The Scam

My email(s) address is a frequent favorite of scammers – from the unbelievable multi-million dollar lotto draws that I won (and never entered) to the mostly funny “please help me get money out the country” scams. Yesterday I received one of the better ones. It was from a Sergent Mac Williams who is fighting both insurgents and car bombs and was the lucky founder of a large amount of Saddam Hussein’s cash and now wants to trust me with it.

I enjoyed this particular scam as this guy obviously did his homework. There are no spelling mistakes, the grammar is more than passable, and there is even a link to the real story on BBC. Clearly he has some intelligence. Oh! And his email address doesn’t have 20 nonsensical characters.

What strikes me as funny is that he would probably do well in a job, perhaps in the creative department of a marketing company, or better yet in a creative accounting position. So is it just laziness that has spawned this career choice? Although I am an upstanding citizen who pays tax, works beyond the required daily hours and slows down when I see speed cameras – there is a part of me who think these modern day con artists are pretty cool.

I chuckle to imagine them sitting behind their 1980 computers amidst half drunk beer bottles and moldy pizza boxes eagerly thinking up their next scam. What gets me laughing is the look on their face when they actually catch someone. That one moment of shock immediately replaced with glee must surely be enough to keep them hungry over the next few months whilst they try for the next ignorant.

The question of what one invention defined modern man? Fire, iron, sliced bread… nothing compares to the creation of Marketing. We live and breathe on what we are told will make us rich, pretty, powerful, fulfilled, wanted… and never once question the truth that we are all suckers waiting for the bait that will deposit us ungracefully back onto our behinds.

But then a new solution is presented to us on a glossy cover or sitting meekly in our inbox that promises instant relief of all our woes. What a truly accommodating world we live in.

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