A PALPABLE FRAUD.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1204, 5 February 1914, Page 4

A PALPABLE FRAUD.

The EUham Argus received an advertisement from a Sydney firm announcing that it was prepared to send to its customers ten yards of silk for 23 6d. There were twelve different colours to select from, only ten yards would be supplied to any one buyer, and the offer was to close on the 14th January. The correspondence was typewritten on a good quality of paper with a nicely printed heading from which we learned that the firm was the largest silk importer in the world and had establishments in Paris, Brussels, New York, Eondon, Vienna, Berlin, Glasgow, Manchester and Quebec. We were instructed to insert the advertisement at once and render the account for which an immediate remittance would be sent. We thought that the offer of ten yards of silk for 2S 6d was really too good, so good that we at once branded the thing as a fraud, and did not insert the advertisement. One of our Taranaki contemporaries was taken in and inserted the advertisement. Now we read in a contemporary the following : “Two crooks in Sydney made a great haul by advertising that they were offering for 2s 6d sufficient silk to make three or four dresses. The bargain hunting sex rushed the show, and the police raid brought to light 12,000 money orders and postal notes. Of course the silk was never delivered.” It seems that we were right in viewing the affair with suspicion and are pleased that we did not lead any of our readers into temptation by inserting an advertisement that was so temptingly worded that it would have been sure to have extracted many a half crown from them.