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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."
23473437 Gold
23473437 Platinum
23473437 Me too!!!!11!!!one!!
23473437 Gold Rush
23473437 Pirates
23473437 Pirates -Caribbean
23473437 Plunder
23473437 Spam
23473437 Spam Gold
23473437 how to stop spam
23473437 gold in Mrs Wolfgang Hawkes' backyard
23473437 gold in Mrs Wolfgang Hawkes' frontyard
23473437 gold in Mrs Wolfgang Hawkes' land
23473437 gold in Medfield fields
23473437 court fight
23473437 lawyers
23473437 lawyers -sco
23473437 how to kill your wife
23473437 how to kill customers
23473437 poop
liqbase
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.
> "AOL said it will try to accommodate Hawke's parents by not being too obtrusive."
Now that's what I call an abundance of sensitivity!
man i don't know who to side against on this one, can't we rework this article to be like "innocent spam victim plans to take money back from evil spammer" or "AOL sues internet worker and destroys lawn looking for gold" man when the media isn't making it clear of what my opinion should be they're obviously not doing their job right
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
It'll be worse than an invasion of moles (or whatever the local burrowing creatures are.)
I believe the burrowing creatures you refer to are known as lawyers.
liqbase
... isn't there a way that they could use a helicopter equipped with metal detection devices to determine if anything is buried on the property without actually digging? (I'm pretty sure I saw this on a Law & Order: Criminal Intent once).
I would assume that a non-intrusive "search" of the property would at least be a middle ground between the two sides.
Hagrin.com
AOL move from data mining to actual mining
AOL will not offer to pay for damages caused. However they will give them a one time discount of 50% on an AOL Broadband Platinum account for the first 3 months (Subject to a 12 month contract, standard terms, conditions and fair usage policy apply)
To err is human. To forgive is not company policy.
Take away all income and possessions until the debt is paid.
.gold and platinum bars, because. . .
.
Someone didn't read the article. His income was from spamming and the only siezable possessions are a used cop car (whereabouts unknown) and . . .
. .
He now either has the choice of living in povery. .
He has already made that choice. For some reason he just likes the idea of living in poverty with gold and platinum buried somewhere. Makes him feel comfy or something just knowing it's there while he's eating cold Kraft macaroni and cheese in the back seat of his used cop car, down by the Connecticut River.
KFG
As you may have heard AOL is currently in the process of gold and platinum extraction from the lands of the Golde's estate.
We hear at Shark, Shark and Partners represent the Golde's estate. The estate firmly believe that the gold and platinum belong to people/s that have been victims of spam. Certainly not AOL.
with that in mind the estate would like to invite the public to be in a "treasure hunt". Unfortunately, due to obvious reasons, this cannot be open to all publics.
Hence we have selested a lucky few to be in the treasure hunt.
Only 400 has been invited.
Please reply to this e-mail to accept.
A processing fee of 20'000 will be required from each participant.
Yours truly.
Darl M.
P.s.. It's very sunny here in Chad. Hope to be vacationing with you next year here.
P.s.. A processing fee of 20'000 will be required from each participant. We are sure this ceratinly will be a drop
Timang tinggi tinggi
parang sudah asah
alang alang mandi
biar sampai basah
Because, as TFA stated, Davis Wolfgang Hawke did not turn up at the trial and cannot be found (at least by AOL), but they do have reciepts that he had purchased gold at the time, they believe in order to survive litigation more effectively.
As much as I hate the spammer, I have to credit him that he was bright enough to know how to commit a lucrative crime. People who work average pay jobs but start profiting from fraud or theft, often expose themselves as they start turning up to work in Ferraris and buying big new houses, they just shout to the world "I am making too much money somehow". Patiently buying gold is a smart way to work, you just have to know when to quit so you can spend your cash, away from the scene of the crime. I guess DWH has done just this.
Personally, I can see the logic in hunting in the parents garden, as it seems he was living there when he was aquiring the gold. But isn't it more likely he has just taken them wherever he has gone?
If this were really happening, what would you think?
Not if I get there first.
**grabs shovel**
He converted it all to gold... Which isn't such a bad idea the way the dollar is devaluing. Then he disappeared, presumably to come back and get it when AOL have given up.
People are creatures of habit and familiarity, he's probably hidden it somewhere he's familiar with and is fairly sure it's unlikely to be disturbed. Places he's visited regularly, holidayed, relatives etc. The more often he's been there the greater the familiarity and the greater the chance he's hidden it there. AOL are going after the logical first target.
Deleted
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
Dear Sir,
This is Davis Wolfgang Hawke, an ex-spammer that lost a $12 million lawsuit from AOL, who are going to seize my $6 million in gold and platinum bars that I've hidden in the area of Boston, MA.
I need to recover the gold bars as soon as possible, before the AOL investigators get a chance to dig them up, however, I am unable to come back to US in fear of being arrested.
To this end, I'm seeking your cooperation. I'm willing to provide you with 10% share of the fortune, which is $600,000 dollars (sig hundred thousand dollars) in gold and platinum bars. Please, this business is extremely urgent and I will need your cooperation soon. I know you are a honest person, because I found your name in one of my extensively verified spam-lists, and I would like to conduct this business with you. You can remain confident that this business is completely safe as there is no risk for you whatsoever, only gains to be made. If you are willing to make this business with me, contact me at grep_shmep_20143@yahoo.com.
Best Regards,
Davis
...if they dug up my back garden, they'd find 5 years worth of unsolicited ISP CDs they used to send me - oh, let's call them spam for the sake of argument - and bloody annoying they were too!
(Found here)
Just make sure you tell them that you think the bars are buried under those big rocks you've been wanting to remove from the garden
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
True, but assuming AOL gets permission from a court to search the area, they really have no motivation to be less destructive than they're allowed to be. If they can demonstrate to a judge that there's reasonable cause to believe that the couple are protecting a cache of misbegotten goods, and one of their goals is also to make a point to the world/public about spamming and how it's not a good thing to do, then it would make sense that they would try and argue for the most destructive method of searching available.
I'd say that the best way to do it would be to go in there with heavy equipment, and just run all the dirt on the property down to a depth of about six feet or so through a sifter. It's probably reasonably cheap from AOL's perspective (all you need is a backhoe and a separator/sifter -- that's probably not the right term for it, but you've probably seen the machines that do this), and it creates a nice TV image if what you want to show is a spammer/family-of-spammer getting their lives trashed.
A whole lot of people out there really hate spammers; it's one of those things that pretty much everybody hates and has to deal with, and the idea that people who profited (potentially) from spam are getting their lives turned upside down isn't necessarily a bad PR move. Of course, it could easily backfire if the people in question can portray themselves as the victims, but if they're sufficiently uncharismatic, don't think for a moment that the American public won't be beside themselves with glee seeing their lawn get trashed. Public opinion in this country has a bit of a vengeful streak -- there's nothing we like better than seeing karma come around and bite someone in the ass.
All depends on who can make themselves look like the good guy.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
They only got half the medalion! The staff was too long. They're digging in the wrong place!
http://www.netjeff.com/humor/item.cgi?file=kgb.txt
The phone rings at KGB headquarters.
"Hello?"
"Hello, is this KGB?"
"Yes. What do you want?"
"I'm calling to report my neighbor Yankel Rabinovitz as an enemy of the
State. He is hiding undeclared diamonds in his firewood."
"This will be noted."
Next day, the KGB goons come over to Rabinovitz's house. They search
the shed where the firewood is kept, break every piece of wood, find no
diamonds, swear at Yankel Rabinovitz and leave.
The phone rings at Rabinovitz's house.
"Hello, Yankel! Did the KGB come?"
"Yes."
"Did they chop your firewood?"
"Yes, they did."
"Okay, now it's your turn to call. I need my vegetable patch plowed."
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
If I knew that AOL was coming with bulldozers to dig in my yard, I would go out and get a couple hundred ingots of iron and bury them around my yard at random. Maybe also buy a few junk cars and park them around the yard.
-Matt