This is a true story, although it did not occur in my workplace. For obvious reasons, I have removed the original names. A friend writes:
A co-worker of mine recently rented a car from Zipcar. [In Canada, I would add. - Ed.] He found an unexpected bonus in the glove box—an ounce of weed was left by the previous owner. Excited by his surprise “score,” he unwisely mentioned it to another co-worker. Next thing you know he receives this letter in the mail.
The letter, in all its fake officious glory, plus denouement, after the jump.
NOTICE: Zipcar has contacted us saying a few people have already asked them about this policy this morning, so just to be doubly clear, Zipcar did not send this letter. It’s a fake letterhead created by this guy’s friends to screw with his head. Zipcar does not actually leave things in their cars as an “honesty trap.”
I’m not sure how I’d react to being the target of this prank… on one hand, you’ve got an ounce of weed, but on the other hand, I’m sure it was a very bizarre couple of days in this guy’s head once the letter got into his hands.
Hopefully it was at least better than beasters . . .
In college, we had a buddy who was an expert at replicating all kinds of official correspondence. We convinced one guy he was under federal investigation for prank calls to the local FBI field office (he hired a lawyer), let another guy actually call his family because he thought he got into the law school of his dreams (he was later rejected by the REAL admissions office and was quite confused), and informed a third dude that his job offer from a Fortune 500 company was withdrawn due to his failure to disclose an underage drinking ticket on his background investigation forms.
Awesome.