‘Tis the season to be thrifty! Sorry, “jolly”. ‘Tis the season to be jolly. And Babe Sheckler is both in this Christmas edition of Art of the Haggle! Hot on the trail of the perfect (ie. cheapest) gift for son Brayden, Babe is logging onto Craigslist, checking it twice, and hooking up with Zane who’s selling an electric shaver. Will it be a Merry Christmas for the Sheckler brood or just more egg noggin’ and sobbin’? Your throbbing curiosity commands you to find out!

The most recent SMTP sonnet must have tickled him raw. And with a Dutch lottery jackpot being dangled, it’s not hard to see why. Perhaps deeming email communication too impersonal, Babe broke out the calling card and dialed up one “Felix Henk” to root out the deal. What follows is his wiretapped copy of the conversation. (He records everything; guy is like Nixon. Someday they’re gonna get leaked, and there’s gonna be a whole lot of him trashing a guy who sold him a broken Barcalounger.) Listen up!

That was nothing if not informative – who knew the Netherlands was the Land of Chips? Rouse the kids, play it again for them, and tell them they’ll never need geography class again.

Here’s the original email from Henk and company. How could one not be swayed by all those asterisks? Or the Batch No.? Today, Felix, you’ve taught a man to phish.

Subject: Email winner
From: “2009 LOTTO NL”
Date: Wed, April 22, 2009 9:25 am
To: undisclosed-recipients:;

AWARD WINNING NOTICE
Ref No.17/324/113
Batch No.448/1803734
Ticket/Series No.RJ975489
Amount Won: $2,500,000.00 USD

Attn: Email Bearer,

This is to formally inform and congratulate you on the result of the online cyber lotto which was conducted from an exclusive list of 1,000.000 email addresses of individual and corporate bodies selected by an advanced automated random computer ballot system from the internet.

Your e-mail address emerged as a winner in the category “A” with the following information enclosed.

You are therefore to receive a cash prize of $2,500,000.00. (Two Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars).

To file in for the processing of your prize winnings, you are advised to contact our Certified and Accredited claims agent for category “A” winners with the information below:
*************************************
Name: Felix Henk
Email:felixhenk@aol.nl
Phone:+31 614 902 159
Fax: +31 847 375 060
*************************************
You are advice to provide him with the following information and a copy of your international passport or driver’s license via email attachment or by fax for vetting process which is a standard practice just to ensure that we are dealing with the right individual.

Names:
Telephone/Fax number:
Nationality:
Age:
Occupation:
Winning Email:

NOTE: Ensure to quote your Reference Numbers in all your communication with your claims agent. All winnings must be claimed not later than seven working days, thereafter unclaimed funds would be included in the next stake.

Sincerely Yours,
Mrs. Yvonne Zwanette
Lottery Coordinator.
www.lotto.nl

Art of the Haggle: Hot Dog Cart

Art of the Haggle: Electric Shaver

Since Babe objected to our teaser for his first instructional haggle, theorizing that it was “wrote by the inventor of the dictionary”, we decided to let him have at it for this one. And he thumbed something out he hopes you’ll enjoy.

“look you always got to think smart to get the best deal. when i saw how roger clemmens (met him in 97, alright guy) got caught with steroids i thought 1 thing: wow i bet i could put in a sweet offer on some clemmens crap. cause nobody likes him nomore. so i called a guy and they taped it enjoy”