Chain Letter Plagues International Publishers
by Sally Taylor -- Publishers Weekly, 7/31/1997
Recently a PW editor received a 17 page fax from one of the Larousse publishing houses describing a child in Portugal, Sonia Christina, who was dying from a terminal illness. Her dearest wish was to enter the Guinness Book of Records as the person who owns the highest number of business cards. The editor was instructed to send her business card to an address in Portugal and send the letter to ten different companies. The other 17 pages were the lists of publishing houses who had already sent cards, and the houses to which they had sent the same letter.PW called the Mark Young at the Guinness Publishing operation headquarters in the USA who confirmed that NO SUCH RECORD existed. Young then described the original nightmare scenario created in 1989 when a little boy in England was dying of cancer and someone decided to break the Guinness record of Get Well Cards received with a similar chain letter.
They broke the record, alright. And got international media attention andliterally millions of get well cards. But the enormous stress put upon the postal services in the small town in England where the boy lived, on the hospital where the boy was getting treatment and on the entire family caused Guinness to the CLOSE the record, permanently.
Mark Young says Guinness has never had and never will have a record for thenumber of business cards someone receives. They try hard to suppress the various chain letters that come up attempting to break phoney Guinness records. And he encourages people to CALL him if they want confirmation on a Guinness Record (USA Tel. 203-359-7100).
Meanwhile, many publishers with the best intentions are wasting a great dealof time, trouble and telephone service to broadcast these faxes around the world regarding this little girl in Portugal.
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