Bloody clever scam!

[Durbs]

I got one and was initially fooled as a few days earlier had been talking to an ex-colleague 'J' about marketing my Plan B. Nearly sent him a text to say ta but then the font raised a few suspicions and a quick Google on the post-it text confirmed it.

I'd not long ago opted out of those Cardell emails as, whilst the first couple made vaguely interesting reading, i got sick of the constant spam urging me to sign up for marketing telecons and seminars that would change my life, COMPLETELY FREE **

** one-off registration fee of £1500 applies

[mudskipper]

Oh - and I should add, for those that know my first name, I'm not the muppet that posted the comment on the website!

[mudskipper]

Do many of your friends post you stuff like this?

Aye - I was a little slow. But yes, I have a friend who forwards me electronically every bit of junk going - and his name starts with J, so my first reaction was that it was something from him. As soon as the penny drops, there are of course plenty of indicators that it's not 'real', but you have to make that connection in the first place. Actually it was the stamp that made me wonder - he would have posted it from work to save the postage!

[NickFitz]

Didn't they use "Times Roman"........
I thought "Times New Roman" was a sort of True Type imposter........

I can't remember the details exactly, but IIRC "Times New Roman" was the name of the face they had designed for them in the Twenties or Thirties (which was new at the time, in comparison to their old Roman face), and in the Sixties (Seventies, maybe? no, I think it was the Sixties) they had a new face designed called "Times Europa".

I can see one of my books on the subject from here, but that one only goes up to around 1952, so it wouldn't resolve the thorny question of when they moved to the new font.

(And don't even get me started on the idea of "Times New Roman Italic" given that "Roman" means upright, as opposed to italic...)

Ah, as usual, Wikipedia has some material that may, in part or in whole, constitute facts

As I surmised, "Times New Roman" was indeed the name of the face created in 1931 to replace "Times Old Roman", and "Times Europa" was introduced in 1972 (not the Sixties after all), although there have been other variants since then

[Drewster]

Does The Times really use Arial for the datelines on the internal pages of its print edition? Helvetica I might understand, but Arial???

That was the most obvious point for me (along with the fact that they haven't used Times New Roman since the Sixties), but YMMV.

Didn't they use "Times Roman"........
I thought "Times New Roman" was a sort of True Type imposter........

[NickFitz]

Does The Times really use Arial for the datelines on the internal pages of its print edition? Helvetica I might understand, but Arial???

That was the most obvious point for me (along with the fact that they haven't used Times New Roman since the Sixties), but YMMV.

[blacjac]

kuatb

http://forums.contractoruk.com/gener...ic-plan-b.html

we all discussed this a few weeks ago on the board. Do keep up!

kuatb mf

[MarillionFan]

We all discussed this a few weeks ago on the board. Do keep up!

[thunderlizard]

that's a good effort. I had a similar thing a few months ago but it was much cruder (i.e. much less crude if you catch my drift).
quick tip though: proper handwriting will leave pressure tracks or thickness variations.

[TimberWolf]

One of the responses:

Yes this duped me completely. I actually signed up and gave my credit card details which I’m now seriously regretting!

Sounds like a funny reply, but there's more...

If you type “chris cardell scam” into Google you will find a lot of other websites that have reported the same thing.

It’s a shame because it all sounded quite good, until I realised I had been tricked. I now don’t trust him one bit.

Either a very clever double bluffer of a joke or they really did get conned.

[blacjac]

KUATB

http://forums.contractoruk.com/gener...ic-plan-b.html

[jmo21]

Got one of these in today's post. Looked proper hand written envelope with real stamp and post-it note, with torn out bit of newspaper. And who hasn't got a mate who could sign him/herself 'J'? Have been puzzling over the mysterious J all day having ruled out a couple of likely candidates. Took me a bottle of wine to realise it was a marketing scam.

Do many of your friends post you stuff like this?

[TykeMerc]

Got one of these in today's post. Looked proper hand written envelope with real stamp and post-it note, with torn out bit of newspaper. And who hasn't got a mate who could sign him/herself 'J'? Have been puzzling over the mysterious J all day having ruled out a couple of likely candidates. Took me a bottle of wine to realise it was a marketing scam.

I got the same, it didn't take me so long since the only J I could think of is my eldest son who wouldn't ever post to me and I know his handwriting.
It's a novel approach, but it didn't stop either of us from binning it so it's still junk

[mudskipper]

Got one of these in today's post. Looked proper hand written envelope with real stamp and post-it note, with torn out bit of newspaper. And who hasn't got a mate who could sign him/herself 'J'? Have been puzzling over the mysterious J all day having ruled out a couple of likely candidates. Took me a bottle of wine to realise it was a marketing scam.