I have lots of friends on FaceBook, some of them I have known since childhood and some I wouldn't know if they bit me. That's the nature of FB.
Not long ago one of that latter group contacted me on the FaceBook app called Messenger. It became pretty clear that something shifty was going on and, checking out that friend's FB page I found a note saying "Ignore any messages from him. His account has been hacked." Well, by then I was too interested to ignore them.
Alas, I didn't spot the typos here. (I was in a restaurant wating for lunch to arrive.) I meant to say "I enjoyed their singing but frankly their dancework..."
??? indeed.
At that point I gave up. But if I had sent one more message it would have gone something like this:
I contacted the sponsors and they said they left the names of some winners on the list at the request of the FBI. You see, it turns out some real scumbags are trying to rip off the winners. I hate people like that, don't you? How do they spend all day trying to rob people who never did them any harm and then use those same hands to caress their lovers or comfort their children? How do they talk to their mothers knowing how ashamed those mothers would be if they knew the truth about them? Please be careful, my friend. There is a lot of evil out there.
By the way, a few days after this happened to me the same thing happened to Neil Steinberg, one of my favorite columnists. You can read about what he did here.
Rob, you're definitely right: there is a lot of evil out there. I know people who've come close to being taken but luckily weren't. But some of these scams are pretty insidious. We have a leftover landline phone and NEVER answer it anymore because it's almost always scamming telemarketers. It's sad that things have come to this.
ReplyDeleteNice you could at least waste some of the rascal's time. Alas that is not even possible with the various robot callers that have been afflicting us lately.
ReplyDeleteConmen are very creative. If ONLY they would use that creativity in legitimate ways. Meanwhile, there is an bit of truth to the W. C. Fields line, "You can't cheat an honest man," or at least, "You can't cheat a greedy man."
ReplyDeleteIt is fun to troll back. But this, my friends, is probably the best way to take care of a telemarketer by phone:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p-na30GqMk "You have just called a homicide scene..."
Nothing to do with scams, at least I don't think so, but a couple of weeks ago we got a call from someone purporting to solicit money for disabled veterans. My husband actually is a disabled veteran & we had been waiting for such a call ... I said, "Oh, thank you for calling! My husband's a disabled veteran! We could really use a few dollars, or whatever you have for us." So of course the person on the other end said, "Uhh -- sorry to bother you, ma'am." We haven't had anyone else call & ask for money since! LOLOLOL
ReplyDeletechortle, sputter, snort
ReplyDeleteWell done, Rob. Don't mess with a SleuthSayer.
And well done, Elizabeth! Apparently the US military has only one official charity, which I'll get wrong if I try to name it. All the others are scams. That's also true for most police charities. Virtually all take the money and run.
One just like that is sitting in my Messenger right now! Came in a week ago. How do they sleep at night? 4/100 people are sociopaths. They sleep very well. I truly hope there is a hell for such people (My 95 year old father was scammed on the phone this autumn. I have a special hate-on for them.)
ReplyDeleteThanks, all. Elizabeth, that was wonderful.
ReplyDelete