Internet Fraud Can Be a Laughing Matter
by Karen Williams | March 15, 2007 - Seminole Chronicle
Each day, I receive sob-story e-mails that appeal for help and offer to make me rich. They arrive from unknown people around the globe with names such as Namimbus Ferrari, Joseph Nabatu, Mrs. Mary Lynn Fincter and Horace Addlington, Esq.
In most e-mails, someone close to the writer has met a horrible end. Now the writer, also ailing, is desperate to get the untold wealth of the deceased out of a turbulent country and into the checking account of a person such as myself for safekeeping. I'll receive a chunk of the proceeds simply for my assistance and for sending them my name, address, bank account number and mother's maiden name.
One time - one wretched time - I signed up online to make some pocket money filling out surveys. Thus I was obviously added to somebody's list of suckers who sit around awaiting opportunities to make huge amounts of money by doing virtually nothing.
This does, of course, describe me. For years, one of my endeavors involved entering sweepstakes in order to win hordes of money to send my kids to college. I eventually concluded I wasn't making enough to even send the kids to clown college or barber college unless I could pay for tuition with advertising mugs and Budweiser hats.
I'll admit I've continued to keep an eye out for a low-impact way to generate cash. I won't, however, be enticed by these e-mail identity-theft schemes - not when there are various newspaper ads with offers to get rich by merely addressing and mailing envelopes. Those ads are starting to sound like viable opportunities.
I'm not sure what sort of spam filter I have on my computer, but if it's allowing Namimbus and Horace to hobnob with my regular e-mail, I'd like to see what junk is actually filtered out. Well, maybe not.
Months back, I became exceedingly frustrated with the phony e-mails. I tried to avoid opening them, but there's a function on my computer, apparently created by the person who invented my spam filter, that automatically opens an e-mail when I go to delete it. So, if Namimbus and pals were able to track who opens their pleas, they knew that I was a hot prospect. They kept those cards and letters coming.
Then I learned about FraudWatchInternational.com and began forwarding each suspicious e-mail to them. FraudWatch International investigates questionable Internet offers and reports the people who perpetrate swindles. Thanks to them, Mrs. Mary Lynn Fincter is possibly, this moment, cranking out license plates instead of e-mails.
Since discovering FraudWatch, I no longer feel a victim but rather an important spoke in the wheel of justice. Someday I may receive some sort of honor for assisting in the obliteration of Internet schemes. Who knows, there may even be a handsome cash stipend attached.
I've discovered another positive aspect of these bogus e-mails - they're filled with funny typos and goofs. Here are examples from recent letters:
Dennis Bamba introduced himself as someone who likes music, football and reading navels.
Rosemary Hambrock suffers from cancer of the breasm.
Joseph Nabatu's death is eminent. (I think he meant imminent, but then again, maybe his obit will be splashed all over the New York Times.)
Mary Lynn Fincter was searching for a good, moral person to carry out her late husband's washes.
Well, I could go on and on. But in the meantime, I've got a batch of envelopes to put in the mail.
Copyright 2007 - Karen Williams
