Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Scammers

When I was 18 I moved from Florida to Nevada. Quite the culture shock! More on that later, but you have to know that to really understand the story I'm about to tell. Six months or so after I moved to Nevada, I received a weird letter in the mail telling me that I had money in Florida that some company wanted to send me. Of course, my instant thought was, "this is a total scam. People suck so much." After reading through all the paperwork I realized that I didn't have to send any money, and supposedly they would send me a check for some undisclosed amount they had waiting for me in Florida.
I shrugged my shoulders and mailed the thing back. What did I have to lose? A few weeks went by and I completely forgot about the letter, knowing from the beginning that it was a scam and my identity was probably being stolen. Not that they'd be able to do anything with it. I was 18, didn't have any credit or any life to speak of at that time. I moved on.
Months later, I received a check in the mail.
I was shocked. Speechless. Flabbergasted. Maybe there was goodness in humanity after all. Maybe, just maybe, good things could happen to me! I was so excited. I cashed it - everything was fine. I was actually sent a random letter regarding random money and received it!
So now, when I get these strange letters in the mail, I have to read through everything before completely dismissing it as crap. Today, I get this letter in the mail:
And I think to myself, "hmm. It happened once, perhaps it could happen again?" Then reality kicked her steal-toed boot firmly up my behind, and I stopped myself from doing something stupid. I've never lived in the Netherlands, don't know any reason why anyone from there would want to send me money, never heard of Media Opportunities Direct, and I really didn't feel comfortable sending them $26.00 in processing fees.
Then I got irritated. I am so sick of people preying on the desperation of others. I looked them up and saw hundreds of comments from people who fell prey to this scam and are picking up the pieces. I know there are terrible people in this world, but I often wonder, how do they live with themselves? How do they sleep at night, knowing they're destroying the one thing keeping most of us sane - hope?

No comments:

Post a Comment