Postal authorities seize PayLine.com cash flow

TIPS I RECEIVED from readers led to the publication of my Feb. 19 column about an organization called ThePayLine.com. As a result, I'm pleased to report, the U.S. Postal Service recently seized the contents of PayLine's private mailbox in Florida.

This will rescue the checks worth thousands of dollars sent by innocent people for an unbelievably popular Internet financial pyramid.

PayLine made incredible promises through its Web site and a sophisticated e-mail marketing campaign. First, you'd pay $200. Then you'd sign up two other members. After that, you'd get a pro rata share of 50 percent of all the money received from future members, to be divided among older members.

In addition, you'd receive one free "travel mile" for every member who joined after you, whether or not you'd personally enrolled them. PayLine promised thousands of miles of free airline tickets. More than 290,000 Internet users had "preregistered" by e-mail as of the last time I checked a digital counter at the site, which I believe to be accurate.

As I discovered and reported, PayLine actually has its headquarters in St. Kitts and Nevis, Caribbean island havens for money-laundering. And the Web outfit's financial promises were mathematically impossible.

That didn't stop an unknown number of preregistrants from taking the next step and actually sending in their $200. Fortunately, some of those people will get their money back now that postal authorities have impounded the contents of the box.

Linda Walker, public information officer for the Postal Inspection Service, said in an interview that postal authorities had mailed a notice to PayLine officials requesting proper identification. "They have not responded, and we're still holding their mail," Walker said.

Brian Booth, PayLine's director of affiliate relations, confirmed the postal action but said that PayLine was in compliance with all state laws.

I'd like to thank the readers who alerted me to this organization and InfoWorld for printing my opinion of it. I believe that we computer professionals need to look up from our keyboards periodically and evaluate the ethics of things we see happening on the Net.

Create a virtual CD drive

Windows programs sometimes require a particular CD-ROM to be in a specific CD drive. Reader Anthony Cimorelli describes a workaround for this kind of behavior in Windows 2000.

Step 1. Create a hard disk folder with a name such as C:\VirtualCD.

Step 2. Copy your CD (or the portion you need) into this folder.

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