Quick Cash, Legally--Uh, Really
We thought this species of junk mail was extinct, but someone in Philadelphia was kind enough to mail us an offer (unsolicited, mind you) to make “$50,000 PLUS IN 60 DAYS! LEGALLY!” Reassured that “this is not a chain letter or a joke, but a perfectly legal moneymaking business opportunity,” we studied the details which involve--you guessed it--sending $1 in cash to five people on a list and then sending out 200 more copies of the letter with your name now in the No. 5 place, and everybody else’s moved up a notch. The 200 soon-to-be-lucky venture capitalists will, in turn, copy their letter 200 times and, well, you get the idea. Although we found the legal loopholes quite complex, the math was compelling. Even if less than one in 20 respond, $66,429 in cash would be ours in a mere two months. Hmmm, just enough for a deposit on that bridge we had an eye on.
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If the First 99 Times Didn’t Convince You: The latest irritant on the Internet these days is a South Florida-based telephone dating service that has been posting ads for its 900 number all over the Net. The ads, which we found while perusing the la.general news group, feature the subject header “Romance Awaits” and seek to capture the attention--not to mention capital--of the lonely computer geek with a “meet-that-special-someone” come-on. It wasn’t only their breach of “Netiquette”--which discourages blatant commercial advertising in most news groups--that riled L.A.’s cyberspace citizens, but the fact that it was repeated 100 times.
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Hey, If Judge Ito Likes It: The ubiquitous KFI “GUILTY” and “INNOCENT” billboards aren’t the only bit of O.J.-related marketing going on. Identigene, a DNA lab based in Houston, has decided to capitalize on all the gene-matching hubbub going on with Simpson et al. by advertising their paternity-determining services to you, the general public. “We began advertising at the beginning of this year and have enjoyed a positive response from potential clients and referral groups--i.e., attorneys, clinics, general laboratories,” says Identigene President Caroline Caskey, whose company blitzed the country with TV and print ads for their services. With other labs poised to go public following Identigene’s success, we could see an ad war develop between paternity-testing companies not unlike the one waged between long-distance carriers. Only in this case, a “Friends and Family” program would more likely be dubbed “Friends or Family.”
