Beware of the e mail pipe scam

[Mrpickwick]

Hi Everybody

Today when I opened my e mail account I received the e mail pipe scam listed below, I thought everybody might get a laugh out of it . It was quite funny as I've only been selling my work here in Japan for 2 yrs or so there was no way I could have sold this person a pipe.

Dear Sir/Madam:



I am writing on behalf of my Father. He recently turned 91 and is an ardent
admirer of your line of pipes. He always carried one . It was his most
prized possession and he used it daily. Although, he owned several types
over the years, the Speden was always his favorite.

2006 has been a very bad year for him. He has had 2 Heart Attacks and a
Stent put in.

While in the Hospital, his Speden (he always carries it and it was on him
when he was ambulanced in) was stolen. He never before let it out of his
sight. (No one including me was even allowed to touch it.) Now, he misses it
more than you can imagine.

For his birthday, I had wanted to replace it. He walks each day for his
rehab and always looks for it. Technically, he should NOT be smoking; but,
at 91 that is his one pleasure. It relaxes him and he will not stop. He has
earned that right.

Now, the problem: I am legally blind and on a very fixed income. Buying his
groceries and paying for Medical Tests has really devastated me financially.

A man 91, who has not given up on life and only wants his favorite pipe,
deserves better than I seem to be able to provide. It is as though he lost
an appendage. He seems to always have a moment of reflection where he must
finger his Pipe - even if he doesn't light it. The only pipe he handled that
way was yours. (A great endorsement of your craftsmanship!) He thought of it
as a work of art.

Sir/Madam, I am writing you (begging, really) to see whether you would
please give this true GENTLEMAN a new Pipe. I do understand that this is a
most unusual request, but he is a most unusual - and deserving - man. It is
all he wants.HIS SPEDEN. I have tried absolutely everything imaginable to
raise the funds or to work out a monthly payment plan. After all that has
happened to this family financially, I just can't.

Please consider this: You would be making a man who has worked hard for
everything he has ever gotten in life very happy and he really needs that
type of positive reinforcement right now.

Thank you for your attention and efforts. I look forward to your reply.



Michael Risen



Don Speden
spedenpipes.com
Niigata Japan

[KurtHuhn]

Wow!

That's a classic 419 scam, but I never would have thought that it would invade such a specialized market segment as pipe smoking. Holy crap!!!

[RadDavis]

I have received several large orders from Nigeria. I've just never had the time to ship them or even acknowledge the orders.

There have been several pipes for sale on Ebay (Eltang and Kent) that I'm convinced are being offered by Nigerians who don't have anything but a picture to sell. They won't accept anything but a wire transfer for payment.

If you "Ask the seller a question" they will always offer to end the auction and send you the pipe if you pay them several hundred dollars less than they are asking via wire transfer.

They always offer an excellent escrow service also.

Rad

[bscofield]

*sniff sniff*

You guys are so cold hearted! After reading that I immediately made the man 10 pipes and stamped them all SPEDEN and mailed them to him proirity overnight. And Don, just so your aware in case you get any compliments on them later, they were all made from 2x4's (white pine of course). Only the finest!

:thumb:

[Tano]

Hi All.
So what I'm gathering from all this is that, you guys don't get paid until you deliver the pipe?
Tano.

[marks]

I must not be making enough pipes. I haven't gotten any of these emails.

[ScoJo]

My father recently turned 106. One night while out at his favorite Hooters, he misplaced his favorite Piedmont briar...

[bscofield]

*whispers* Scott, your supposed to email it to him.

[LexKY_Pipe]

Heck, I'm really old and I like all of your pipes. Please send me a sample now to my address. Thanks for your help.

[TreverT]

I haven't seen that yet - hilarious! If I get it, I'm going to reply with this:
_______________________________________________________
My name is Billy Evans. I am a very sick little boy. My mother is
typing this for me, because I can't.
She is crying. The reason she is so sad is because I'm so sick. I was
born without a body. It
doesn't hurt, except when I try to breathe. The doctors gave me an
artificial body. It is a burlap bag
filled with leaves. The doctors said that was the best they could do
on account of us having no money
or insurance. I would like to have a body transplant, but we need more
money.

Mommy doesn't work because she said nobody hires crying people. I
said, "Don't cry, Mommy,"
and she hugged my burlap bag. Mommy always gives me hugs, even though
she's allergic to burlap
and it makes her sneeze and chafes her real bad.

I hope you will help me. You can help me if you forward this email to
everyone you know. Forward it
to people you don't know, too. Dr. Johnson said that for every person
you forward this email to, Bill
Gates will team up with AOL and send a nickel to NASA. With that
funding, NASA will collect
prayers
from school children all over America and have the astronauts take
them up into space so that the
angels can hear them better. Then they will come back to earth and go
to the Pope, and he will take up
a collection in church and send all the money to the doctors. The
doctors could help me get better
then. Maybe one day I will be able to play baseball. Right now I can
only be third base.
> >
Every time you forward this letter, the astronauts can take more
prayers to the angels and my dream
will be closer to coming true.
> >
Please help me.
> >
Mommy is so sad, and I want a body. I don't want my leaves to rot
before I turn 10. If you don't
forward this email, that's okay. Mommy says you're a mean and
heartless bastard who doesn't care
about a poor little boy with only a head. She says that if you don't
stew in the raw pit of your own
guilt-ridden stomach, she hopes you die a long slow, horrible death
and then burn forever in hell.

What kind of cruel person are you that you can't take five freakin'
minutes to forward this to all your
friends so that they can feel guilt and shame about ignoring a poor
bodiless nine-year-old boy?
> >
Please help me. I try to be happy, but it's hard. I wish I had a
kitty. I wish I could hold a kitty. I wish
I could hold a kitty that wouldn't chew on me and try to bury its
turds in the leaves of my burlap body.
> >
I wish that very much.
> >
Thank You,
> >
Billy "Smiles" Evans

[LexKY_Pipe]

Trever, now that's some sick humor!!!!! :thumb:

[ScoJo]

*whispers* Scott, your supposed to email it to him.

Aw crap! I forgot to mention this, but unfortunately I am not able to email this directly to Mister Piedmont, as I was born without access to an email account.

:boohoo:

[TreverT]

Trever, now that's some sick humor!!!!! :thumb:

Feel free to copy and use in your own self-defense if necessary...
It is but one of many silly texts I have collected and hoarded from the net over the years. I think my favorite is still the "Numbers of the Beast"

[hazmat]

Maybe one day I will be able to play baseball. Right now I can
only be third base.

That one right there knocked me outta my chair laughing... thanks, Trever! I needed that..

[TreverT]

You know, this does bring up the whole question of freebies and such. I used to get (and still sometimes do, despite my best efforts to develop a crabby reputation) a lot of "gift pipe" email inquiries, especially during my first few years as a known pipemaker. Typically they would look like:

"Hello! I am writing on behalf of The <Insert Big City> Pipe Club, and I'm delighted to tell you that our club has voted to select you as the Best New Pipemaker of the Year. We maintain a museum of the best examples of work by many noted pipemakers, and we would like to invite you to contribute one of your high-end pieces to our pipe museum."

I never knew what to make of these. On the one hand, you don't want to look like an ass by blowing off what may be well-meaning praise coupled with a total lack of understanding of what they're asking for (essentially, $200+ out of your pocket as a free donation that you can't even claim as a charity). OTOH, being of a suspicious nature, I tended to suspect a fair percentage of these as probes for free pipes. After all, if there really was a "Pipe Club of Exetershire" that consisted of 75+ members, why can't they simply all chip in a few bucks each to BUY the pipes for their pipe museum? Often required a little delicate diplomacy to politely decline these requests.

And then there are the review requests - "Hello, I'm writing an article for <insert name of pipe magazine of blog that you've never heard of> and I'd like to write a comprehensive review of one of your pipes as part of a larger article series. Can you send us a test pipe to review and smoke?"

[KurtHuhn]

"Hello! I am writing on behalf of The <Insert Big City> Pipe Club, and I'm delighted to tell you that our club has voted to select you as the Best New Pipemaker of the Year. We maintain a museum of the best examples of work by many noted pipemakers, and we would like to invite you to contribute one of your high-end pieces to our pipe museum."

And then there are the review requests - "Hello, I'm writing an article for <insert name of pipe magazine of blog that you've never heard of> and I'd like to write a comprehensive review of one of your pipes as part of a larger article series. Can you send us a test pipe to review and smoke?"

I always completely ignore these. I figure, I haven't exactly lost a customer, and I can always blame it on flaky email. IMO, it's not even worth my time to reply. Besides, real pipe clubs are more than happy to pay for what they want, and wouldn't even consider asking for a handout (at least in my experience).

[bvartist]

8O So I'll have to deal with these emails if I ever sell pipes??? I get these kinds of emails all the time for my custom fly rods. My personal favorite:

Dear Sir,

I recently lost my favorite Sage RPL 9foot 6 weight fly rod. I would like to replace it with a Sage XP of the same weight and length. However due to financial concerns I am unable to afford the retail price they ask for these rods. Could you give me a discount off your prices? I may be able to go as high as $300 for the new rod. I hope I can find someone to have pity on me, I miss fly fishing.

Thank you,

Joe Dumba** (name changed to protect the idiots)

For everybody who isn't a fly fisherman, a Sage XP rod retails around $540! (now that would be a discount!) I was actually quite nice to this gentleman and wrote him back with some suggestions of cheaper alternatives to the Sage, never heard from him again!(at least he did offer to pay something on it!)

[hlp808]

I was sent a email from a guy who said he was so impress with my pipes, that he was willing to promote my pipe at his next pipe club meeting. All he wanted was a free pipe. The funny part was when he told me that If I except his offer, we both come out winners in the end. !!!YEAH RIGHT!!! LOL

When I replied back and told him Sorry but no thank you. He replied back to me and said " with that kind of attitude, you will not last a year in the pipe business. That was back in 2002 and I'm still around.

I even had a guy talk to me in one of the pipe chat rooms, that was trying to convince me to send him a free pipes. He said that since I was new to pipe making, the only way I can give my pipes more exposure was to give out free pipes to poeple like him that runs a pipe club meeting every month. He said that he has help a lot of pipemarker over the years. Again !!! YEAH RIGHT!!!

Jaden

[TreverT]

Be careful with these sorts of people, because, as I have found in the past, those who make a big deal out of how much they can "help" you by showing your pipes around, often carry the unspoken threat that if you don't suck up to them as they wish, they will badmouth you. I had one fellow hint very strongly to me that he'd like a pipe, with much talk about "who he was in the pipe scene", and after I failed to give him a freebie, suddenly he started badmouthing me. Whenever anyone makes a big deal out of their position in some club or group, I am always quite leery, because usually they're doing so to expect some sort or special treatment or discounts or whatever.

[Nick]

OMG! Both those emails are hysterical!

Thanks for the laugh this morning.