Scam-A-Rama Ding Dong

Our oldest daughter, at the tender age of 15, is on the verge of having money. A lot of money.

Or so says a letter she just received today from a man in South Carolina (we're in Maryland).

The letter, which many, many folks have received, is a variation on the old chain letter scheme: send the seven people on a list some money, remove the top person's name, add your name to the bottom of the list, mail to a bunch of people (in this case 200) and wait for the money to roll in.

The letter promised that our daughter, currently making minimum wage as a restaurant hostess, would make $71,000, $250,000 or $800,000. (The letter was a little vague on the exact amount to expect, but in bold, capital letters it said the $800,000 was guaranteed. (It neglected to mention by whom.)

Skeptical? Well, don't be. The letter offered not one, not two, but three proofs:

Oprah Winfrey had tested this idea and it worked.

ABC's 20/20 had tested this idea and it worked.

A retired attorney had tested this idea and it worked. His unsigned letter — no name given — was part of the package.

I wonder just what sort of attorney he was.

For one thing, his punctuation and grammar are, shall we say, a bit creative. (He particularly likes to capitalize words randomly in the middle of sentences.) He also seems to be unaware that chain letters such as this are illegal, and have been for years.

I suspect he's also a little math challenged, since the letter he cites returns of $71,000, $250,000, $800,000 and $2,341,178 for a mere $3 investment. It doesn't take much of a mathematician to realize that, since none of these numbers are divisible by 3, either some folks don't mail $3, some folks can't count, or some folks are running a scam.

What are the odds?

My favorite part of the letter is this:

The attorney tells his client, who brought him the letter originally, that it is "100% legal." Apparently 100% isn't enough, because his client "then asked me to alter it to make it perfectly legal."

What's the difference between "100% legal" and "perfectly legal"? "I asked him to make one small change in the letter."

There are other letters included in the packet, along with helpful instructions, including the comment that stamps are sold at the Post Office. (Gotta spell everything out for some people, I guess.)

Don't know 200 people to whom you can mail this golden opportunity? Not to worry: information on a company that sells mailing lists is in the instructions, along with the company's phone number and the note that it accepts Mastercard and Visa.

So how did this stranger in South Carolina get our daughter's name? If he followed the instructions, he asked the mailing list company for names in this category: Opportunity Seekers.

Our daughter must be one, though I haven't seen her seek too many opportunities beyond attempting to make the track team and soccer team at school.

Sadly, her five-, six- or seven-figure income opportunity doesn't seem like it's going to happen any time soon. But her economic future isn't all bad.

Minimum wage goes up next week.