You won't believe this, but it's true.  In the early 1980s, the scam out of Nigeria -- yes, I'm not making this up, it was Nigeria even before the Internet was widespread! -- was to snag free comic books.  DC, Marvel, Fantagraphics would get pelted with these letters.  Of course, the first plea would work, because who wants to be a hard-hearted rat bastard?  But once it was shown *that* worked, they'd have *entire school classrooms* of children writing begging letters!  Oddly, no one stopped to ask how all these "poor" kids could afford such postage costs!