firstsgtmike
05-30-03, 02:11 AM
I wrote this in the 1980's. When holding or speaking at investment seminars, I would pass it out in lieu of a business card. It also guaranteed that they would remember me.
Several times, I would receive a phone call and one of the attendees would ask if the Rat Farm was a put-on or serious. I told they that they had better make an appointment with my secretary. They needed help.
When I retired from business, I had a great quantity of the letters, so every time I paid a bill throu the mail, I included one. Whenever I received junk mail with a postage paid return envelope, I sent them one of my Rat Farm letters.
To get back to my subject of trolling; Believe it or not, over the years that I mailed these to electric companies, finance companies, insurance companies, etc.etc. etc. I received NINE phone calls that I identified as government fraud investigators, each one wanting to know how much money to send and where to send it.
They were more than just a little bit irate and hung up when I told them they were too stupid to recognize the joke.
Why am I posting this now? Because I sensed, right or wrong, a troll question that could have gotten some respondents in trouble. It reminded me of my Rat Farm experience, and I thought the letter was worth sharing.
MIKE FARRELL & ASSOCIATES
Investment Counselors
(address and phone number)
Dear Investor,
I know you are interested in sound investment opportunities.
A group of us are considering an investment in a large cat ranch in Mexico. We will start rather small, with only one million cats. Each cat averages about twelve kittens each year;
skins could be sold for 20 cents for the white ones and up to 40 cents for the black.
This will give us twelve million cat skins per year at an average price of 32 cents each, making our revenues approximately $3 million per year. This averages out to $10 thousand a day, excluding Sundays and holidays.
A good cat man can skin fifty cats a day at a wage of $4.00 per day. It will only require 663 men to operate the ranch so the net profit would be over $2,750 per day.
The cats would be fed exclusively on rats. Rats multiply four times as fast as cats. We will have a rat ranch adjacent to our cat farm. If we start with a million rats, we will have four rats per cat per day. The rats would be fed on the carcasses of the cats. This will give each rat a quarter of a cat.
This business is a clean operation, self supporting and fully automatic.
The cats eat the rats, the rats eat the cats, and we get the skins.
Eventually, we will crossbreed the cats with snakes. Snakes skin themselves twice each year. This will eliminate the cost of skinning as well as give us two skins per cat per year.
We are presently looking for an outlet for the rat skins. The holdup is the cost of sewing them together to make them look like seal skins for ladies wraps and formal evening wear.
Our accountant is estimating the depreciation write-offs for cats (and rats) and will have the results ready for our formal prospectus which will be forwarded to sophisticated investors such as yourself in the very near future.
Sincerely yours,
MIKE FARRELL
------------------------------------------------------------------
Gentlemen;
The subject is Trolling. Remember the Miranda Warning, "Anything you say can and will be used against you."
Nuff said.
Enjoy the joke.
Several times, I would receive a phone call and one of the attendees would ask if the Rat Farm was a put-on or serious. I told they that they had better make an appointment with my secretary. They needed help.
When I retired from business, I had a great quantity of the letters, so every time I paid a bill throu the mail, I included one. Whenever I received junk mail with a postage paid return envelope, I sent them one of my Rat Farm letters.
To get back to my subject of trolling; Believe it or not, over the years that I mailed these to electric companies, finance companies, insurance companies, etc.etc. etc. I received NINE phone calls that I identified as government fraud investigators, each one wanting to know how much money to send and where to send it.
They were more than just a little bit irate and hung up when I told them they were too stupid to recognize the joke.
Why am I posting this now? Because I sensed, right or wrong, a troll question that could have gotten some respondents in trouble. It reminded me of my Rat Farm experience, and I thought the letter was worth sharing.
MIKE FARRELL & ASSOCIATES
Investment Counselors
(address and phone number)
Dear Investor,
I know you are interested in sound investment opportunities.
A group of us are considering an investment in a large cat ranch in Mexico. We will start rather small, with only one million cats. Each cat averages about twelve kittens each year;
skins could be sold for 20 cents for the white ones and up to 40 cents for the black.
This will give us twelve million cat skins per year at an average price of 32 cents each, making our revenues approximately $3 million per year. This averages out to $10 thousand a day, excluding Sundays and holidays.
A good cat man can skin fifty cats a day at a wage of $4.00 per day. It will only require 663 men to operate the ranch so the net profit would be over $2,750 per day.
The cats would be fed exclusively on rats. Rats multiply four times as fast as cats. We will have a rat ranch adjacent to our cat farm. If we start with a million rats, we will have four rats per cat per day. The rats would be fed on the carcasses of the cats. This will give each rat a quarter of a cat.
This business is a clean operation, self supporting and fully automatic.
The cats eat the rats, the rats eat the cats, and we get the skins.
Eventually, we will crossbreed the cats with snakes. Snakes skin themselves twice each year. This will eliminate the cost of skinning as well as give us two skins per cat per year.
We are presently looking for an outlet for the rat skins. The holdup is the cost of sewing them together to make them look like seal skins for ladies wraps and formal evening wear.
Our accountant is estimating the depreciation write-offs for cats (and rats) and will have the results ready for our formal prospectus which will be forwarded to sophisticated investors such as yourself in the very near future.
Sincerely yours,
MIKE FARRELL
------------------------------------------------------------------
Gentlemen;
The subject is Trolling. Remember the Miranda Warning, "Anything you say can and will be used against you."
Nuff said.
Enjoy the joke.