I recently received one of those “all to good to be true” letters in the mail.

I have to admit, they got me curious enough to open it by hand addressing the envelope.

Upon opening it, I found out that I was the lucky recipient of an award!  Two round trip airline tickets!  Congrats to me!  Reading a bit further, I even found out that this was my last notice – apparently they had attempted to contact me previously…

Yes!  I just need to call (214)-932-0716 and I can receive my winnings!  Hell, even Amy Yates personally signed the letter; it must be legit!  A quick glance at their website and Google search surprisingly didn’t turn up much information on this company.  I fell upon another of their shell companies: “Lambert Steel” which has oddly familiar scamsite – also looks like they are associated with CVI Travel.

From what I can tell, the letters are often postmarked from AZ, NY, NJ, FL, TX or CA – but never a return address.  Who signs the letter varies; at the very least between my beloved Amy Yates and Julie Harris.  The existing phone numbers associated with the scam are:

973-302-9053

214-932-0716

302-365-8228

480-281-0118

480-567-1642

732-676-4053

303-242-3511

And I’m sure many many more.  Do not respond to these letters if you get one – they will try to reach you numerous times.

Anyone else have information about this slime-ball “company”?

UPDATE 7/15: The only action I can see taking against this company is filing a report at the BBB.  Any other suggestions that don’t involve TP-ing Amy Yates house?

UPDATE 7/22: Legal threats made to me via Facebook from Amy Yates “herself”!  Post also contains updated list of phone numbers used from people in this comment thread.

UPDATE 7/24: Thanks to commenter “Bart” for finding a couple other names they go under!  Avoid Spencer Burns, Donovan Rich, and Hammond Reed (although this one appears to have lapsed the domain registration).  It also appears that they have gotten our contact info via job sites such as Monster and Career Builder.

UPDATE 8/8: One more company name to add to the list: Bradley Tate.  If you have lost track of all the names this company uses, we are up to at least 6.  Bradley Tate, Spencer Burns, Hammond Reed, Donovan Rich, Lambert Steel, and Watson Brooks; all having the exact same website sending out the same letters with the same letterhead but different shell company name.  The sites tend to go dormant quickly once the word is out that its the same scamming company.

Here is the hand signed letter for my “winnings”:

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I went to a friend’s cottage on Lake Michigan for the 4th. The beach was mostly gone! You can even see a ridge. Global warming! Ha, actually it just rained a lot this spring…

To give you some perspective, this is the same beachfront last year (notice the post):

Lake Michigan beachfront July 6, 2008

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We took a trip out to Possum Kingdom this weekend with some friends for the 4th of July.  Now, I am from Michigan, where pretty much every type of firework is illegal (save sparklers and the like).  Texas is no Michigan in that regard.  Fireworks are pretty much standard, and these are sizable fireworks.

Horror stories about people losing extremities while using these sorts of fireworks make me hesitant to mess around with them.  The guys I was with were more than confident at their own handling and use of these digit-destroyers.  One guy even went as far to say:

“Fireworks are perfectly safe as long as you use them properly”

This quote was tested and proven about 20 minutes later when we were scurrying around with hoses putting out three separate grass fires produced by one of these “proper” uses of fireworks.  Luckily, nobody was hurt – save for some egos.

All in all we had a great time with some great friends.  Possum Kingdom is a gorgeous lake.  The sheer cliff walls and clear blue skies made for a picturesque setting.  After a couple of days, we had our fill of plenty of sun, wake boarding, fireworks, and beer, and today we are nursing our wounds.  Some of us even needed to begin the wounds nursing in the middle of the yesterday:

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I’ve recently discovered at work that during conference calls, the host can enter *5 which mutes everyone else and forces the participants to listen to the host.

The social equivalent of “shut up and listen to me” is something I could always use.

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We recently finished our current kitchen remodeling.  Essentially we expanded our kitchen island and put on a new counter top.   This got us more working space as well as more storage space with an new cabinet and a space for the garbage bin.  We also painstakingly darkened the cabinets and purchased new cabinet hardware.  The painstaking part was that it took a good 8 or 9 layers to darken it.  Detailed pictures are on Picasa, but if you just want a before and after shot.  Feel free to ooo and ahhh.

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This past weekend, instead of having a home break-in, we had a home break-out.

My Saturday mornings usually consist of me attempting to sleep in while cats paw at my face and attack my toes, but this past Saturday was different – I actually slept in.  I awoke, immediately thinking “That’s odd, the cats never bothered me this morning…”  Maybe they had matured to the point where they don’t feel the insessant need to torture me when I’m trying to sleep in.  Who knows?

I grab a morning cup of coffee, and walk to the office to check my e-mail, and that is where I found the evidence.  The window screen in the office had been pushed out, and it looked like the cats had had an early morning adventure outside.  That vague uneasy feeling was in the pit of my stomach – we don’t normally let our cats outside.  Soon enough though, the cats came into the office from the living room, putting on their usually innocent eyes act.  It didn’t work though; you could see the muddy cat paw prints on the windowsill.  Caught muddy pawed.

Of course, now I’m trying to figure out if I need to screw the screen so that when the windows are open, we don’t have any more jail-breaks.

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