David didn’t have the money to pay his account (for some mystery service—we don’t know what), so he decided to see if they’d accept a drawing instead. Turns out they won’t. The email exchange that follows is hilarious, and much more entertaining for both parties than the old put-the-wrong-check-in-the-envelope trick.
Please note that we didn’t include a picture of the drawing because David might try to charge us for it. We really can’t afford $233 right now.
Good Idea!: Man Submits Drawing Of Spider Instead Of Payment For Overdue Account [Geekologie] (Thanks to Anthony!)
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Here’s the original site of this letter.
@Bauer22: D’oh!
[www.27bslash6.com]“
@Bauer22:
If that’s the original site of the letter, it doesn’t mention where it even came from. I say it’s made up.
@changed my name: Considering that the domain 27bslash6.com is registered to Thorne, David, I would say he’s the originating source.
Couldn’t tell you if it really happened between Mr. Thorne and a business, though.
@changed my name:
O.K….after reading the post below by “gibbersome”, I take back my original comment.
I couldn’t even finish it.
I’ll have to wait until I get home cause I look like an idiot trying to stiffle my LOL in my cube.
@tande04: Heck, I didn’t bother stifling it. I just went ahead and showed it to my cubemate.
@stezton: same here. but by now my office mates know about my habit of reading the consumerist articles and occasionally breaking out into laughter. what magical substance was this man smoking?
There is no way that’s real. “Jane” sounds like a bot to me.
@gafpromise: No way it’s a bot.
@gafpromise: Generally, they don’t program bots to return drawings by email.
Brilliant! Kudos to the Rep. she kept it cool the entire time.
I’m surprised he didn’t insist that by copying and pasting it that she retained a copy, and therefore owed him royalties for duplicating the work.
@tedyc03: That would just make him sound like a moron.
I wonder if this made the sales rep’s day better or worse.
@Katxyz: She’s in collections. There is no way to make her day better.
Wow, that has to be the funniest exchange I’ve ever read between a customer service rep and poor person ever. This will be forwarded many times….
So, service rep in India not understanding the humor or American service rep playing along?
@Daniels: Americans have a sense of humour? Someone tell that to the Consumerist…
Err…..
[news.ninemsn.com.au]
@gibbersome: ROFL! He undervalued his drawing. If he just sold it before (like it would sell for that price) he could paid off that bill pretty quick.
@gibbersome: “Andreas” had better foot the bill for Mr. Thorne’s outstanding $233.95.
@gibbersome: Did anyone read the eBay spokesperson’s quote? ‘People can sell whatever they want on eBay and an email attachment is a physical product’? WTF? How the hell is an attachment, or any digital storage, a physical product?
@shufflemoomin: Maybe the ability to save it and print it out makes it a physical product.
I am sorry, but David is a bad consumer and is being a jackass. It may be funny [I laughed], but that does not stop this from being stupid. The first spider, cute, kind of funny, I can see a laugh internally, but going on from there, just asinine.
May as well just send a check for $15 and write a binding memo that if it is cashed all debts are forgiven. : Just as effective in the end, unless the company really screws that one up too.
@maztec: Picasso was reported to have sketched some work on a piece of paper or napkin for his house to show a contractor what he wanted. When he asked the contractor how much it would be, the contractor said that the actual sketch would be fine as payment.
@John: I wish I was that awesome. Can you imagine going to the grocery store, sketching the groceries you’d like and having the cashier say “I’ll accept that sketch as payment.”? I want that to be my superpower.
@maztec:
If you follow the link provided by gibbersome above, you’ll read a bit about this David fellow having an account with some utility company in arrears. However, if you look at the site with which this originated (which I saw some number of weeks ago as a Reddit link), you find this:
“Jane
Voodoo Magic Money Lady
I read recently of a ‘qualified’ chiropractor that has been using distance healing for quite some time, claiming he can heal you from his living room. There’s no need to visit his office, just call or write and he will do the rest. Apparently he discovered his special chiropractic skill while he was in his car; his foot hurt and he told it to realign itself. I did not make this up.”
If you take it to be the case that the company with which he has this outstanding debt is one which purports to be able to provide distance healing at 233 some-odd dollars a shot, then, if you reread it, you find this e-mail exchange to be much more poignant, humorous, and meaningful. And you find also, I should hope, that that David has not paid this huckstering chiropractor the money he “owes” him for his “professional distance healing services” not to be wrong in a moral or ethical sense but only in a legal sense.
Personally, I applaud him for it.
@maztec: By “just as effective” I hope you mean “not really all that effective, actually”.
Best customer service I have ever witnessed in my life.
Fake but creative. No evidence that this was not made up for entertainment. The company name is not mentioned and this is fake.
@balilanai: Hater.
@balilanai: Please, do go on about how this is clearly photoshopped and you can see pixels all over the place.
@balilanai: Are you suggesting that there is absolutely no way that this exchange could have taken place?
@balilanai: not fake, as i said below. “for those saying its fake, pretty sure its not, hes a friend of my girlfriends, which made me go wtf when i saw this, we read it on his livejournal a few days ago
”
wonder if he can chargeback a drawn spider if the account representative refused to return the email attachment
Freakin hilarious. I chose not to stifle my LOLs at my cube – and now I am being peeked at from around the corner.
I am betting that the collection rep is enjoying this at least a little. I’m sure she told some of her coworkers about it.
This reminds me of a hilarious book my g/f got me called Letters from a Nut by Ted L. Nancy (its a pseudonym, some believe the author is Jerry Seinfield) [www.amazon.com]
Basically, the author sends crazy letters to all these corporations, government offices and famous people only to see how seriously he’s taken in the obscure responses he receives. Usually, its the responses from these people that are more funny than the situations the author creates with the initial letter. I highly reccommend the read, its right up Consumerist’s alley.
@LastVigilante: Don Novello, who is better known to most people as Father Guido Sarducci of SNL fame, beat “Letters from a Nut” to the punch by a couple of decaded with “The Lazlo Letters,” which is well worth checking out.
[www.amazon.com]
@LastVigilante: Thanks for the book recommendation!
for those saying its fake, pretty sure its not, hes a friend of my girlfriends, which made me go wtf when i saw this, we read it on his livejournal a few days ago
@krztov: He couldn’t be making it up because he’s a friend of your girlfriend’s and he wrote about it on his LiveJournal? I’m not sure I follow your logic.
It’s entertaining either way, though.
@krztov: It is indeed fake, as my priceless journalism has uncovered:
[www.mintred.com]
Apparently, he gave the spider away and is now sold for charity…
[cgi.ebay.com]
“Please note that we didn’t include a picture of the drawing because David might try to charge us for it. We really can’t afford $233 right now.”
^ That’s knee-slappingly clever!
@Ein2015:
I doubt he would, apparently the spider was given away and was subsequently sold on e-bay.
LGT ebay auction that ended. [cgi.ebay.com]
This man is a genius. I’ll be paying off my next phone bill with a plaster of paris moose.
@Quilt:
Brilliant! I’m going to send my macaroni picture of Pac-man I made in second grade to BoA to pay my credit card – then when they send it back and half the mac has fallen off, I’ll say they ruined my masterpiece and have no choice but to make my payment for me that month.
This guy has terrible form, I submitted a picture of a pygmy goat to Comcast and not only did they wave my late fee, they gave me a year subscription.
Haha.. funny, I just Stumbled on this last night. That’s two articles in a row that Consumerist has up that I’ve read elsewhere… but.. I still love reading you!
If he drew a fluffy kitten instead of an icky spider, it would have worked!
This reminds me of the Saturday Night Live sketch with John Lovitz scribbling on a napkin in a restaurant
“It’s a Picasso!”
Did anyone notice that Chris Walters wrote this? Welcome back, Chris!
@iEddie:
[consumerist.com]
“Steve… SEND THE PHONE SPIDERS.” *shakefist*
[www.guba.com]
@krztov: I don’t care if it is fake or not, it is funny as hell.
Did anyone else read this as him having been sold a SPDR? Especially when he says “It was silly of me to assume I could provide you with something of completely no value whatsoever, waste your time and then attach such a large amount to it.” Maybe I am reading too much into this…
This reminds me (long-time lurker, first time poster; hello!) of what Dali used to do:
He’d go into restaurants and order a meal for him, his entourage, etc.. and then write a check. On the back of the check he’d put a little drawing and then tell the owner that it’s a Special Drawing Just For Him By The Great Dali.. and then the owner would never cash it!
I call a fake…9 times out of 10 these are fake. Funny, but fake. Note the lack of a company name, the lack of what kind of bill it was, the lack of any kind of defining information. You could say it was for anonymity, but first and last names of both (fake) parties were published.
The original auction has ended but there is one up now for a Santa hat for the spider, about fell outta my chair laughing.
Check out The Lazlo Letters by Father Guido Sarducci from SNL Real Life brother of Former Surgeon General of US Novello
He messed up.
Jane said: “Yes it is the same drawing. I copied and pasted it from the email you sent me on the 8th.”
He should have taken that as an opening to get mad that she made an illegal copy of his artwork and said that they now owed him $233 for the illegal copy they made.
I’ve got no talent, but surely someone here can create a nice enough spider to keep Consumerist in business.
Those emails are hilarious! Where is my pen and paper?
This actually happened in Australia, in a city called Adelaide in the state of SA.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=665808 apparantly he sold the picture on ebay for $15000 AU
that was awesome, both the exchange and the fact that it sold on ebay.
The original site implies that the payment was for “distance chiropractic”, chiropractic healing by the medium of psychic powers. That’s the joke – he’s paying for a completely intangable and worthless treatment with a completely intangable and worthless picture of a spider.
Probably the greatest thing ever. Period.
Update: David sells his drawing on ebay instead.
[www.centuryradionorthwest.co.uk]
Well, I mean, at least he didn’t handle the debt with crabs!!
*hint hint*
Maybe not?
Funny.
But ya know, the cost of adding to the workload of CS reps like this might just show up in the price of the company’s goods or services.
Plaster of paris moose? Geeez, I’ll make a plaster of paris model of my schwanzen and tell ‘em to sit on it!
Hmmm, after reading that I realize the spider is immensely funnier.
Yep, one chiropractor is bad, so they’re all bad.
In other news, all M.D.’s are quacks, all lawyers are just in it for the money, and kittens are only cute to get you to feed them treats.
@SynMonger: You are SOOOO right. I mean, the first two things about the Docs and Lawyers are pretty self-evident. But Kittens! I KNEW they were up to something!
Robin Cooper does it again.
Now there are a bunch of people trying to sell the image on eBay. And the “rare 8 legged version” also. Are people really that bored they will pay eBay to list an item no one will pay you for?
If you guys would spend 30 seconds on google, you’d find out that Jane Giles is one of those “Internet Healers” who perform healing/psychic rituals to cure you off all kinds of ills without the hassle of you needing to meet face to face.
That is what makes this especially hilarious.