A MMF'er Apologizes
Still Doesn't Explain A Lot, Though
Yes, this guy really did write what is below, after receiving a cc: of the Standard MMF Template that I use to notify ISPs of MMF schemes. Quite a change from the writing style in "his"original article, don't you think? Maybe he wasn't the original author, hmmmm...?
"Date: Fri, 06 Dec 1996 13:27:48 -0800
From: John Clinton and Stacey Ludewig
Reply-To:xxxxxxxxxxxx
Organization: C:/icenet/netscape/mail
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: newsgroup postings
Dear Sir,Please accept my apology for the posting in your newsgroup.I am new at this,and I honestly did not know people would be so angered by my posting,as this was not my intention.I spoke with the post office before I thought about posting,explained the letter I recieved in detail and they told me it was barely within the limit of the law.Regardless,it was a stupid yet honest mistake.Be assured I will never try that again.Once again please accept my sincere apologies,I'm very sorry."
The problem with this explanation is that any Postal Employee would tell him that it was a totally illegal thing, not that it was barely with the limit of the law. Unless, of course, it was an extremely stupid postal employee as well (maybe one with their name at #4?). Check out the US Postal Inspectors' Service Chain Letter page, where it plainly says: " Be doubly suspicious if there's a claim that the U.S. Postal Service or U.S. Postal Inspection Service has declared the letter legal. This is said only to mislead you. Neither the Postal Service nor Postal Inspectors give prior approval to any chain letter."
In addition, even if the Postal Employee that this person supposedly talked to told him it was legal, that does not explain the outright lies written in the article that he propagated - all the lies about how much money he made, etc. It is no excuse that he merely copied the previously seen letter - he still passed it on in the first person tense, purporting to have accomplished all those things himself, even though a person with the barest amount of sense could see through it. So, no matter whether he thought it was legal or not, he still lied over and over to further his own ends.
