INTERNET SCAMMING

Stories abound everyday of people who are supposedly swindled through the Internet. There are 3 categories of victims – romance seekers, greedy get rich quick folks, and the mentally incapacitated. I have some sympathy for the old, lonely, and cold Caucasian lady looking for hot, steamy, and sweet tropical romance and the mentally handicapped who are unaware of being scammed. I have no sympathy whatsoever for the greedy group who want to reap where they have not planted. Money does not grow on trees anywhere in the world.

What type of individual would get an email promising you payments of several millions of dollars belonging to some unknown entity for payment of a few thousand dollars? This is a case of superiority complex intertwined with greed. The victims who are mainly Caucasians think that the African scammer is stupid and servile and would gladly give a larger portion of the monetary bounty to a superior being. The African on the other hand is counting his blessings and thinking how stupid a white man can be. To the African, it is payback time for colonialism, slavery, and exploitation. Caucasian politicians, professors, and pastors have all fallen victim to this type of confidence game. When the scheme is discovered, both the scammer and victim should be prosecuted because the victim has no intention of reporting the financial windfall to the authorities.

The romance seeker should not send money except for a plane ticket and passport/visa for the prospective lover to consummate the relationship. However, the saying that love is blind is true even if it blinds you in one eye, you are still susceptible to stupid incomprehensible actions that you will later regret. Seek romance locally or if you prefer exotic, tropical foreign romance, use a person-seeking-person service. Any unusual monetary requests should be reported to the service provider so that charlatans can be weeded out.

The mentally handicapped may be the most difficult to convince of the futility of their action. They deny their mental handicap and may label the well-intentioned intervener as mentally handicapped. This group requires psychiatric help and may need anti-psychotic medications. There will always be scamming, as the Internet makes it easy to scam worldwide. As the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, Internet scamming may even become a recognizable profession.