The scammers are getting smarter. 

            We’ve all received those emails that tell us there is $27 million waiting for us in an unclaimed Nigerian bank account, haven’t we?

            One arrived the other day, from “Miss Vivian Ibrahim Coulibaly, only child of my late father, Late Chief Sgt. Warlord Ibrahim Coulibaly…” Miss Vivian needs my help, because her wicked stepmother – of course! – is trying to swindle her out of her father’s illegitimately acquired fortune. 

            I trashed the message.

            But to add credibility, Miss Vivian directed me to a source that I normally trust, The Guardian. The story was about her renegade father, not her. No matter – some victims would fall for the scam.

Scamming the scammed

            The same day, I received a second email that assumed I had fallen for scams like Miss Vivian’s, headed FRAUD ALERT: “This letter is to notify you about your compensation as one of the scammed victims…”

            To receive my $1.5 million compensation I should send them my name, address, bank account number, and a $102 handling charge.

            I trashed it too.

            That was followed by an email apologizing for “imposters who claim to be staff in banks and other regional payment centers.” For the same package of information, I would receive an ATM withdrawal card authorized by both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. 

            This letter contained no typographical errors, grammar mistakes, or wicked stepmothers. Nor did it ask for any payment in advance. I would only pay shipping costs.

            Trashed again.

Too many coincidences

            Then my wife got an email, from Fedex, that they were unable to deliver the prescription she had been expecting because there had been no one home that morning to sign for it. The message seemed legitimate. Because, in fact, my wife had been expecting a shipment of pills for her leukemia, that very day. 

            Yet we knew the notice had to be a scam. Both of us had been home all morning. No vehicles had pulled into our driveway. The doorbell had not rung. The dog had not barked. 

            Very disturbing. 

            Because the scammer – whoever he or she was – somehow knew that the shipment was for her, not me. And that she was expecting a delivery. On that day. By that company. That she had to sign for.

            Too many coincidences strain my credulity. I think it more likely that someone hacked into either Fedex’s or Shoppers Drug Mart’s databases.

            The scam seems to have been precisely timed and targeted. Unlike the incessant Nigerian scams, we have never received such an email any other occasion.

            It leaves me with an uneasy feeling. I don’t know who to trust anymore. 

            If it’s that easy to get hold of personal details, how do I separate the legitimate from the fraudulent, the true from the false?

            Are we moving into a time when I can no longer trust anyone?

Vast cloud of deceptions

            It’s easy to recognize a scam when it comes from a bank where I don’t have an account. Or from the Canada Revenue Agency, or Canadian Border Services, because they don’t use email for notifications. 

            Or any recorded telephone message about Microsoft Windows malfunctions, or a zero-interest rate on my credit cards. One of which came, according to call display, from a local number.

            But what do I do with a cautionary notice from PayPal that someone has accessed my account to pay a bill to someone else I have never heard of? Ignore it, and expect it to go away? Click the link to deny the transaction, and perhaps get sucked into something I don’t want?

            I grew up thinking I could trust established businesses. They would warn me of any risks associated with their products. 

            No, they wouldn’t. 

            For decades, giant corporations deliberately withheld information about the dangers of alcohol, tobacco, coal, oil, painkillers, and refined sugar. Long after asbestos was banned in Canada as a cause of lung cancer, the Canadian asbestos industry lobbied to have our governments help them market asbestos aggressively to less enlightened countries. 

            Meanwhile, governments deliberately misled us about the supposed dangers of marijuana, animal fats, and peace movements. 

            And the electronics industry has yet to acknowledge that wireless transmissions can have any health effects at all.

            Our society used to run on trust. Now I start feeling that everyone’s out to take advantage of me. 

            I’m beginning to treat everything with suspicion unless it comes from someone I already know. And maybe even from some of them. 

            And I don’t like living in that kind of climate.

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Copyright © 2018 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.

                       To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca

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YOUR TURN

Judging by the mail I received, museums don’t rank as high in your priorities as abuses within the Roman Catholic Church – my previous week’s column. Is it because most of us aging readers are already resigned to losing our memories?

Bob Rollwagen took up that topic of memory: “It is important for organizations to have ‘memory’ and the greater the memory, the better the leadership. This is a significant aspect of a country’s growth. The immediate impact [of a loss such as the Rio museum] is negligible but it is big over time. Memory fades, generations remember what is convenient and leadership has a shallower base to draw on.

            “Political parties create their own historical view; without factual history, the citizens have poor reference points with which to judge. A party that stands with its record is showing far more leadership than one that denies its history and shrouds its actions with populist rhetoric.

            “Memory is critical. Brazil will be working hard to salvage what they can as a country. [The fire becomes] a distraction that will allow the rich and corrupt greater opportunity.”

Tom Watson also took a political perspective: “Museums, archives, libraries, are all ready targets when governments set out to ‘find efficiencies’ -- which is simply code for ‘cutting what we and our base don't care about’.”

I cited news reports that blamed the damage from the museum fire in Brazil on “government’s financial priorities” and “austerity measures.”

            “Seems to me that is far too simplistic,” Steve Roney responded. “First of all, the financial priorities may have been correct. Brazil, after all, is a relatively poor country, and the choice might easily be letting someone starve in order to provide greater safety for a mummy in [the museum]. Really, would that be better?

            “And then, Brazil has a reputation for government corruption. This is likely to be the primary reason why the country is poor in the first place. This being so, is the problem really that there was not enough money allotted for fire hydrants, or that the money allotted for fire hydrants was not spent on fire hydrants? I think the latter is at least as likely.”

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TECHNICAL STUFF

If you want to comment on something, write me at jimt@quixotic.ca. Or just hit the ‘Reply’ button.

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                       And for those of you who like poetry, I’ve started a webpage http://quixotic.ca/My-Poetrywhere I post (occasionally, when I feel inspired) poems that I have written. If you’d like to receive notifications about new poems, write me at jimt@quixotic.ca,  or subscribe yourself to the list by sending a blankemail (no message) to poetry-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca(If it doesn’t work, please let me know.)

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PROMOTION STUFF…

To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols. (This is to circumvent filters that think too many links constitute spam.)

                       Ralph Milton’s latest project is a kind of Festival of Faith, a retelling of key biblical stories by skilled storytellers like Linnea Good and Donald Schmidt, designed to get people talking about their own faith experience. It’s a series of videos available on Youtube. I suggest you start with his introductory section: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u6qRclYAa8

                       Ralph’s “Sing Hallelujah” -- the world’s first video hymnal -- is still available. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at wwwDOTsinghallelujahDOTca

                       Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca>

                       I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom

                       Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town -- not particularly religious, but fun; alvawoodATgmailDOTcom to get onto her mailing list.

                       Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom or twatsonATsentexDOTnet