Scamerican dream
Chapter 54. Addendum. King of the postal labels
To be honest, I don’t even know where to start… There’s no secret to it, to be honest. Everything is beyond elementary. A couple of clicks and $1000 is in my pocket — you know what I’m talking about. I started doing it about three years ago, when I needed to send a couple of parcels from the US to Ukraine. I logged on to my forum and found a guy who sold USPS labels. And do you know what he told me?
‘Okay, send me the money, but there’s a queue, so you’ll have to wait.’
‘What fucking queue? I’m not shopping for milk in a grocery store here, yo.’
‘These are the rules. Lots of orders. So, are you joining the queue?’
Can you believe this? A QUEUE. Remember when people stood in kilometre-long queues just to stare at the sleeping grandpa Lenin in the mausoleum? LOL. And do you remember the first McDonalds opening in Moscow? People spent 8 hours in the queue! I still remember how my mum and little sister spent six hours queuing for the chance to munch on this junk food. Back then it was one hell of a delicacy though.
So, I told him to piss off and decided to figure this thing out myself. In three days I was up to date. At first I only made labels for my friends, and myself but in a month I started advertising. Now I am the king of postal labels. Yes, yes, no less. I have lots of clients. I often have to turn down new people. I now put people into queue myself. LOL. I used to do everything manually, you see? Took a lot of time. Spent all day pressing keys like a robot. Now it’s all different. I don’t know if you know, but there’s an honest online service where you can legally buy USPS labels. Well, if you can buy them legally, you can also buy them illegally, if you catch my drift. I take orders via ICQ, the client sends me the info strictly in a format that’s convenient for me.
Item:1lbs books
Sender
John Smith
123 avenue
Brooklyn
NY
10001
US
Receiver
Ivan Ivanov
456 Red Square
Moscow
123456
Russia
I type the info into a program that’s been specially designed for me. Specifically for my needs, do you understand? I tell you, I am the king. So, this program does everything for me; 5 seconds and I have a ready file with a USPS label inside. Costs $9. You see, it doesn’t matter to me whether it’s express or priority. Whether it weighs 60lbs or 0.5lbs. It doesn’t matter, the price is the same. From New York to New Jersey or from Arkansas to Burkina Faso[17] — it costs $9. Of course, the $9 price is not for everyone. I sell to wholesalers for $8. I mean, imagine, someone buys 50 labels a day from me. I don’t know what in their packages, some jewellery I think. So this client brings me $400 a day. $1000 is a bad day; that’s how I usually find out that there’s a holiday in the US, you know, like Columbus Day or Christmas or some shit. Speaking of Christmas and New Year: starting with November, at least 300 orders come in every day. The workflow wouldn’t wane until the end of December. I think the guys are trying to stay hidden in the endless flow of real orders. I like this time of year, that’s when I feel with certainty that I am the King. I am thinking about raising the price to $15 per label for this period. I am sure that the orders will keep coming in. I want to build a big house in the countryside, since I am a king and should own a castle.
I’ll tell you a secret, I am thinking of going legal. I want to sell common Russians cheap labels. I have no doubts that this service will be in demand. There are issues with this plan, but I am sure the clients will forgive me. The price is the decisive factor, you know? A client needs to pay $200 to ship a spare part for his favorite Ford Mustang, and I’ll sell any label for items over 20lbs for $50.
I don’t know what you’ll choose to use from all this stuff I typed at you, but please, don’t publish my username.
