He sat in the park, swinging gently, basking in the warm spring sunshine, browsing through his emails. He was so relaxed that the squeaking of the old swing did not even register, but he did like the sounds the birds nesting in the high trees were making.
This was true relaxation. With warmth seeping to his medium old bones, the fresh breeze caressing his face, he felt he was truly able to let go of the stresses of daily life.
His attention was drawn to an email received from a strange name titled just ‘My subject’. He knew it was spam, nowadays he almost never got emails from actual people, unless it was something for work, but in his personal email, no, not really.
As he was relaxed and life was good, he decided to read the email from the strange name. It contained three lines, the something called person was the President of some fund and one of their clients had died and left 29 million dollars in an account. The person was prompting David (the man in the park swinging relaxed), to reach out if interested in their offer.
David tutted to himself. They don’t make any effort these days the scammers. Amateurs! In his youth you would get an entire background story. You would have info about the person that died, why they did not have any heirs, how come you are the lucky one and so on.
This email though, was just three little, measly lines. David wondered what the scammer’s success rate was, if anyone still fell for that old trick.
As life was good, and everything was in its place David decided to have some fun, or maybe just a bit of research, as he justified to himself the decision to write back.
Dear President,
I am overjoyed to hear about this money! It comes at the perfect time for me as I am getting ready to buy stock in a company that will shortly make millions and millions and I really needed more funds to invest.
Please let me know what I need to do to get my inheritance as soon as possible.
Thank you for getting back to me with the utmost urgency.
Humbly yours,
David.
And sent. David giggled like a child while imagining his spammer getting the email and reading it sure he has a big fish on the hook.
The night was drawing near and David decided to walk the short way home. What should he have for dinner. Something light, he had had too much meat lately. Maybe some rice with a bit of chicken. Chicken does not count as meat, too light. Yeah, that would work.
As he was getting close to the apartment block where he he lived his phone vibrated on his belly. He pulled it out of the kangaroo pocket of the hoodie and stopped to check what the notification was.
It actually was the spammer. Impatiently he read the reply. The scammer did not disappoint. They invited David to continue the conversation on Whats Up It, is faster to communicate in real time!
David chuckled, after dinner.
After a light dinner made up of rice, chicken and a large glass of wine, David contacted his scammer.
The photo on the Whats Up profile showed a woman, a bit too young, in a provocative outfit. David was taken by surprise when the scammer did not even mention the earlier email about the inheritance, but went straight to sweet talk about himself, about what he likes and wants, especially what he wants …
David poured himself another glass of wine deciding that this was way more fun than he had expected. He went ahead mentioning his upcoming investment and the need for funds, growing his potential revenue with every half hour that passed.
By two a.m. the ‘cuddly bear’, as the scammer called David, convinced her to invest in his amazing opportunity, but before getting to money transfers David stopped, he was not comfortable going that far, and also felt the need to come clean, which he did before disconnecting the chat.
Amused and pleased with himself he had a great sleep and woke up the next day in great form. While sitting down to have his coffee, he went to check his emails and was shocked to find his inbox flooded with hundreds of emails titled You are a fraud!
All the emails were identical and they had been sent from his not so friendly scammer. She felt cheated and hurt, her time wasted, she really had feelings for him and their relationship could have gone somewhere, and so on.
David felt sad for the desperation that he could feel behind the words. A glimpse of hope had been brutally snatched from his scammer and they were furious. He proceeded to methodically delete the emails, block the address and decided not to reply. It was fun while it lasted, but he did not want to develop it any further.
David did not find out the success rate of his lazy scammer, but he did confirm it to himself that scammers can also get scammed.
“medium old bones” is a good phrase :)