God, at least tell us she’s feeling like an ass, or that you got to ‘told ya so’ her or something gratifying like that.
[QUOTE=stpauler]
Update: Her bank returned the check as “altered and ficticious” and has charged her a $5 fee for that. Against my advice, she’s emailing the sender a notice that she wants to be reimbursed for that money.
[/QUOTE]
She’s very lucky the bank got back to her so quickly. I hope she appreciates that when she gets a clue a few years from now.
See, this is exactly what we need Batman for. I hate all the responses of “just delete it” or “best to ignore it”. We need some vigilante justice that ignores international borders to stop this crap at the source. I’ll let you know where to forward all of these once I win the lottery.
[QUOTE=Hampshire]
She does know that once the bank “clears” the check it’s still not “cleared” right?
I’ve heard that a bank can clear a check and make the money available to you but still come back months later to say the check was bad and that you owe them the money.
[/QUOTE]
This is exactly how I’ve heard it works. I don’t remember the details, because it hasn’t happened to me, but apparently banks have come back and declared checks to be fraudulent well after you’ve sent off the money, and just grabbed it back out of your account. If the account is empty, they bill you and then proceed toward trashing your credit rating.
I think your biggest priority in this one should be to find out if Hallmark makes an “I Told You So (You Dumb Bitch)” card. Singing would be better.
Or look into skywriting costs.
[QUOTE=Otto]
Reminds me of an incident a couple of jobs ago. Someone spammed two departments with the “candy canes are shaped like Js for Jesus and red and white for his blood” glurge. I sent out an email with a link to the debunk and someone emailed back angry at me for spoiling a good story, and what do I care if people want to believe it? Then she started making comments about my lack of faith so I reported her to her and my supervisor and she got in trouble.
[/QUOTE]
Sorry, it appears I’m behind the times. Sorry to hear that we all were right.
Concerning the glurge emails: That’s one the reasons I couldn’t get really into dating one of my girlfriends, and we were both Christian. She would forward the sappy, the banal, and the clearly false Jesus Junk emails. I stopped even reading them.
[QUOTE=pulykamell]
I’ve always wondered who in the hell falls for this crap. Now I know.
It saddens me. I really thought, when the internet started gaining popularity in the mid-90s, that the sheer volume of bullshit, hoaxes, scam artistry, etc., on it would raise the average person’s level of skepticism a notch or two. After getting fooled by one too many “Microsoft is giving out free money” chain emails, or lie-filled political glurge, or 419 scams, one would have thought the populace as a whole would have fine-tuned their bullshit detectors a little bit, no? I guess I’m just not cynical enough.
[/QUOTE]
Look, Barnum was right. The 419 scam isn’t even new; it’s just an E-mail variation of the old Spanish Prisoner confidence scam. It’s the simplest con job there is - “give me some money now and I’ll give you more money later, but let’s keep it a secret” - and consequently the most successful, because it goes directly to a person’s greed (money!) and ego (he trusts me with an important secret!)
Some people just seem immune to facts about these sorts of things. I’ve written about by uncle John before, who has been in pretty much every pyramid scam you have ever heard of and some you haven’t. I would not be exaggerating to say he has bought into, and lost his shirt on, at least fifteen to twenty pyramid scams. I can understand being suckered by the first, and maybe the second, but at number ten or eleven you start to think that although he appears sane and rational, there is clearly a part of the human brain that in my head functions correctly and in John’s case does not.
Perhaps it is similar to gambling addiction; you hear about people losing and losing and going back for more despite the fact that their own experience is evidence it doesn’t work. The 419/Spanish Prisoner scam, and other confidence scams, are just one thing some people don’t seem to be wired to comprehend.
stpauler,
Please keep us updated on your co-worker.
Is she still awaiting her cash?
Obligatory Link
Browsing the Trophy Room will show you that:
[ul]
[li]They may prey on the gullible, but many are as dumb as rocks themselves[/li][li]There is no length they will not go to for the lure of an International Money Order[/li][/ul]
I am very sorry to hear this woman has fallen in with a scam and lost money. :rolleyes:
I will be happy to reimburse her as soon as my lottery winnings come through (I just have to send them an ‘administration and handling’ fee first). :smack:
Not too much to update. Last thing that happened was the bank returned the check and charged her $5.00 for the trouble. She sent a note to the folks allegedly in Florida asking for a valid check but never heard back from them. If something happens down the road, I’ll bump this thread of course.
I know a guy a lot like this. He thinks he’s internet “savvy”, and he’s armed to the teeth with anti-spyware, antivirus, anti-malware, etc. In mutually-conflicting multiples, of course. He has like a teraflop of RAM and it still runs slow…
Anyway, he pores over the “possible intrusion” reports, which he fundamentally does not understand, and then, being a man of action and nobody’s fool, he springs forward with a swift and decisive response.
He got a ping – a ping! – from somebody in Western Europe, and he called the telephone number to chew the guy out for “trying to hack his machine.”
In the OP’s friend’s situation, he would have done the exact same thing, especially demanding the $5 back.
Right after he gets done counting the money from Publisher’s Clearinghouse, which he has already won.
They’re apparently using newspapers now. My mother, who concedes she should have known better, saw an ad in the local paper about selling some long-haired chihuahua puppies. There was no address or telephone number, just an email address. Mom, having recently lost her chihuahua to old age, send an inquiry to the address.
The response? “GREETINGS from NIGERIA! Blah blah check blah thousand blah GOD BLESS YOU”. I’ve assured her that they can’t harm her through email, but I’m sure she’ll be getting similar messages for a while.
So now it seems we have to be skeptical of newspapers as well.