Chain Letters Warrior Dying of Cancer Modem Tax ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 7 Nov 1994 08:13:00 -0500 From: Harry xxx To: berxxx@access.xxx Subject: Private Mail \\\|||/// \\\|||/// \\\|||/// . ======= . ======= . ======= / \| O O | / \| O O | / \| O O | \ / \v_'/ \ / \v_'/ \ / \v_'/ # _| |_ # _| |_ # _| |_ (#) ( ) (#) ( ) (#) ( ) #\//|* *|\\ #\//|* *|\\ #\//|* *|\\ #\/( * )/ #\/( * )/ #\/( * )/ # ===== # ===== # ===== # (\ /) # (\ /) # (\ /) # || || # || || # || || .#---'| |----. .#---'| |----. .#---'| |----. #----' -----' #----' -----' #----' -----' This message has been sent to you for good luck. The original is in New England. It has been sent around the world nine times. This message has been sent to you for good luck. The luck has now been sent to you. You will receive good luck within four days of receiving this message - Provided you, in turn send it on. This is no joke. You will receive good luck in the mail. But no money. Send copies to people you think need good luck. Don't send money as fate has no price. Do not keep this message. This message must leave your hands in 96 hours. A United States Air Force Officer received 470,000 Dollars. Another Man received 40,000 Dollars and lost it because he broke the chain. Whereas in the Philippines, Gene Welch lost his life 51 days after receiving the message. He failed to circulate the message. However, before his death, he received 7,555,000 dollars. Please send twenty copies and see what happens in four days. The chain comes from Venezuela and has written by Saul De Groda, A Missionary from South America. Since the copy must tour the world, you must make twenty copies and send them to friends and associates. After a few days you will get a surprise. This is true, even if you are not superstitious. Do the following: Constantine Dias received this chain in 1958. He asked his secretary to make twenty copies and send them out. A few days later he won a lottery of two million dollars. Carlos Daditt, an office employee, received the message and forgot that it had to leave his hands in 96 hours. He lost his job. Later, after finding that message again, He mailed twenty copies. A few days later he got a better job. Dalan Fairchild received the message and, not believing - Threw the message away. Nine days later he died. In 1987, The message received by a young woman in California. It was very faded and barely readable. She promised herself that she would retype the message and send it on, But she set it aside to do it later. She was plagued with various problems, including expensive car repairs. The letter did not leave her hands within 96 hours. She finally typed the letter as promised and got a new car.=)Good Luck but please remember: 20 copies of this message must leave your hands in 96 hours...You must not sign on this message... ================================================================ Date: Thu, 9 Jan 1992 21:38:00 EST Sender: Folklore Discussion List From: "Nancy M. Piatkowski" Subject: Guiness book/xpost lore Subj: Dying of Cancer ======================================================================== Urban folklore surfaces everywhere- this came in on the international folkldance list- Nancy Dear Subscribers, It has brought to my attention through one of my colleagues that Craig Sherhold, 7 years old, is suffering from terminal cancer. It is one of his wishes to be included in the Guinness Book of Records as having the largest number of business cards ever collected by one individual. I would be grateful, as would Craig, if you would be kind enough to send one of your business cards to the address below and publish this message in the next NEXUS publication. Master Craig Sherhold 36, Shelby Road Carshalton London SM1 1LD ENGLAND Thanks for making Craig's wish come true. Sincerely Russell J. Best Biomechanics Unit Victoria University of Technology AUSTRALIA ============================================== From: BITNET%"DANCE-L@HEARN.BITNET" "International folkdance and traditional dance list" 9-JAN-1992 12:38:37.59 To: BITNET%"PIATKONM@SNYBUFVA.BITNET" "Nancy M. Piatkowski" CC: Subj: RE: Dying of Cancer Please do ***not*** do this!!! Craig is now 12 (or even 13) years old. He is successfully recovering from brain surgery, which has successfully removed his cancer. If you look at the 1991 edition of the "Guinness Book of World Records", you'll see that Craig's record for most "get-well" cards is listed. Please tell your colleagues. Thanks. _______________________________________________________________________ Here's a recent article from the Associated Press: "FAX blamed as kids collect wrong cards for ailing boy" Kennewick, Washington (State, USA) -- A class of Eastern Washington eighth-graders collected 57,555 business cards to help a seriously-ill British boy set a world record. It was a mistake. It turns out seven-year-old Craig Shergold of Carshalton, Great Britain, was collecting get-well cards, not business cards. But Sharon Davies' class at Finley High School never got the message. "I think it's stupid. We collect all these business cards, and it turns out nobody wants them", student Kyle Humphrey said this week. The eighth-graders collected five giant garbage bags worth of cards, no two alike. There are ones in Braille, on microfilm and in Norwegian. Some looks like envelopes, other like chemical waste drums. They're printed on paper, wood and metal. It started with a chain-letter, transmitted to Bill Davies' fax machine at the Boise Cascade Container Corp. plant in Wallula. The letter said Shergold had cancer. "One of his greatest wishes is to be included in the _Guinness Book of World Records_ as having the largest number of business card ever collected by one person", the letter said. Davies mentioned it to his school-teacher wife, and her students started their three-month project. Shergold, who has recovered, did make it into the record book for receiving 33 million greeting cards. The Royal Mail assigned the boy his own postal code. By March 1990, Shergold's parents called a halt to the campaign, unbeknownst to students at Finley High. 30. Date: 5/11/92 11:54 AM Subj: FCC Network Chain Letter Tax! (Update on "Modem Tax") I got the following from TELECOM Digest V12 #373: Date: Fri, 8 May 92 12:53:01 EDT From: Fred R. Goldstein Subject: FCC Network Chain Letter Tax! (Update on "Modem Tax") (forwading headers removed) URGENT! I GOT THIS FROM THE SHIRLEY HUGEST BULLETIN BOARD SYSTEM (617 937 1234) AND YOU GOTTA PASS IT ON: Four years ago, the FCC tried to change the way it classified telephone access to Information Service Providers such as Comp-U-Serve and Dial-a-Porn. While this idea, erroneously called a "modem tax", was dropped and has never been revived, a far more insidious threat to the way we use our networks has been proposed instead. The FCC now proposes to tax network chain letters. All network connect time spent sending, forwarding, distributing, or editing network rumors and chain letters such as the "modem tax" and "Craig Shergold is dying" will be subject to a tax of up to $5/hour. All networks which propagate these messages across public, leased-line or microwave radio facilities will be required to analyze their network utilization and determine how much time and bandwidth was spent on these chain letters. A semi-annual payment must then be sent to the FCC's Bureau of Redundancy Bureau. I know this is true because I heard it on the Harry Lipschitz show on WLFD radio in Passaic, NJ, where a caller heard about it in an article written in the Globe. They even read some of the details of what the tax will cover and it's huge! A message will be counted as a network chain letter if it meets such broad criteria as: a) uses the phrase, "Modem tax", without explaining that it's a hoax; b) does not contain a date, so that it cannot be shown to be old; c) cites as authoritative hearsay like, "I heard from somebody who heard on KGO Radio that the New York times said that..."; d) cites as a source a Bulletin Board System and gives a phone number that has long since been disconnected or changed; e) includes addresses of present or former members of Congress ca. 1989, with a suggested text of a letter to send them, citing an aforementioned or similar chain lettter topic; f) requests people to "pass this along urgently" or similar language designed to encourage the spread of disinformation at the speed of light; g) has had its original headers removed, making it impossible to trace to the original source. This tax would obviously cost us very much money, and could conceivably lead to the end of computer networking as we know it! Please pass this along urgently to everyone you know. And also send protest letters to: Congressman Wilbur Mils Tidal Basin Washington, DC 20000 and Commissioner U. Ben Hadd FCC 1919 M St. NW Washington DC 20554 letting them know your feelings on this subject. [Moderator's Note: Fred, I love it! That nasty rumor keeps going around. I get five or six messages here weekly from people wanting to put something up in the Digest about it. Thanks for once again setting the record straight, and doing it in a humorous way. PAT] ---------- J. Brad Hicks Internet: mhs!mc!Brad_Hicks@attmail.com X.400: c=US admd=ATTmail prmd=MasterCard sn=Hicks gn=Brad I am not an official MasterCard spokesperson, and the message above does not contain official MasterCard statements or policies.