Mail-Order Offer Has All the Markings...

It didn’t sound bad, really, the offer in the mail:

Having been “selected by a computer to participate in an advertising test,” all one had to do was return the enclosed $1,500 “check” to American Heritage Redemption Center in Beverly Hills or Sherman Oaks and get a $3,300 RCA projection television set for $89 or a pair of three-wheel Honda motorcycles (worth nearly $1,000 each) for a mere $264.

But hurry, urged the American Heritage Redemption Center in the mailing that went out the last week in February, because the incredible offer would expire March 15.

Numerous Calls

She noted that after numerous calls to both the Postal Service and the Better Business Bureau from recipients of the nationwide mailing, postal inspectors moved “in record time” to establish that the two addresses were nothing but mail drops.

Postal inspector Ken Elsesser said in an affidavit that the boxes had been rented by a woman named either Becky R. or Rebecca Jimenez, who gave a Los Angeles address and a Texas driver’s license number for identification.

Stoltz said the address turned out to be another mail drop and the Texas number was fictitious.

“We have not been able to locate or identify them,” Stoltz said of the people behind the American Heritage Redemption Center.

Neither RCA nor Honda had any large orders from such a company nor knew anything about it, she said.