/ Cory Doctorow / 9:54 pm Sun Dec 5, 2010

Irate Cash4Gold letter to a lewd prankster


This Internet finding is an irate letter from the thin-skinned litigation enthusiasts at Cash4Gold to a "Mr Haberny" who apparently made a habit of sending gold-painted rocks to the firm, along with colorful missives describing the circumstances through which he came to posses them, which included a Tibetan pilgrimage with a legless hooker from Singapore. Mr Haberny sought many interesting forms of compensation for his "gold," including a birthday party at McDonald's, and an unspecified activity in the company of Ed McMahon.

(via JWZ)

 

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    1. Ah you beat me to the feral comment, I was about to post the exact same thing. What a terrible odd thing to say, even considering apparently the original letter!

    2. feral can mean like an animal style…rounchy….lol…this letter is amazing!! i wish he posted his letters to C4G.

  5. Good. Fuck ’em.

    Hopefully it cost them more in lawyering than it did for the amusing prankster to mail some rocks.

  6. So is Cash4Gold a polygamist operation? Their (presumably only) telemarketer possesses both a Carol and a Tracy!

  7. “and an unspecified activity in the company of Ed McMahon.”

    Seems to be specified pretty specifically.

    1. While the fact that the employee didn’t put their position under their signature could be argument that it is fake, I’m assuming since you gave no substance to your argument you didn’t base your assessment on that. It is entirely plausible that a cash for gold employee charged with intimidating pranksters to stop wasting company time would occasionally have some fun with it.

      So not fake, or maybe fake. Why do you think it’s fake?

    1. Quadriplegic != legless

      That’s why Cory is a writer, not an editor – and not a very good news source :P

  12. Fake or not, that letter made me laugh pretty hard. The stories they quoted from his alleged letters are pretty funny and the idea of sending painted gold rocks to them just sounds like a fun idea.

  14. While the prankster is a jackass, I have to say I don’t care much because Cash 4 Gold is a rip off. Then again, I guess it isn’t their fault people are ignorant.

    2. I hear that! The one thing that bothers this shit out of me, though? That damned apostrophe. ‘Telemarketer’s’… agh

  17. I agree antinous.

    It’s odd the writer uses ‘feral and preposterous’ and not, say, lewd and inappropriate.

  19. For some reason this letter appears to have been placed inside the plastic menu cover at a Chinese restaurant before someone took a picture of it with their iPhone.

    Assuming that it’s from suckerchump.com, odds are that it’s not real. While I would not be so surprised by a few spelling or grammar mistakes from the folks at Cash4Gold, the quality of the writing in the letters from from the White House and MoMA featured on suckerchump is similarly poor, and the same problems crop up in this letter too. I would like to believe that people hired to answer letters for the White House would be screened for basic English language ability, but then again that may be overly optimistic of me.

    In conclusion, I really liked this letter.

  20. Luckily, it’s the last time C4G will contact Mr Haberny, so he can carry on sending rocks with impunity.

  22. This letter is the work of artist Greg Haberny (SuckerChump.com) who is the creator of many profound documents, paintings, sculpture and other ephemera.

  23. Alert! Pedantic Missive Ensues:
    The two main senses of the word “feral” are: “wild and menacing” or “organism that has reverted at least partially from domestic to untamed ways.” There is no exclusive association of “feral” with animals, and “kids raised by wolves” are routinely referred to as “feral children.” Nothing about the term suggests furries or bestiality, simply a “decline” into wildness. I do not know if the author of the letter intended to use another word here (or, indeed, if the letter is at all real), but “feral” makes sense in the context it is used in and, probably due to the general quirkiness of using that word in an unexpected context, is hilarious. I’m going to start referring to all sorts of things as “feral and preposterous” from now on, until I get bored with it in a couple of days.

  25. I knew a guy whose “art”* consisted of sending absurd and irate letters to corporations in order to get back (hopefully) equally irate letters. To his credit it often worked and the replies were hilarious (I imagine over-educated lackeys probably enjoyed getting to fire off an angry letter to an obvious crackpot.) That said, this one is clearly the best official reply I’ve ever read.

    (* I considered it art, but I know others would just think of it as pranking.)

  27. What would be really funny is if the C4G management had made someone write this letter KNOWING it was a prank and the writer thought it was real.

  28. 1) The Suckerchump link includes other letters this guy has written to himself, e.g. one from Bush 43.

    2) Somebody printed it out and framed it in their Chinese restaurant.

  30. Wow, that’s real? The letter is so ridiculous I almost want to say the lawyer was in on the joke and playing along (but I’ve learned never to underestimate the human capacity for humorlessness!)

  31. This letter, and all of the letters at suckerchump, strike me as fake. The most telling factor is how often the author of the letter quotes the offensive content. Given how offensive the author is supposed to find the content, it stretches plausibility that they continually quote it so. The most plausible reason for the author to quote the offensive content like this is its humor value.

    Furthermore, thanks to the Internet, I have seen more than my fair share of actual cease-and-desist and other letters from lawyers. While an actual motion before a judge often does contain lots and lots of lurid details about the purported facts of the case, including quotes such as appear in these letters, a letter from a lawyer hardly ever does, largely because it’s usually boilerplate.

  32. HAAA! Cash4Gold is so deserving of treatment like this, freekin opportunists! This had me rolling on the floor.

  33. Jeff Aronson and Cash4Gold are total scumbags, taking advantage of dumbasses and encouraging theft better than any pawn shop ever could.

  38. Fake, and not at all funny. And I usually loooove good correspondence that ruffles some feathers with satire. This letter, and the few others on his site are declasse and not at all clever.

    Oh well.

  40. What a great idea though. I hope this letter starts a gold-painted-rock-mailing fad.

    The inclusion of quadripalegic hookers is optional.

  44. Feral means menacing and wild, amongst other things. I am certain they used it in the correct, yet awkward, context.

    ~Nicki~

  46. I say that the nuggets are actually skunk-ape droppings. and are actually worth 10 times the amount appraised!

  47. Easy to tell as fake: no creases from folding and mailing. Obviously printed and framed. But still hilarious…

  48. Merriam Webster’s 2nd entry for feral: not domesticated or cultivated : wild. It fits. In polite circles “backdoor entry” is an act considered un-cultivated or wild.

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