University of Toronto, CSRI BITNET: jdd%db.toronto.edu@relay.cs.net (416) 978-8609 UUCP: uunet!utai!db!jdd