One of Life's Many Lessons.
Nigeria = Bad News
At least when someone asks you to mail a package of electronics there. Craigslist is a wonderful site, I met a number of really fun and interesting people out here through the personal section, but GOOD GOD the scams are everywhere. I can name at least three separate occasions in which I was almost fooled into having my face stolen by foreign mystics, or rather three occasions where I almost was duped out of my hard earned US dollars.
1. Almost signing up for the PayPal Pyramid Scheme. Dumb, but it made it look like the most I could lose if it was a hoax was five dollars.
2. Some crazy idea about being paid to fill out online surveys. Even dumber for me to consider, but it appeared to have a free sign up, and the guaranteed it risk-free.
3. Mark Nyugen (marknyugen027@yahoo.com) offers me 150 dollars + cost of shipping for the item I was selling on craigs.
Here was his fatal mistake. When the legitimate site he was pretending to use supposedly e-mailed me, I noticed something quite odd. Read for yourself:
The moral of the story: Never talk to anyone, or do anything on the internet or you those apes from the movie (book) Congo will get you. Which leads me to my final point, identity theft is very real, and you should be very afraid of it. Did you know that just today seventeen million people had their identities stolen and their lives ruined? It's true. Think about it. 17,000,000 people. That's the entire population of Asia. Think about that. All those people. Dead instantly from identity theft.
So what do we do? Never ever ever ever in a trillion years do you ever ever ever want to put your signature into an electronic signing pad. They will have your entire being to use at their discretion. They will buy atom bombs in your name. They will subscribe to US weekly in your name. They will put your name on a petition. A liberal petition. Sigh... I joke, but it happens so often at work that people refuse to sign their name because their "lawyer" told them it's a terrible risk. grumble grumble grumble...
I'm so tempted to go ahead and get a box fill it with tapioca pearls and mail it to the address listed, but I wouldn't want to create an international incident.
And finally this video was sent to me twice in the last week. It's tells probably the most compelling story ever.
At least when someone asks you to mail a package of electronics there. Craigslist is a wonderful site, I met a number of really fun and interesting people out here through the personal section, but GOOD GOD the scams are everywhere. I can name at least three separate occasions in which I was almost fooled into having my face stolen by foreign mystics, or rather three occasions where I almost was duped out of my hard earned US dollars.
1. Almost signing up for the PayPal Pyramid Scheme. Dumb, but it made it look like the most I could lose if it was a hoax was five dollars.
2. Some crazy idea about being paid to fill out online surveys. Even dumber for me to consider, but it appeared to have a free sign up, and the guaranteed it risk-free.
3. Mark Nyugen (marknyugen027@yahoo.com) offers me 150 dollars + cost of shipping for the item I was selling on craigs.
Here was his fatal mistake. When the legitimate site he was pretending to use supposedly e-mailed me, I noticed something quite odd. Read for yourself:
Your Money will be Dispatched to you within 5 hours we Received the Express Mail (USPS) shipment tracking Details from you,Please understand that this measure is taken in order to protect both seller and buyer interests and to reduce the occurrence of fraudulent activities."Within 5 hours we Recieved?" That violates three out of four of the CUPS (Capitalization, Usage, Punctuation, and Spelling). What the hell kind of English is that? Apparently it's Nigerian black market English, as that's exactly where they wanted me to send it. Here is a snippet from Mark's telling me he had made the payment in my name:
Below is my friend address you will ship it to:-Well, obvious I ran right out and purchased a box, and calculated the shipping to Nigeria. The awful part is that I've now e-mailed a foreign miscreant, so now I have to buy an evil-eye in case he sends a hex at me through the internet.
Name : Seun David
Address : 7,Fadreb Street,Apete
City : Ibadan
state : Oyo
Zip code : 23402
Country : Nigeria
Phone : 2348059246624.
The moral of the story: Never talk to anyone, or do anything on the internet or you those apes from the movie (book) Congo will get you. Which leads me to my final point, identity theft is very real, and you should be very afraid of it. Did you know that just today seventeen million people had their identities stolen and their lives ruined? It's true. Think about it. 17,000,000 people. That's the entire population of Asia. Think about that. All those people. Dead instantly from identity theft.
So what do we do? Never ever ever ever in a trillion years do you ever ever ever want to put your signature into an electronic signing pad. They will have your entire being to use at their discretion. They will buy atom bombs in your name. They will subscribe to US weekly in your name. They will put your name on a petition. A liberal petition. Sigh... I joke, but it happens so often at work that people refuse to sign their name because their "lawyer" told them it's a terrible risk. grumble grumble grumble...
I'm so tempted to go ahead and get a box fill it with tapioca pearls and mail it to the address listed, but I wouldn't want to create an international incident.
And finally this video was sent to me twice in the last week. It's tells probably the most compelling story ever.
So Said - View this Entry
6 Comments:
Dearest Drakos,
Even though YouTube is blocked at the office, I'm willing to bet that you were sent the now-famous Kiwi video. When I saw it, I instantly thought you of and Jumping Flash 2: The Two Faces of Baron Aloha.
Love,
Alan
PS I was thinking about taking a long weekend to visit you in Boulder. Your thoughts?
Dearest Drakos,
Though YouTube is blocked at work, I bet that you were sent the now-famous Kiwi video. When I saw it, I instantly thought of you and Jumping Flash 2: The Two Faces of Baron Aloha.
Love,
Alan
PS I was thinking about taking a long weekend to visit you in Boulder. Your thoughts?
Remember Jumping Flash 2 was also called: Big Trouble on Little Muu. And yes you are correct about the YouTube video. Finally, give me two weeks notice and I'd be happy to put you up.
UR clearly in cahoots with the Nigerian internet café scammers.
How did you get your package back. Or did you not send it in the first place?
I never sent it in the first place. I caught on to the deceit of it all just before I actually bought the box to ship it. I'm actually a little smarter in person than my blogging personality appears.
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