Business Insurance

August 25, 2003, Monday

SECTION: Pg. 14

LENGTH: 730 words

HEADLINE: Tips for finding execs, pen pals

BYLINE: Dave Lenckus

BODY:
A couple of items regarding new industry talent and a lesson I learned about
managing the risks of e-mail spam:

Item one: Risk managers, insurers and brokers promote thinking outside the box,
so I suggest that senior management throughout the industry do the same if they
currently have a vacancy to fill. Forward-thinking management should approach
John Poindexter, the retired vice admiral who is scheduled to leave his Pentagon
position at week's end.

Mr. Poindexter, a central figure in the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal
during the Reagan administration, more recently outraged elected officials and
the press with his plan to create a terrorism futures market. This market would
have allowed traders to profit by correctly predicting acts of terrorism in the
Middle East. In return, the intelligence community supposedly would have
benefited, given some evidence that futures markets are relatively successful in
predicting events.

Sure, there was a flaw or two with the idea, including that it could have helped
bankroll terrorists. But every novel idea has kinks; look at the government's
terrorism insurance plan.

Whatever your views about that futures market, you have to give Mr. Poindexter
credit: He doesn't just think outside the box-he burns it first and then buries
its ashes. He essentially took a basic principle of insurance and turned it
inside out. Insurers bet that their risks won't blow up. In the hopes of
outfoxing terrorists, Mr. Poindexter wanted to offer investors the opportunity
to cover such bets.

I couldn't begin to speculate on the kinds of innovative ideas Mr. Poindexter
might generate for your organization. But, at least it would be a good idea to
have him working for you.

Item two: In a recent thread on the RISKMail e-mail service for the risk
management community, several subscribers questioned how they wound up on the
e-mail lists of con artists who claim you can make millions of dollars by
helping them move their martyred fathers' fortunes out of a Third World country
torn by civil war. Just reply with your phone and fax numbers to get started-at
being fleeced.

I hate this time-wasting, criminal e-mail clutter, so I'm fighting back. My
strategy is a little odd, I admit, but it amuses me. And I think it has been
somewhat successful-until about a week ago.

I respond to those con men, though not with any personal information. Instead, I
waste their time with a bizarre message, hoping they will cross me off their
contact lists.

For example, once I responded that I was the general who overthrew the premier
of...wherever...and that my troops now had the writer surrounded. In another
reply, I claimed I already had recovered millions of dollars helping the son of
a deposed dictator from another country but that I had passed along this latest
offer to my brother-in-law. He can't seem to climb out of debt on his measly
salary at the FBI.

The pleas from the sons and daughters of Nigeria and Zimbabwe seemed to
diminish, but a few still trickled in.

The last one led to my favorite reply. I wrote: ''I can communicate only via the
Internet. They bugged my phone and fax, so I threw them away. Everywhere I went,
they followed me. So, I go nowhere...for now...until the time is right. Then I
will disappear into the night as a crystal of sugar dissolves into coffee,
though I take mine black, so sugar in my coffee would be quite discernable,
unless we're talking about just one little crystal, which I probably wouldn't be
able to taste, which is just the point I'm trying to make.''

But, in attempting to push the envelope on time-wasting replies, I
miscalculated. Instead of writing me off as a wise guy not worth bothering, the
writer apparently thought I was nuts. And because you would have to be nuts to
agree to cooperate with these guys, the writer replied to me.

Nuts! I didn't want a pen pal.

But at least I succeeded in confusing him. He asked whether my reply meant I
planned to help him.

Maybe I'll respond with a phone number-to the local office of the U.S. Secret
Service, which is investigating these so-called 4-1-9 scams.

For those of you who want to spend less time than I do trying to discourage such
e-mails, you could just forward them to the Secret Service at
419.fcd@usss.treas.gov.

Senior Editor Dave Lenckus can be reached at dlenckus@crain.com.