From the Tacoma News Tribune: Before you give someone $150,000, it might be wise to get a name.
The 59-year-old Tacoma woman didn’t do that. She called police to report a fraud.
Since
October, she said, she’d received periodic emails saying she’d won the
lottery: $140 million. All she had to do to pick up her winnings was pay
the taxes.
The emails led to several face-to-face meetings at
Porter Way and Pacific Highway in Fife. The woman always arrived first.
The man always came second. He drove a black SUV with tinted windows. He
was about 40, the woman recalled. Maybe 5-feet-10, 170 pounds. That was
all she knew. No name, no ID, nothing else.
She gave him money.
He said she needed more to cover the taxes. She would agree to meet
again. This happened three or four times, the woman said. She wound up
giving the man $150,000 in cash all told, she said. After the last
meeting, she said she was tapped out. The man said the lottery check
would come in the mail....
“I asked why she believed the suspect and why she gave him this amount
of money,” the report states. “She said that he knew her name, was very
excited for her and seemed sincere.”
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/06/23/2192188/police-beat-road-rage-arrest-scam.html
I get these e-mails all the time and the e-mails are just laughable. But for some reason, people respond to them because if no one did, the fraudsters would try something else. But then, if they get $150,000 once or twice a year, that's a pretty good take.
So, why do people respond to these e-mails? Stupid? Greedy? Lonely? All of the above?
My vote is all of the above. Now this lady lost all of her money and she didn't even get the name of the guy that fleeced her.
Shameful.
At the Friday Night Café...
7 hours ago
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