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AOL Digs Up Yard for Spam Gold
Registered Coward v2 writes "AOL is planning to dig in a MA couple's yard looking for buried gold and platinum owned by a spammer they successfully sued for spamming AOL. AOL said Tuesday it intends to search for gold and platinum bars the company suspects are hidden near the home of Davis Wolfgang Hawke's parents on two acres in Medfield, Massachusetts. The family said it will fight in court to oppose AOL's plans."
I know this will sound like a stupid "If you've got nothing to hide...", but really, if there weren't anything hidden out there, and AOL could be made sure to fix any damage the do (grass, trees, etc).. why would you fight this? Wouldn't it simply be AMUSING to watch them flail blindly?
Belief is the currency of delusion.
As if bulldozers weren't obtrusive when they're tearing up your yard?
Is it possible for AOL to do anything even more stupid? Are they trying to set a record for stuipd things in a month? Never have the mighty fallen so far.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Yes, this is the type of criminal that is hard to pin down. He hasn't been convicted of a criminal offence, he just lost a civil case for scamming. He was smart enough to convert much of his ill gotten gains into easily hidden and transported precious metals, he never drove a flashy car or bought property which could be seized. He analyzed the risks and knew that the worst that could happen to him was forfeiture of his gains in a civil trial, so he purposefully worked to hide those gains.
/.ers to post exact details of the parents property and .kmz files of the property in question. It shouldn't take long now.
Assuming he was smart, he has already moved some of the gold to another country and is living outside the US. What he buried on his parents property was safe for a while, and he could always return and dig it up as needed. What he didn't count on was AOL's private investigators finding his receipts for gold bars, which gave them a lead to how he hid his wealth.
Now AOL is trying to force his hand. If a large portion of the gold remains on his parent's property, he'll need to return and dig it up before AOL gets a court order. Presumably the property is under surveillance by private detectives who will get a share if they can detect exactly where the stash is hidden and give the courts precise information allowing a less costly recovery. AOL probably doesn't care much about getting the money for themselves as denying the spammer access to it. It sends a message to other spammers that no matter how hard they try to hide their wealth, AOL and the courts will eventually recover it.
It should be entertaining to see how many treasure hunters find his parent's property and start prospecting in the middle of the night. I'd expect after national news coverage like this, tonight there will be several new holes dug in his parents property, and within weeks most of the property will have been scanned by 'passers-by' who just happened to have a sensitive metal detector while taking a short cut from A to B. If AOL doesn't get in there soon, the gold will certainly be gone, either the parents know where it is and will recover it, the scammer will return some night to get it, or a treasure hunter will eventually get lucky.
I'm on the wrong continent, so I'll just sit back and wait for the first
the AC
US$600,000 per month!?! Damn, I'm in the wrong line of work. Curse my parents for raising me with a sense of morality
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
I live and currently am typing this in Medfield and I have to say that this is one of the biggest things to happen to this town since Disney started using the name in all of his movies... Wiki page on medfield There's only about 12,000 people in the town and I know exactly where that house is which kinda makes me want to take a walk with a shovel this weekend...
Not so. Years ago, while studying engineering in at UMASS-Amherst (that's WESTERN Mass, son...) I discovered a valley that time and genetic exchange had forgotten. It was called Pumpkin Hollow, and it was accessed by a dirt road that dropped into a closed off valley.
The valley contained 4 farmhouses, and the kids that ran up to me could have fallen out of any of the earlier Firefox books. The one boy, whose teeth would have been welcome in any Waffle House, explained '...and them two got marred and moved into THAT house, then this one marred that one 'n' them all moved into that OTHER house...' Etc.
Very Scary. And from Massachusetts.
And even if AOL lose they've marked the spot with a big X. There are going to be plenty of people believing that there is gold hidden on the property and they'll all be sneaking around and digging holes hoping to get a piece of the treasure. It'll be worse than an invasion of moles (or whatever the local burrowing creatures are.)
AOL would be smart to enlist the few remaining people who are stupid enough to pay for AOHell services, by offering the gullible fools a chance to *S*T*R*I*K*E *G*O*L*D* !!! .
[insert typically flashy AOL marketing letter here]
Anyone dumb enough to be an AOL subscriber is almost certainly going to be eager to buy another year's susbcription to win a chance to dig ALL THE GOLD A PERSON CAN CARRY out of some spammer's backyard. No gold need actually be buried there...
As much as I loathe AOL, I despise spammers. I can't think of any more fitting punishment for a spammer than to have hordes of AOLusers digging up his family's yard.
"You're young, you're drunk, you're in bed, you have knives; shit happens." -- Angelina Jolie