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From: jim@cs.strath.ac.uk (Jim Reid)
Newsgroups: net.internat
Subject: Re: postage for mail to foreign countries
Message-ID: <309@stracs.cs.strath.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 7-Nov-86 16:09:42 EST
Article-I.D.: stracs.309
Posted: Fri Nov  7 16:09:42 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Nov-86 04:13:03 EST
References: <1275@ttrdc.UUCP> <2203@orca.TEK.COM> <1057@bute.tcom.stc.co.uk>
Reply-To: jim@cs.strath.ac.uk (Jim Reid)
Organization: Department of Computer Science at Strathclyde University, UK.
Lines: 18
Keywords: Tall tales, insured mail, a `legal' scam

In article <1057@bute.tcom.stc.co.uk> andrew@stc.UUCP (Andrew Macpherson) writes:
>	These treaties are so much to everyones advantage that the
>recipient country will guarantee to deliver insured mail. --- there
>is an Italian professor of politics who is single-handedly trying to
>bankrupt the Soviets...
>	The scheme is this: pick a `well known' Soviet dissident
>and send him letters of encouragement insured, and requiring proof of
>delivery.  When after a few months you still have not had your confirmation
>of delivery, wander down to your post office and collect your insurance
>(say $200).  Your post office will then claim it back from the SU

Oh dear! This appears to be another of these apocryphal stories. [Like the
woman who put her poodle in the microwave to dry it after a bath.] When I
heard it, the story was that a group of anti-Soviet protesters were doing
this throughout Europe. I believe it was even published in the "Daily Mail"
(not that I'd read such a Tory rag), so it must be true...... :-) :-)

		Jim