An aussie internet-site sold porn, “get 35 hrs. of… for only $…”. Well, good porn is expensive, so the company went bust. So, they sent cheques to their customers, “we’re sorry, we’ve gone bankrupt but here’s your money back”.
These cheques were custom designed to say the least. On the internet, the company had had an innocent sounding name, but it seemed their parent compagny was called Sexfuck Int. or somesuch, and had the cheque-stationery to prove they meant business. A lot of people didn’t feel like going to their bank to cash in.
That reminds me of the time, years ago, when I visited New Orleans. A number of the souvenir shops sold packets of gag envelopes with return addresses pre-printed on them, in large letters. Things like: Your Sexual Disease Testing Results or Madame Fifi’s Brothel - Past Due Collections Department.
Definitely an urban legend- a variation of this story was recounted as a scheme to recover 250,000 pounds lost at a crooked poker game in the film “Lock, Stock, And Two Smoking Barrels”.
The urban legend also overlooks the fact that a disturbingly large percentage of people in Australia would have no qualms at all about cashing a cheque from “SexFuck International”.
They take credit now?!? Why was I not informed? :eek:
The
[quote]
(Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) - Quotes - IMDb):
“Listen to this one then; you open a company called the Arse Tickler’s Faggot Fan Club. You take an advert in the back page of some gay mag, advertising the latest in arse-intruding dildos, sell it a bit with, er… I dunno, “does what no other dildo can do until now”, latest and greatest in sexual technology. Guaranteed results or money back, all that bollocks. These dills cost twenty-five each; a snip for all the pleasure they are going to give the recipients. They send a cheque to the company name, nothing offensive, er, Bobbie’s Bits or something, for twenty-five. You put these in the bank for two weeks and let them clear. Now this is the clever bit. Then you send back the cheques for twenty-five pounds from the real company name, Arse Tickler’s Faggot Fan Club, saying sorry, we couldn’t get the supply from America, they have sold out. Now you see how many of the people cash those cheques; not a single soul, because who wants his bank manager to know he tickles arses when he is not paying in cheques!”
Pablo Picasso was known for paying for even small purchases with a personal check rather than cash. Because often the recipient would prefer to save the check with his signature, rather than deposit it in the bank. Thus it was never withdrawn from Picasso’s account, so he effectively got his purchase for free. (Actually, the seller may have done alright too, given that an authentic Picasso signature now sells for near $1,000 US.)
During filming of Ocean’s Eleven in Las Vegas, actor George Clooney had a run of bad luck at the gambling tables and lost all his cash. And had no ID to get credit. So he borrowed $600 from fellow actor Matt Damon. (Which he also lost.) The next day he paid Matt back with a check, but he wrote in the memo line: “for lap dances”. Matt Damon refuses to cash the check, claiming that people will believe he was doing lap dances for George Clooney.
In the 1970’s, Al Goldstein, publisher of Screw magazine, claimed that “Reading Screw will make your penis grow” and offered a money-back guarantee for this claim. The small print required you to send a notarized statement asserting “despite reading Screw magazine, your penis is still too small to satisify your sexual partner(s)” in order to get your money back. Apparently, that kept people from ever using the guarantee.
t-bonham@scc.net - I’m sure I’m not the only one wanting to make the inevitable call of ‘cite?’ Especially the first one, which I’ve also heard variations of but involving other artists.
Sorry, but the first two are just reciting the same urban myth (or at least, that’s what I suspect it is). As for Clooney, I’ll accept it’s true, up to the point where Matt Damon really needed to worry about cashing a $600 cheque!
