![]() ![]() The letter even appeared to address any possible anti-scam concerns on page two it said (bold print and punctuation errors lifted from the original):Īgain, I know what you're thinking, “This can't be real. (That's one of the sad ironies of life: when you're already down for whatever reason - economic stress, health concerns, romantic unhappiness or whatever - you often find yourself most vulnerable to scams exactly when you're least able to handle that additional problem on top of everything else going wrong lately.)Īnyway, the more Richard read the letter the more flattered he became. Looking back now I find it hard to believe I fell for this, but I did.” Needless to say I was stressed out and feeling like a major loser and more than a little depressed. When the Neothink letter arrived it was the end of my seasonal business and financially it was the second worst in 22 years. I'm a 61-year-old man who has his own business. “Let me tell you a very little about me and my state of mind at the time. When Richard initially wrote us about his Neothink experience, he said: You have been chosen to join us.” Stressed out ![]() But if you type in the phrase “ The League for your eyes only” the first entry that comes up is a scam alert telling a story similar to Richard's.īut what did the letter actually say? Eight pages of flattery starting with this introduction: “We are the rich, the famous, the powerful - and the crème de la crème of society famous sports and movie stars, musicians, billionaires, businessmen, intellectuals, and scientists. Typing just “The League” into a search engine nets too many millions of responses to be of any use. Inside was a typewritten eight-page letter from an anonymous writer the letterhead said it was from “The League” and “For your eyes only!” It all started last October, when Richard went to his mailbox and found a red-and-blue envelope “that looked like it came from overseas,” as he put it. ![]() Incidentally, the first time I did a Google search for “Neothink,” one of the auto-complete options offered was “Neothink cult.” (General rule: if you type a company name into a search engine and the autocomplete results include that company alongside words like “scam,” “fraud” or “cult,” that's usually a bad sign.) But searching for “Neothink” wouldn't have protected Richard in any case, because he never actually saw the word until after he'd already shelled out over $130. Last week a reader I'll call “Richard” wrote in to warn others away from a bizarre group called “Neothink.” Before wising up to the scammy nature of the offer, Richard had spent several hundred dollars buying overpriced books that promised and failed to deliver all sorts of valuable secret information. Still, for all the articles you see warning against email phishing scams, fraudulent dating-site profiles or fake phone calls allegedly from Microsoft or other reputable tech companies, it's important to remember that thieves and fraudsters existed long before the Internet, and letters sent to your old-fashioned mailbox can be just as dishonest as the worst misspelled email allegedly from a Nigerian prince. Most scams and con-artist scenarios you read about are Internet-based, simply because the Internet is such a commonplace form of communication these days. ![]()
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