I received an email the other day. Another one of those emails. What kind of email? Those which inform me that, for
some reason or other, I am about to come into a large sum of money. According
to some of these, I have won a lottery that I did not enter. According to
others, my telephone number (or, perhaps, email address) has been randomly drawn
and I have won X million dollars or pounds. In other cases, someone, often in
an African nation, needs to offload into my bank account, for obscure reasons
expressed in barely intelligible English, huge amounts of money. A lovely
couple today, apparently from Great Britain, want to share with me £1,000,000.00
from their huge Jackpot win. At least, I think it’s £1,000,000.00; the
placement of the decimal point after the “1” has me a little concerned. Here is
the generous offer in full:
Hello ,
My Name is Adrian
Bayford, I and my wife won a Jackpot of £148 million GBP August 2012, and have
voluntarily decided to give out the sum of £1.000,000.00 GBP to you as part of
our own charity project to improve the life of others in your country, We are
given 5 million to 5 unknown around the global so if you receive my mail, then
you one of the lucky one, all you have to do is contact us back for details.
You can also verify our winning £148 million pounds on the below link.
How wonderfully generous of them. Apparently, they believe that
Australia is a poor, third world nation. Some might think it is on the way to
becoming one. I only think it’s a shame that, you know, being from Britain and
all, these people seem to struggle with English. But then, many English people
do. Perhaps they should be investing the money into the British education
system. Perhaps I should suggest that they give my £1,000,000.00 to that
cause?
There are two things about these kinds of emails that amaze
me. First, you think they might take the time and effort to actually get the
grammar and punctuation correct. But perhaps that’s just the poor, unfortunate
proofreader within, cringing.
Even more astonishing is the fact that, somewhere in the
world, there are people who actually fall for these scams, er, accept these
offers. Apparently there are enough people sucked in, er, smart enough, that it
continues to be worth the effort to generate this crap, er, these generous
offers. If news and current affairs shows are to be believed, the people who do
accept these offers otherwise look quite normal. You know, like you and me. So
why is this, if it’s not the plain and simple fact that these people are
morons?
Two things occur to me. The first is the dreaded “what if”.
I suppose some people are tormented by these two little words. What if, just
this one time, the offer is actually genuine? This is a bit like the gambler
who believes that this time he is on
a sure thing; or the person with an obsessive compulsive disorder who thinks
that she should check just one more time to make sure that the iron is turned
off, in case, just this one time, it
isn’t. The temptation of “what if” may be too much for some people. And, after
all, what could possibly be the harm in replying? To be honest I’m not sure. I
have no idea how these scams work. But I am not about to tug on that thread of
the spider’s web to find out.
The second thing is that perhaps some people are just so
desperate that they will try anything. I am less convinced about this. Those
who fall for these scams do not appear particularly desperate. They do not live
above a deeper and blacker pit of despair than the rest of us. It might have
more to do with the fact that many are seeking shortcuts in life, like winning
Lotto (or the unanticipated generosity of the Mr and Mrs Bayfords of the world),
to lift them out of their particular patch of despair.
I suppose as long as some people fall for these scams,
you and I will continue to receive similarly generous offers. But, you know,
what if...?
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