(FORTUNE Magazine) – You receive a letter from a business associate appealing to your charitable instincts: ''Craig Shergold, a 7-year-old boy suffering from terminal cancer, wants to be included in the Guinness Book of World Records with a record number of business cards.'' You are asked to send him your card and get friends to do the same. Prince Charles mailed his card. So did Barber Conable, former president of the World Bank. Christopher Forbes, vice chairman of Forbes Inc., spread the appeal to Germany, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Some 22 million business cards have arrived, and another 800 sacks of cards sit unopened at the small post office near Craig's hometown of Carshalton, England. But the campaign is odd. Craig is not 7 but 12 years old now. He has waged a successful chain-mail effort to collect a record 16.25 million cards -- not business cards but get-well cards. In March, billionaire John Kluge paid to bring Craig to the U.S. for surgery. He's now recovering from removal of a brain tumor and is apparently out of danger. The family has turned all business cards over to a recycler who converts them to pulp. Spread the word.