WANT AD. FAKERS.

THE PETTY DOLLAR SWINDLERS PUT OUT OF BUSINESS IN CHICAGO BY DETECTIVE CLIFTON R. WOOLDRIDGE.

The cheap little grafter who takes dollars, dimes, nickels and pennies from the poor, while not exactly a great financier, is one of the smoothest propositions with which secret service men and federal inspectors are confronted. His main hold is on the public press, because he operates through the seemingly innocuous want advertisement.

The statements of some advertisers may be taken literally; some should be taken with caution, and some should not be taken at all. In the postoffice department at Washington, in the files of the assistant attorney general, one may study the methods of the black sheep of the advertising fold against whom fraud orders have been issued. A fraud order is an order directed to a postmaster forbidding him to deliver letters to a certain person or concern or to cash money orders for them.

If a man swindles his neighbor without using the mails the postoffice department will not interfere with him, although the police may, but if he attempts to make Uncle Sam a party to the swindle, the old gentleman lets loose on him a horde of postoffice inspectors, who not only put a stop to the business, but frequently put the swindler himself behind the bars. The department issues year in and year out an average of one fraud order a day, and an examination of the reports of the inspectors who have investigated these cases is apt to convince one that the long-accepted estimate that there is a sucker born every minute is much too low. The schemes most commonly employed are here set forth.

Home Work Scheme Catches Many.

The chance to earn a few dollars a week without leaving home appeals to many women whose household duties occupy the greater part of their daylight hours. Unfortunately the work-at-home scheme catches not only the woman whose object is merely to earn a little pin money and who in many cases can afford to lose a dollar or two without suffering any hardship as a consequence, but it gathers in as well the working girl eager to add to her scanty earnings by engaging in some remunerative work at home.

The work-at-home scheme is operated in a variety of ways, but the underlying principle is the same in all cases. Sometimes the work to be done consists in embroidering doilies or in making lace, and in other cases it consists in filling in with gilt paint price tickets printed in outline. In all cases the work is described as easy, the advertisements assuring the reader that experience is unnecessary. In all cases, too, the victim is obliged to buy, from the promoters of the scheme, "materials" or a lace-making machine or some other object before she is given any work. The following description of a scheme against which a fraud order was issued last May will make clear the methods pursued by all fakers of the work-at-home class. The advertisement in this case reads as follows:

Home Work, $9 to $15; No Canvassing.

$5 to $6 weekly working evenings; experience unnecessary. Inclose stamps for instructions, sample, etc. Address B. Wilson & Co., 603 Walnut street, Philadelphia, Pa.

Money Charged for Fake "Outfits."

To those who reply to this advertisement a circular letter is sent stating that the work required consists in filling in with bronze paint store-window price tickets printed in outline, one of which, partly filled in, is inclosed as a sample.

If you don't know just where to go Or how to do the thing that you May have in mind—or if you find That you can't rise—then advertise, A "Business Chances" ad advances Your desires to many buyers— And our Want Ads, if you use them, Bring so many—you can choose them.

The circular states that the work is easily done, requires no previous experience, and that all that is necessary, is to do the work in a neat manner. Two dollars and a half a hundred is offered for tickets filled in as described, and the prospective victim is assured that she can easily gild at least 100 tickets a day. She will require an "outfit," of course, the cost of which is generously put at the remarkably low price of $1.10.

In return for her $1.10 the victim receives a handful of window tickets, a small bottle of bronze paint, and a brush for applying it—the actual value of the articles furnished, including postage, being fully covered by the extra 10 cents.

The worst is yet to come. When the woman, having parted with her money and having spent her time in filling in the handful of tickets sent her, returns them, at her own expense, she receives, not a check in payment for the work done, but a circular letter stating that her work is "unsatisfactory." She may possess the talent of a Rosa Bonheur and a department store ticket writer rolled into one, but she will never succeed in selling a cent's worth of bronzed price tickets to the fakers who sold her the "outfit." Their business is not to buy but to sell, and her fate is not to sell but to be sold. Similar to the work-at-home scheme is what may be described as the letter-writing dodge. The following is a typical advertisement of its class:

LADIES—Earn $20 per hundred writing short letters. Stamped envelope for particulars. Gem Manufacturing Company, Cassopolis, Mich.

When the woman anxious to earn an honest penny replies to this ad. she receives the following letter:

Dear Madam:

We pay at the rate of $20 per hundred or 20 cents for each letter sent us in accordance with our printed circular of instructions, and make remittances to you of all money earned by you at the end of each week. The letter which we send you to copy contains only eighty words, and can be written either with typewriter or with pen and ink, as you prefer, and you can readily see that you can write a number of letters during your leisure time each day.

You do not pay us one penny for anything, except $1 for the instructions and for packing and mailing the Ideal Hoodwinkem which we send you.

There is no canvassing connected with the work, and if you follow our instructions you can earn good wages from the start.

When the victim sends her dollar for the instructions and for the Ideal Hoodwinkem (or whatever the name of the article the fakers are selling happens to be), she discovers that the 20 cents is not to be paid merely for writing a letter. Oh, no! The 20 cents will be paid only for such letters as induce some other woman to part with a dollar for one of "Our Ideal Hoodwinkems." The following letter, which is sent after the unsuspecting one's dollar has been safely salted down, lays bare the true inwardness of the scheme:

Dear Madam:

We herewith hand you trial blanks, also copy of letter which you are to write. You are to send these letters out to ladies, and for every letter which you write and send out and which is returned to us with $1 inclosed for one of our Ideal Hoodwinkems, with your number on the letter, we will send you a cash commission of 20 cents.

It is needless to say that the fakers do not expect their victim to be so stupid as to send out the letters on the terms indicated. The object of the plan is accomplished when "dear madam" parts with her dollar for the letter of instructions and the Hoodwinkem, which would be dear at 10 cents.

A Smooth Scheme.

One of the simplest and most effective schemes for hooking new "suckers" was adopted by a Dearborn street "investment" concern. This consisted in sending to a prospective victim a check for $100, made payable to some other man, and accompanied by a brief letter telling that recipient would find inclosed his weekly dividend on his investment of $1,000. Of course the marked "sucker" knew nothing of the deal, and, believing a mistake had been made would return the check and letter. He at once received in reply an apologetic letter, stating that the first letter and check had been inserted in the wrong envelope through the carelessness of a clerk, it having been the intention to mail to the recipient a circular instead of another man's check for dividends. It was enough. Ten per cent a week was not to be resisted. The "sucker" almost invariably opened negotiations on his own initiative and was landed.

Financial "Journal" Frauds.

The multiplicity of these schemes led to the establishment of the "financial paper," designed, according to the publisher's statement, to guard investors against get-rich-quick frauds. To the police these papers are known as "special form papers." The editor comprises the staff. The contents consist of financial matter usually stolen from reputable journals, a formidable array of financial advertising, and, most important, "reports" on investment concerns. For a consideration the "special form" paper tells its readers that the "Cotton Mutual Investment Company" is sound and reliable. The manager of the "Cotton Mutual" buys as many copies of the paper as he wants, as it has no regular time of publication, and can be run off in any quantity at any time with the article boosting the "Cotton Mutual." The get-rich-quick manager then sees to it that the paper finds its way into the hands of his "sucker list," or list of names of persons whom he hopes to be able to induce to "invest."

Therefore, when reading want ads. in the newspapers, consider carefully the nature of the promises made. If they are too rosy, too high-flown, have nothing to do with that ad. or the man who inserted it. You may depend upon it that it is a fake. There are no great armies of persons walking about this country seeking to give away something for nothing.