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Re: Possible fraud / FW: URGENT BUSINESS PROPOSAL.

To: Triumphs Mailing List <triumphs@autox.team.net>
Subject: Re: Possible fraud / FW: URGENT BUSINESS PROPOSAL.
From: Pete & Aprille Chadwell <pandachadwell@mac.com>
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2002 08:49:30 -0800
References: <1D6EE5D5D5A0D3118D4D00508B55EA1A7A1AE7@NTNREXH1.sapo.co.za>
>ATTN:            URGENT BUSINESS PROPOSAL.

Now maybe I shouldn't be quite this 'discriminating,' but another 
thing that always makes me suspicious is when there are spelling 
errors.  'Prodigeous' is not a word and neither is 'interogate.'  Of 
course, in this case the author of the letter is ALLEGEDLY in another 
country, so I suppose I should allow a little more latitude, but when 
I see spelling errors like this it automatically puts up a red flag, 
even when the content of the material is believable.  Of course, in 
this case, the content is obviously false with or without spelling 
errors.

I worked at a print shop in Kent, Washington years back and we had a 
couple of guys come in who claimed to own a carpet cleaning business, 
and they needed the usual print materials.  They had a cleaning 
system, supposedly, which used enzymes to 'eat' the dirt in your 
carpets.  We had an in-house designer who was doing all the design 
work, including a logo, and some little cartoony characters that I 
was hired to create.  I was included in a meeting with these bums to 
discuss their needs and I was immediately struck by the fact that 
every time either one of them said the word 'enzyme,' they pronounced 
it 'emzyne.'  It was pretty funny.  But it made me suspicious.  Now 
I've never been to college (art school, but not college) but I know 
damn good and well how to say 'enzyme'.  Why didn't EITHER ONE of 
these dupes know how to say it, when their business revolved around 
the alleged behavior of enzymes?  I mentioned this later to my 
superiors at the print shop and everyone agreed it was kind of 
strange.

Well, I don't know what these guys' 'game' was, but they screwed us. 
We did over $3000 worth of printing, design, etc. for these schleps 
and they never even took delivery of the job.  I have no idea what 
they had to gain by doing this.  Did they do it just for kicks?  What 
did these bastards get out of it?  Fortunately, I got paid for the 
work I did.  I was an employee at the print shop, but I was in 
customer service and illustration was not in my job description, so I 
was hired on a 'free-lance' basis by the print shop to do the work I 
did for these bozos.

Moral of the story is to beware of stuff like this.  If someone can't 
even use the correct words to describe their own business, I get 
suspicious.  If someone can't take care to spell words correctly in a 
'business proposal' I get suspicious.  It certainly doesn't mean that 
anyone who has trouble spelling is a fraud, so I hope no one 
misunderstands.  I understand that not everyone has perfect language 
abilities, and I don't assume that everyone who lacks these abilities 
is stupid or by nature dishonest.  But if someone is trying to 
solicit BUSINESS from me who can neither pronounce simple words 
correctly nor spell correctly, I'm on the lookout.

-- 
Pete Chadwell
1973 TR6

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