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 [ BACK]  [NEXT]                       Issue #259 - 07/29/2001

THERE WAS A CROOKED MAN

Scams, Hoaxes and Other Midsummer Night Schemes

Greetings Friends,
     As wonderful as this Internet stuff is, the downside of the
wonder of technology is that it exposes so many of the weird
undercurrents always present in the human psyche.  For generating
hoaxes, the Internet has to be the most powerful tool since the
invention of writing.  Except that, with modern communications,
one slightly bent individual can fling huge piles of crap to the
four corners of the world in just seconds.  Anonymously, too.
     Over the years, the SUNFUN scam & hoax collection has grown
to thousands of items, from the Neiman-Marcus (later Mrs. Fields)
cookie recipe to the ATM envelope spider infestations and even
the 87 pound (40kg) cat.  They are all phony.  It has gotten to
the point where I have a special collection of hoax reference
site links as buttons on my browser.  Sometimes friends are
amazed at how cynical I am about things that come across the Web,
but, having been on the Internet bunco squad for over 15 years,
I've seen 'em all.  Occasionally, these tales are told by someone
with an political or financial agenda, like the "Proctor and
Gamble owned by Satanist" hoax of a few years back.  That one was
being promoted by a competitor, whom P&G eventually dragged into
court.  Haven't heard much of that rumor since.
     Some of these stories are so ancient that they predate the
Internet by a generation or so, going back into the ancient days
of what used to be called Xerox-lore.  One example would be the
"two black men on the elevator" story, which lately has been
attached to Eddie Murphy and Tiger Woods.  That one has been
around long enough that the first incarnation I heard used
baseball players Hank Aaron and Reggie White.  It has always been
an urban legend.  But I still see it here at least twice a year.
     More proof that people believe what they wish to believe, no
matter what the real facts are.
     People that we believe in include our friends, especially:
Jerry Taff, Laura Hong Li, Jan Michalski, Kerry Miller, Anna
Macareno, R.J. Tully, Tim McChain, Ken Josephson, Chuck Maray,
Bruce Gonzo, Majopr & Judy McCallum, Nancy & Jerry Wohlge, Brian
Siegl and Gerry Kosobucki.  So, how do you know that these
stories are really frauds and I'm not off on some agenda of my
own?  Of course I'm not.  Trust me.
     Have An Unbelievable Week,

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THE UN-CRITICAL CRITIC
----------------------
     It isn't often that a major corporation gets caught building
a complete hoax - especially not when the hoax doesn't even make
sense.
     I'm talking, of course of one of the lamest attempts at
scamming the public ever let loose by a major film studio: the
David Manning affair.
     Manning was film critic of the Ridgefield, Connecticut Press
who LOVED!!! every film Columbia Pictures made.  Siskel and Ebert
together might give a movie two thumbs up, but Manning would give
three.  By himself.
     Manning said that Rob Schneider's rather stupid comedy "The
Animal" was "another winner."  Manning was also quoted as saying 
that Heath Ledger (who?) of "A Knight's Tale," is "this year's
hottest new star!"
     Clearly, Manning is a critic that the studios publicity
department would love to have.
     Only one problem: while there is, indeed, a Ridgefield
Press, there is no David Manning; the quotes were actually made
up by a publicist at the studio.
     Real critics scoffed at the blatant stupidity of such a
move, when the usual Hollywood tricks of employing fourth-string
critic who would say anything to see their names in print. 
There's a guy named Jeff Craig of "60-Second Previews" who has
been known to have as many as three "Best Film Of The Year" per
annum.   And if that fails, there's always the old trick of
simply taking the bits of a famous critics words that the studio
likes.  A review may unfavorably compares the flop "Baby
Geniuses" to "101 Dalmatians" by saying "This film director
clearly thinks his crummy, stupid script is as funny as '101
Dalmatians.'"  By the time this gets to the video box, it will
have mutated into "...As funny as '101 Dalmatians'!"
     Clearly embarrassed that Newsweek blew the whistle on their
scam, Sony Pictures Entertainment, the parent of Columbia
Pictures, pulled all ads that quote Manning.  The actual
Ridgefield Press has a circulation of only 6,500, and does not
employ a movie critic.
     "We buy capsule reviews from Newsday and I don't think they
liked those films as well as David Manning did," said the paper's
publisher Thomas Nash.  "We got a call from a Columbia executive
apologizing and assuring us that action will be taken."
          [ Sure.  We expect a press release any time
          now that "David Manning" has left to pursue
          other opportunities." ]


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WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN?
--------------------------------------
     When it comes to scams, there is only one really all-
pervading scam that nearly all of us have to face at some time or
another: buying a used car.  When it comes to sleazy dealing,
used car salesmen are in about the same trustworthiness class as
the guys who sell TV's out of the back of a station wagon parked
at the airport.  Fortunately, used car salesmen are relatively
easy to spot: they will be the only guys around wearing a striped
sport coat with plaid pants and white shoes.  In some parts of
the country, this get-up is known as a "full Chicago."  Here are
a few of the come-ons that all of us who have had to deal with
these guys will probably recognize:


   - "Have I Got A Deal For You!"

   - "... and it's only seventeen-nine."

   - "That noise?  Oh, they all do that."

   - "This is the same deal I'd give my Mother."

   - "It looks pretty, doesn't it?"

   - "This has the most powerful engine in its class, of course,
     you're gonna pay extra for it."

   - "That's not smoke, it's steam."

   - "NO MONEY DOWN!  NO PAYMENT TILL 2002!!!"

   - "100,000 miles isn't high mileage these days."

   - "... alright, we'll sell it to you at that price, but we're
     not making any money on the deal."

   - "I'll see if I can get my boss to approve it."

   - "That's supposed to come off."

   - "Chicks can't resist a guy in a ...  (Gremlin, Yugo, Kia,
     Geo Metro, etc.)"  [to men]

   - "You look so cute behind the wheel." or "It matches your
     eyes."  [to women]

   - "This beauty is one of a kind - better buy it now cause this
     car won't be here long."  (Usually said about some rust pile
     that's been on the lot so long it has small trees growing
     through it.)

   - "You can afford this.  Anyone can afford this!"

   - "It was owned by a nice little old lady..."

   - "That's just surface rust - it'll wipe right off with a
     little rubbing."

   - "It runs like new."

   - "It used to belong to ...  (some semi-obscure celebrity on
     the order of Wayne Rogers)."

   - "Those options are cheaper if you buy our XL option
     package..."

   - "No, it wasn't a taxi.  That's just yellow primer..."

   - "There's nothing wrong with the color orange, all the cars
     are gonna be orange next year."

   - "OH, this car is definitely YOU!"


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CALLED FOR OUT OF BOUNDS...
------------------------
     Now that we've pegged the scammometer with used car
salesmen, we'll move slightly down the scale to politicians.  In
this specific case, a school board candidate in Miami was booted
out of the election last year because he didn't live in the
district he proposed to represent.
     Not that he didn't give it a try.
     Florida law requires school board candidates to live in the
district they want to represent.  When he became aware that none
of the various addresses he'd given the election board would be
acceptable, candidate Demetrio Perez Jr. spent three nights in a
tool shed on his father's farm in Miami-Dade County's School
District 7 to qualify for the race.
     But, before the election, a rival candidate found out about
the scam address and sued.  The court ruled that there was no way
the glorified garden shed could be considered a legal residence. 
When not serving as a flop for ambitious politicians, the
9-by-11-foot (2.7 meter by 3.3 meter) metal shack is used to
store landscaping equipment.  It has an electric outlet but no
plumbing.
     Perez says he will appeal.  (Reuters)
          [ Wouldn't it serve him right if the court
          found in his favor - only if he continues to
          live in the shed? ]


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HOW TO WELSH ON THE DEAL...
------------------------
     On a much more literary level is literary fraud, proving
that you don't have to be a politician or used-car salesman to be
untruthful.  A fairly long-running hoax involves one of Wales
most famous sons, Richard Llewellyn, whose novel of a Welsh
mining town, "How Green Was My Valley," was made into a film in
1940.  It won six Oscars.  The novel, published in 1939, has been
translated into 30 languages.
     The book and movie were both hits, and they made Llewellyn
very wealthy, and he divided his time between a farm in Wales and
a suite at Claridge's Hotel in London until his death in 1983. 
It was only when researchers looked into ways to mark the book's
60th anniversary and examined the late author's papers that the
truth came out.
     "We discovered that most of what Llewellyn told the world
about himself was a load of baloney," BBC television producer
Arwel Ellis said.
     Llewellyn had claimed to be the son of a Welsh miner who
worked down in the mine pits of Gilfach Goch, where the novel was
set.  But according to his birth certificate, the author was born
Vivian Lloyd in the London suburb of Hendon, son of a barkeep who
was, at least, part Welsh.  Under his birth name, he had worked
as a dishwasher at Claridge's until the novel's success, and his
sudden conversion to Welsh.  (Reuters)


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AMERICA OFF LINE?
----------------
     We've about gotten used to the nearly constant barrage of
virus hoaxes that cross the Internet these days.
     But some people still believe them.
     Inspired by the recent sulfnbk.exe hoax, Joke-A-Day site
Webmaster Ray Owens was inspired to write a droll hoax of his
own, warning people about the insidious "AOL.exe virus."
     To his astonishment, Owens was besieged by people who had
not understood the joke, and had blown away their America OnLine 
program.
     And, being true believers, they forwarded the fake warning
to their friends first.  
     "The smart people had a good laugh, and the dumb people were
scared as all get out," he said.
     The joke advisory mimicked a do-it-yourself virus hoax that
spread through Email some weeks ago.  That hoax informed users
that a normal Windows program file - sulfnbk.exe - was actually a
virus.  A surprising number of people believed the message and
deleted the file.
     Owens was horrified that his joke was spreading through the
web, and might be come another of the immortal Internet hoaxes,
like the fraudulent "Good Times" virus.  Not that he's had all
that many complaints so far...
     "There was about four or five people who deleted it, but
there was only one AOL person who contacted me," Owens said. 
"Maybe that's because all the others can't get online anymore." 
(CNET News.com)
          [ Further proof that Darwin was right. ]


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TALKING THE TALK...
----------------
     Television executives at the Edinburgh International TV
Festival were embarrassed recently at an international television
conference.  One debate, entitled "Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire,"
was billed by organizers as a "lively, provocative and sometimes
raucous look at one of the most talked about issues of the
television year -- talk show fakery."
     Except that one of the participants in the conference, a
researcher for U.S. talk show host Jerry Springer, turned out to
be an actress playing a part.  In other words, a fake.
     "It was a controversial move but it was deliberate.  We
wanted the audience to see how difficult it is to distinguish the
fake guests from the real ones," a festival spokeswoman said
later.
     Some of the TV executives were angered by the fraud, saying
it diminished the credibility of the festival.  But organizers of
the debate defended the move, saying it helped underscore the
problems facing the industry.
     Several famous talk shows have been fooled this way in
recent years, and BBC dropped one of its chat programs, "The
Vanessa Show," in 1999 after a scandal over fake guests. 
(Reuters)
          [ How could we not believe that the Satanist,
          lesbian, Nazi skin heads on "Jerry Springer"
          are anything but "just plain folks.?" ]


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YOUR BASIC GYPSY CURSE...
----------------------
     Psychic Katie Merino of Los Angeles had a problem.  A judge
has ordered her to return all of the $3.4 million she received in
gifts and fees from the ex-wife of a convicted embezzler.  You'd
have thought that she might have seen it coming.
     Merino was psychic friend to Doris Ann Kato, whose husband,
Yasuyoshi Kato, was convicted in 1998 of stealing about $95
million while chief financial officer of Day-Lee Foods, a
subsidiary of one of Japan's largest meatpackers.  Kato went up
the river for five years on that charge.  It was considered one
of the largest corporate embezzlements in U.S. history.
     At his sentencing, Kato blamed his wife and her need to buy
expensive things, such as cars, jewelry, a citrus ranch, and
other pricey goods, including, so it seems, advice on how the
stars were lining up for her.
     For her part, Merino says that the money, given between 1992
and 1996, is all long gone.
     Neither Merino nor Mrs. Kato were charged with any crime,
but Thursday U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson ruled that Merino
must return the money.  Attorneys for the cheated food company
said they will use a discovery motion to find where the money
went.  (Reuters)
          [ And if that doesn't work, they'll hire a
          psychic. ]


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© 2001 by Bill Becwar. All Rights Reserved.