Buncoland, or Frauds R U.S. The governments of the United States and its various subdivisions have apparently decided that suppressing and punishing fraud is not a legitimate government activity. Everywhere around us we see frauds victimizing millions of Americans, but government not lifting so much as a finger or issuing so much as a word of warning to the public not to be taken in.
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TBS, the Atlanta-based UHF and then cable television station that started Ted Turner on the road to riches, has embarked upon an aggressive plot to separate suckers from their money. Called Midnite Money Madness, this 'program' runs live, two hours a nite from midnite to 2am. On it, viewers are encouraged to call to answer trivia questions for modest cash prizes. Each call costs money that the 'program' collects:

$.99 per land line or cell phone entry. Cell phone entries may include standard text messaging charges.

For a $500 prize, the 'program' might collect tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars stolen from people who may think that each person who has the right answer will get the $500 prize, when in actuality only one will — if that.
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The new CW Network, cobbled together from various UPN and WB broadcast stations, has just started to broadcast a one-hour version of the same evil scam. Their version airs from 2:00-3:00am and is called Play2Win. It is also called a "contest", and consists of a series of little puzzles, each of which carries a modest prize, such as, again, $500. For the right to contést for such an inconsequential little prize, a viewer must place a telephone call or send a text message that costs $1.50. Each. As with the TBS scam, people are encouraged to improve their chances of getting to solve the puzzle by registering more than once, up to a maximum of 10 times per half hour. They need to keep track, themselves, of how many times they call, however, because they will not be blocked from calling more than 10 times in a half hour, but any call over 10 in a half hour will not be registered for purposes of competing for the prize. It will, however, be charged to them at a rate of $1.50. Per call. $15.00 per half hour. Per caller. Isn't that sweet?
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These evil scammers, relying upon public trust in the legitimacy of game shows after the scandal of the 1950s, are stealing unknown hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars a nite, rite in public view, and no government, at any level, does anything, even tho this scam crosses state lines.
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Is government collecting taxes from these scams? Is government "in on it" as an entity? Are prosecutors and communications regulators taking bribes to look the other way? Or does the law not recognize these scams as frauds upon the trusting — not to say "stupid"? Oh, hell, let's just call anyone who falls for such a scam stupid, because that's what they are. But government is not supposed to stand aside and let criminals take advantage of the stupid.
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These scammers should be grabbed by government and made the stars of a new TV show, in which anyone can place a free call to order one lash of a whip to the scammer of their choice, up to one per phone number per half hour. The game should continue, with each lash of on-air flogging — or punch with a fist, or slash with a razor blade or knife, or other appropriate physical punishment — carried out within 30 seconds of each call voting for such penalty, until the given scamstar is dead. Then another scammer should be brought out and given the same star treatment until s/he too is dead; on and on thru all the onscreen personalities, producers, station and network executives, cameramen, sound technicians, grips, advertising agency personnel, and others of every description involved in any way in each vile scam.
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Once all of the scammers from these two broadcast frauds are dead, thru this most entertaining form of public execution, we should make temporary stars of more scammers: the purveyors of MX-Man, Enzyte, and other "penis-enlarging" scams; the Nigerian 'bankers' and 'philanthropists' who want to send us millions of dollars; the Dutch and British 'online lotteries' that selected our email and want to send us millions of euros or pounds; and on, and on, until we have broken the human race of the temptation to steal via the telephone, text-messaging, and Internet, as well as by postal mail and every other form of communication.
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We could throw in the phony weight-loss and baldness-cure scammers, the work-from-home scammers, the "meet singles in your city" telephone 'clubs', and all other scammers of every description who afflict society like a cloud of locusts or swarm of mosquitoes you can't escape.
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We could even let them talk directly to the audience to try to persuade us we should spare them because they really weren't involved in a scam at all and gave value for money; or they can tell us their hard-luck story to deter us from lifting the phone to dial 1-800-SCAMSTOP. Maybe the same morons who trusted them with their $1.50/a call for a $500 prize will buy that nonsense too. But I suspect there will be enuf people indignant and savvy enuf to ensure that all such pleas for mercy fail to save the scamscum who have made living in this country an exercise in constant self-defense, because government won't protect us, and made us into a nation of cynics who can't trust anyone.
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Madame Defarge wouldn't be taken in. If she had a phone by the guillotine, I'm sure she'd pick it up to vote for heads to roll. I have two phones, a landline and a cellphone. I could call twice per half hour. What fun!
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 2,772 — for Israel.)




Don't think I'm offering a prize to people who go to my Amazon PayPage. The only reward people contributing to my work can expect is the satisfaction of knowing they help strengthen my voice, and give me more time to speak for them.
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:37 PM