Humor: Fraud Warning!

WARNING! PLEASE READ IMMEDIATELY! THIS IS SERIOUS!

If you get an envelope from a company called the Internal Revenue Service, DO NOT OPEN IT! This group operates a scam around this time every year. Its letter claims that you owe this company money, money that they will take and use to pay for the operation of essential functions of the United States government. This is untrue! The money the IRS collects is used to fund various other corporations that depend on subsidies to stay in business.

This organization has ties to another shady outfit – the Social Security Administration, which claims to take money from your regular paychecks and save it for your retirement. In truth, the SSA uses the money to pay for the same misguided corporate welfare the IRS helps mastermind.

These scam artists have bilked honest, hard-working Americans out of billions of dollars. Don't be among them!

Editor's Note: For those of you who don't use the Internet / e-mail, and thus don't get the joke, the style here emulates most of the hysterical warnings about viruses passed on in the manner of chain letters. I can't resist including this one, too:
 

"The Mother Of All Urban Legends"

I know this guy whose neighbor, a young man, was home recovering from having been served a rat in his bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. So anyway, one day he went to sleep, and when he awoke he was in his bathtub full of ice and sore all over. When he got out of the tub he realized that HIS KIDNEYS HAD BEEN STOLEN, and he saw a note on his mirror that said "Call 911"! But he was afraid to use his phone because it was connected to his computer, and there was a virus on his computer that would destroy his hard drive if he opened an e-mail entitled "Join the crew" or "Good Times"! He knew it wasn't a hoax because he himself was a computer programmer who was working on software to save us from Armageddon when the year 2000 rolls around. His program will prevent a global disaster in which all the computers get together and distribute the $250 Nieman Marcus cookie recipe under the leadership of Bill Gates. (It's true; I read it all last week in a mass e-mail from BILL GATES HIMSELF, who was also promising me a free Disney World vacation and $5,000 if I would forward the e-mail to everyone I know.) The poor man then tried to call 911 from a pay phone to report his missing kidneys, but reaching into the coin-return slot, he got jabbed with an HIV-infected needle around which was wrapped a note that said: "Welcome to the world of AIDS". Luckily, he was only a few blocks from the hospital – the one, actually, with that little boy who is dying of cancer, the boy whose last wish is for everyone in the world to send him an e-mail. The American Cancer Society has agreed to pay him a nickel for every e-mail he receives! I sent him two e-mails and one of them was a bunch of x's and o's in the shape of an angel. (If you get the e-mail and forward it to 20 people you will have good luck, but if you forward it only to 10 people you will have only fair luck, and if you send it to fewer than 10 people you will have BAD LUCK FOR SEVEN YEARS.) So anyway, the poor guy tried to drive himself to the hospital, but on the way he noticed another car driving along without his lights on. To be helpful, he flashed his lights at him, and for this was promptly shot as part of a gang initiation... And by the way, yes, it's a little-known fact that the Y1K problem caused the Dark Ages!

EXPERTS WARN OF THREAT FROM 100GigaBurg BUG

Forget Y2K! Experts warned today of a new and deadly threat to our beleaguered civilization: the 100GB Bug.

As most people know, McDonald's restaurant signs show the number of hamburgers the giant chain has sold. That number now stands at 99 billion burgers, or 99 Gigaburgers (GB). Within months or even weeks, that number will roll over to 100GB. McDonald's signs, however, were designed years ago, when the prospect of selling one hundred billion hamburgers seemed so unthinkably remote. Thus, the signs have only two digits!

This means that, after the sale of the 100-billionth burger, McDonald's signs will read "00 Billion Burgers Sold". Experts predict this will persuade the public that, in over thirty years, no McDonald's hamburgers have been sold, causing a complete collapse of consumer confidence…

The ensuing catastrophic drop in sales is seen as almost certain to force the already-troubled company into bankruptcy. This, in turn, will push the teetering American economy over the brink, which, finally, will complete the total devastation of the global economy, ending civilization as we know it, forcing us all to live on beetles.

"The people who know – sign-makers – are really scared of 100GB", one expert said. "I advise my clients to buy beetles and get The Field Guide To American Insects".

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