My Take: "Teacher loses RM138,000 in well-organised scam after helping widow"

Read this first:
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/6/3/nation/4027176&sec=nation

Now, read what I have to say:

It's rare for me to pick up the papers and even rarer that I actually read the first few pages, thanks to the new surge of politics on the news. For those of you who don't know, I hate politics! Back to the topic, this teacher lost a huge sum of money in a "well-organised" scam. First of all, it grabbed my attention because the money that she apparently lost, isn't a small amount, but as I read through, I thought to myself that this scam wasn't really "well-organised" at all! And the more I read, the more it struck me that this resembled the very scams I get in the "junk" section of my emails.

*I have US$10,000,000 from my late husband, but I am not able to claim it because I am not a citizen of your country. I emailed you, wondering if you could kindly help me. All I need is your picture, bank account number and the PIN number.*

*Hi, my name is R*****, I'm emailing you to inform you that you have won the grand prize in our lottery worth RM3,125,000! To claim this prize, you have to send us your cell phone number, your bank account number and a passport sized of yourself*

*Greetings, I have emailed you to propose the most lucrative of business plans. With an investment of only RM5,000, your investment is guaranteed to boom ten fold. All you need to register is your I.C. number and your bank account number.*

Of course, the emails weren't written in such good English because most of them were typed from people who cannot even string a sentence in their heads, let alone in an email. The point here is that why would anyone fall for scams like these? Isn't it obvious that these are just scams? Who in the world would give you free money if they can make all that money for themselves? Heck, even you might not be that generous even if you had a hundred times that amount of money!

What sickens me the most is that this woman fell for the scam over the phone! She claims: “I was genuinely concerned for her and gave her my particulars and photograph which she later forwarded to her lawyers." I personally thought that she was greedy when she heard about the "US$22mil" on the phone conversation. Under normal circumstances, we may be kind enough to help strangers on the street, but isn't is weird that someone calls you just for your assistance, when they could have called so many other people to help them? Did is never crossed her mind that if it required her to deposit so much money, it could be a scam? Isn't giving your particulars and photograph to someone you don't know dangerous? Is she too carefree, too greedy or just plain dumb?

But she's not dumb! “I am a teacher and yet I was tricked out my life savings." This little detail here shocked me as well. If she was that educated, why didn't she check the authenticity of the law firm? Didn't she check if the lawyer was legit? I guess this proves one thing and one thing only: that teachers nowadays are getting less and less intelligent. She fell for a scam that even a child at the age of her students wouldn't fall for! This brings about one concern: If "teachers" are this gullible despite being educated, what sort of future do you see in our students of today? It is people like these who bring shame to the teaching profession and yet, she has the audacity to claim that she is a teacher. It is my personal belief that she was greedy based on the evidence presented on the newspaper.

As for the Star, they are making a big news out of it, saying that it is "well-organised", when the fact is that she fell for it by simply being too unintelligible to question the authenticity of the request for assistance and for not doubting it in the first place! Of course, it does fulfill the job of a mass media to educate the public about scams like these. Here's my take: Let natural selection take place. Let the foolish and greedy perish and the smart prevail. Only that way can you breed good leaders of tomorrow!


-hwg-