Message 1 (of 2): Subject: Re: *** UPDATE! *** The TRUTH about those "Fast Cash" postings! From: <74471.703@compuserve.com> Date: 1996/11/15 Well dude, I'm someone who tried it, and it DID NOT work. I don't know why, because it made perfect sense to me too. I didn't get rich, but I'll tell you what did happen: one $1 letter was returned, could not find addressee; I got one doller from Mexico; I got two chain letters; I got one business solicitation; and my online account was suspended for a few days with stern warnings that if I ever did this again, my account would be canceled for good. I also received numerous pieces of e-mail claiming that these schemes are illegal, and at the very least, tie up the internet with worthless junk. Now why would you think it's a good idea for us all to be mailing each other one-dollar bills? Exactly what is accomplished by that? Anyway, I got in big trouble for trying, wasted five stamps and three dollars, Just thought I'd add MY story to this tall tale. ------------------------------------------------------------ Message 2 (of 2): Subject: Re: Just try this, it will work From: pnord@exodus.valpo.edu (Paul Nord) sbolting@nemonet.com (Stephen Boltinghouse) wrote: Well, two weeks later, I began receiving bucks in the mail! I couldn't believe it! Not just a little, I mean big bucks! At first only a few hundred dollars, then a week later, a couple of thousand, then BOOM. By the end of the fourth week, I had received nearly $47,000.00. It came from all over the world. And every bit of it perfectly legal and on the up and up. I've been able to pay off all my bills and still had enough left over for a nice vacation for me and my family. Wow, that's amazing. Between the second and fourth weeks you actually opened and counted 47,000 pieces of mail! That would mean that during every waking minute, assuming that you never stopped to eat or pee, you would have had to open 10 pieces of mail! I just can't imagine opening 10 pieces of mail per minute for two strait weeks. Your fingers must really be sore! Not only that, but there are already 47,000 people out there who are expecting to recieve $47,000. So, if they get responses from just 2.2 Billion people, they'll be fine. That's only half of the population of the earth anyway. I just hope that those 2.2 Billion people don't ever expect to collect! Even at the present growth rate, the earth's population won't be large enough for that until the year 2500. Paul (Here are some supporting numbers --editor) Based on a factor of 47,000 in growth per generation of this scam, here's how the numbers crunch out: Generation Number of people involved in scam Year possible 1 47,000 1996 2 2,209,000,000 1996 3 103,823,000,000,000 2500 4 4,879,681,000,000,000,000 3000 5 229,345,007,000,000,000,000,000 3500 6 10,779,215,329,000,000,000,000,000,000 4000 Note that the current world population is only about 5 Billion. That's 5,000,000,000 on the above table. A factor of 47,000 in world population growth will take about 500 years at the current 2% annual growth rate. Also note that only .01 percent of those involved recieve their full payoff at each generation. The "overhead" costs involved in this service for postage and envelopes are going to run about 50%. It will be even more for most of the 2.2 Billion people in generation 2 who do not live in the United States and will have to pay overseas postage, curency exchange, a fee for a translater to read this message to them in the first place, and the trouble of organiazing their local government into providing reliable mail service in spite of the fact that they have no electricity or indoor plumbing. But, you can be sure that they read their email!