The e-mail looks like a scam: “I have to come up with big-time cash,” writes
Max Stephenson. The 18-year-old is headed for New York University, he
explains, but his mom is on disability, his dad works three jobs, and all
his grants and loans only cover half of the school’s $50,000 annual tab. So
to cover the gap, he’s hoping 10,000 friends of friends of friends will each
put $2.50 in the mail or send the money via PayPal. “If you’re worried I am
one of those internet rip-off artists, call NYU’s admissions office at
212.998.4500,” his e-mail continues, “and ask for someone in international
admissions — they handled my admissions as I was recruited to play ice
hockey for Russia and spent last year there.”
The thing is, his plea is legit. And two weeks after Stephenson sent his
e-mail to 300 of his friends and his parents’ business contacts — and
asked them to forward it to anyone they could think of — he says he has
already received close to $6,000 from more than 2,000 people. Only a dozen
or so e-mail recipients have written to him asking if he’s a swindler.
“Everybody’s been really nice about it,” he says. “As nice as I guess you
can be to somebody you suspect to be scamming you. It hasn’t been, ‘Oh, you
dirty bleep-bleep-bleep,’ but, ‘Don’t try to scam people.’ No curse words or
anything.”
A recent high school grad from Glen Gardner, N.J., Stephenson is sending out
his e-mail solicitation at a time when students’ financial needs are
expanding and the loan market is shrinking. A slew of peer-to-peer lending
companies geared toward the college set — including Virgin Money, GreenNote, Fynanz, and
CapAlly — have sprung up in the past year. Borrowers create
Facebook-like profiles detailing their backgrounds, interests, and financial
goals, and lenders choose the students who seem particularly appealing
— or appear most likely to pay back the loan. The companies play
matchmaker, then keep track of who owes what to whom.
It’s too soon to tell whether this business model will work. Meanwhile, Stephenson
is taking a slightly different route. Instead of promising to repay the
money, the future sociology major is trying to motivate givers by offering
them a souvenir. “If you will send me $2.50 in the next week or so, I will
send you a piece of my graduation gown,” he promises, in a kind of
collegiate variation on relics of the cross. “For $3.50, you get a piece of
my cap.”
To help keep his end of the bargain in four years, he is keeping a
spreadsheet with contact information for all of the donors who did not send
money anonymously. Among them is Chris Sperry, a sponsorship manager in
Atlanta who put $5 in the mail for Stephenson even though the two of them
have never exchanged a single word. Like other donors, Sperry says he wants
Stephenson to have an easier time paying for school than he did. “It’s a
shame that you get saddled with [loans] right out the gate,” Sperry
says, recalling that during his own years as an undergraduate, he worked
three jobs to offset tuition costs. “It’s tough to get ahead when you
have that anchor weighing on you.”
Stephenson’s solicitation explains that for safety reasons, he provides
potential donors with a P.O. box instead of his home address. And the
natural-born promoter also directs PayPal users to route the money using his
e-mail address, [email protected]. “In case you’re interested, I
have plans to use my college education to improve our environment,” he notes
toward the end of his tuition plea, which explains that AccessHybrid is an organization he
set up to help college and vocational students buy fuel-efficient cars. “I
found the work incrediably [sic] satisfying,” he adds in what would have
been a pitch-perfect letter, had he bothered to run a spell-check.
