[UA] Legendary Scam

[Royal Minister of Stuff]

That's a sweet roper.  My con game lingo all hails
from "The Sting" and "The Grifters," but it looks like
they worked the blow-off (this is a slightly hush-hush
transaction - not quite on the up-and-up) along with
the sweetner (promise of lots of cash) into their
approach.  I also like the bit about risk-free. Very
nice.

Speaking of Scams, and in an attempt to relate money
matters back over to UA, are you aware of Deluxe
corporation and their methodologies?  Deluxe, along
with Harland, Clarke-American and Liberty
something-something are the leading check printers in
the united states.  If you get checks from your bank,
you're really getting them from one of these guys.
About ten years back, small printing firms began
trying to compete with them -making "custom checks,"
that is, checks with different pictures on them than
lighthouses and blue or green "safety" paper.

Deluxe bought out one of the most popular of these
firms, Current (now Checks Unlimited), while
Clarke-American bought out Checks-in-the-Mail and
Artistic, I think.  As a result, very few of the
"custom check printers" are actually independant
firms.  (I think Rosencrantz and Gildensten checks
-makes of such fine check backgrounds as one covered
with bugs and dancing skeletons- are independant, as
is this firm in FL which prints fanboy checks, like
Star Trek, Oz and Xena.)

Now for the UA hook: while plutomancy would seem to
fit nicely in with the idea of checks and money
transfer, it might be a good red-herring to throw at
your players to have them chasing down a box of
specialty checks with an "unusual" design on them. 
The checks -probably with some eerie symbolic imagery
on them- are being used to pay for all sorts of
interesting things, from "general" items in a medical
supply warehouse (hand of glory or mandragora
connotations, of course) to things which directly mess
with the players.  All the checks in this unique
design are written for just under the taboo amount for
plutomancers.

After it turns out that this has nothing to do with
Plutomancy, the actually design on the checks might
start pointing them toward bibliomancy or even
cliomantic schools of reference. You can refer to
"Suppressed Transmission" for some great ideas of what
might be on these checks -or even just check out R&G
checks for some RL gruesome imagery.  In the end, it
turns out that these much sought-after checks are
simply a design put out by the last independant check
printers. You can work in Gnomes of Zurich references
to this if you have a conspiracy itch or just have
big, bad monopolies (or some sort of Trust centered
around the Big Three or Four -Harland, Liberty,
Clarke-American and Deluxe) trying to find out who
this last indpendant check printer is (they're an
underground, very exclusive club of college printers
-perhaps even affiliated with Mac Attax) and trying to
crush them or gobble them up.  I like the idea of men
in black being bank officers.  I would definately have
two of them named "Jane and Michael."



--- James Ganong <JGanong at webtv.net> wrote:
> I've heard of this scam being run (send us your
> banking info & a small
> fee & we'll put this money in your account) using
> Nigeria as an alleged
> location;  I didn't realise it was still active &
> that I'd ever be
> approached for it!
> 
(message snipped)


=====
-- Rp Bowman, Royal Minister of Stuff
The Electronic Nation of Yokeltania:
http://www.geocities.com/yokeltania/

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