Monday November 6th, 2006
A MoneySaver has just sent me a letter they received through the post, a broadsheet newspaper with a handwritten note on the top of it saying ‘Sarah, get it, it works’ (I’ve changed her name). The article itself is headlined WANT PERFECT SKIN? Why a remarkable occurrence in Russia could now make it possible. Thankfully, it has little to do with cosmetics. There is then a full page article describing the benefits of a product called Immuderm (here’s a picture).
To make it look even more realistic on the back of this sheet of newspaper is a large listing of what at first glance look like share prices (take a look).
This is a scarily clever piece of junk mail. The handwritten scribble with your name on it makes it look like a friend has sent it through the post and forgotten to put who it’s from. When I showed it to the MSG she said ‘I’d assume it was from my mum’.
If you check out the paper, you’ll see it’s supposedly from a publication called “The Weekly Journal� and dated 16 March 2006. Yet I can’t find a record of any such publication – and who’s Weekly Journal. Plus while this is a UK advert with the price listed as just over £60, rather than $60, the share prices on the back is actually a list of US mutual funds.
While you almost want to admire the chutzpah of such an innovative approach to try and wring money out of people, overall it’s an invidious type of spam marketing and the people doing it should be ashamed of themselves.
