Saturday, July 16, 2005

$1,000,000 for yours truly!



On receipt of an e-mail from an Internet scam outfit, the Editor of Expatica Netherlands wasted no time in ringing up to collect the promised $1 million jackpot prize. "Yes, it is amazing isn't it," the voice on the line from Germany replied as I expressed surprise at winning a lottery that I had never heard of before. (I didn't bother to mention that I had regularly consigned dozens of similar e-mails to the recycle bin). "You are all just very lucky," the man with an accent replied undaunted when told that two other colleagues have also received e-mails the same day telling them how to collect their winnings. So, if this isn't a scam, how does it work? "Absolutely, we are genuine. It is an Internet lottery, special software picks out the numbers of the winning computers active on the Internet," the man said. Really, how does that work? "The software picks the computer numbers... I don't know... I only work here." Don't worry about it. Can I have my money now? "Sure. Which e-mail did you receive and what is your name?" At this stage I begin to feel the guy on the other end of the phone isn't even trying.

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