Ol' what's-his-name.(Selling it: goofs / glitches / gotchas)(marketing)(Brief Article)

For years we've tracked a marketing ploy we've personified as the Post-it bandit (early missives came with a seemingly handwritten sticky note). The notes were stuck on clippings that looked like magazine articles but were actually ads touting a book, say, or a medical miracle. The notes said, "Try this!" and were signed as if by a friend. Unsuspecting recipients would be left wondering who "John" was and why he wanted them to buy this stuff.

Now, apparently, our bandit has a couple of new sales pitches. One arrived in a stamped envelope with no return address (tempting to open). The new "friend" is named Mac; the "article" tells of a widow named Elizabeth who checked her dwindling bank account and began to cry. "Then," the story goes, "Elizabeth felt a chill go through her as if she had been pierced with an ice pick in her ...