"Only some yahoo can hope to scam programmers via snail mail about a dead publication," read one post at Toub's blog. "You gotta give those guys credit for trying such a boldly stupid scam."

Magazine scams are "very common," said Sheila Adkins, associate director of public affairs for The Council of Better Business Bureaus in Arlington, Va. The organization received 4,964 complaints about magazine sales in 2004, with 36 percent of them related to offers that arrived in the mail.

"Usually they try to trip you up by getting you to buy more than one year," Adkins said. "But when you sit down and do the math, you realize that you're paying more."

In that sense, software developers were probably not the best target for a math-related scam. "Most programmers, I understand, have very good math skills," Adkins said.

Citing federal law, the owner of the Mailboxes Etc. declined to give any information about the owner of the mailbox.