IN DEBT? SOLVENCY IS JUST A WEBSITE AWAY

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about my receding hairline. In fact, I'm actually thinking seriously about investing in some hair plugs. Several thousand, in fact.

For those of you who are not follicley-challenged, hair plugs are tiny chunks of hair -- root and all -- which are surgically harvested from the lush areas of the scalp and planted in the areas where hair has disappeared. With enough plugs, a bald man can sport more hair than William Shatner. Best of all, this isn’t synthetic hair or monkey hair, it’s the same hair that sprouts everywhere else on a man’s head (nose and ear hair excepted).

The problem is, hair plugs are extremely expensive and -- wouldn’t you know it -- not covered by health insurance. And right now I’m a little short on disposable income.

But I think I've come upon a foolproof way to finance my hairy transformation: cyber begging. I simply create a website -- say, restoremyhairline.com -- and ask visitors to donate to my hair-plug fund. I'll take loose change, tax refunds, next month's mortgage payment -- I'm not particular. Whatever my victims-er-visitors can afford.

If this idea sounds ridiculous, think again. All over America, debtors are creating websites designed to solicit donations from anyone willing to frivolously part with their hard-earned cash. AND PEOPLE ARE SENDING THEM MONEY!

Skeptical? Allow me to profile a few of these sites.

The most famous, and apparently one of the first, is www.savekaryn.com. Twenty-nine-year-old Karyn Bosnak is an unemployed New York shop-aholic who woke up one morning with $20,000 in credit-card debt. Included in this figure is $1,500 in lattes, $1,400 in purses and $1,700 in facials and facial products.

Not interested in curbing her spending habits or taking just any old job, Miss Bosnak created a website in order to beg visitors to send her money so that she could get out of hock. Since June, she has seen her debt dwindle to a mere $2,000, found herself profiled by numerous newspapers and appeared on the “Today Show.” As we speak, she is negotiating film and book deals.

Now, I don’t blame Miss Bosnak for her weak character. It takes a very strong person to walk away from a sale at Saks. But who are these people sending her money?

No, really, I want to know because I have an unfinished basement and I’m thinking I might go into big-time debt to have it finished. And then there’s my thinning scalp.

Since “savekaryn” hit PayPal-dirt, a slew of similar sites have sprung up. This comes as no surprise, as the Internet is the new “land of opportunity.”

Thus, we have the vaguely-named www.sexysinglestrugglingmomneedsyou.com, wherein a forty-five-year-old “sexy” single mother hopes to raise enough money to pay off $25,000 in “sexy” debts and send her high-schooler to college. Meanwhile, she is writing a “sexy” book about online dating. Oh, and yes, there are a few “sexy” pictures of her decorating the website.

Then there is www.saveelaine.com, where an aspiring opera singer begs for money to pay for voice lessons (no, I am not making this up). According to twenty-nine-year-old Elaine, she has been unable to find suitable work due to a series of unspecified illnesses, and she considers the debt service on her student loans (totaling over $40,000) to be oppressive. On her website, Elaine pleads for generous visitors to “please act now before my voice loses its natural vibrato!” And I thought those Haitian refugees on their makeshift rafts had it tough.

Well, I’ve got a suggestion for Elaine: Enlist sexysinglestrugglingmom to help you scour the Internet for a rich dupe-er-date who can finance your pipedream-er-opera aspirations.

As for Karyn, her success has also triggered the inevitable backlash. Thus, we now have the www.dontsavekaryn.com website, as well as a parody site that calls itself “Save Karyn’s Complexion” (www.geocities.com/dbottke2002/k2.htm). Apparently the facials failed to work.

When it’s all said and done, I guess this phenomenon goes to prove there’s a cyber-sucker born every minute. And in case you might be one, please make sure to visit restoremyhairline.com. My thinning scalp is counting on you.

(c) Marc L. Prey 2002
All rights reserved.