Scams cost Baldwin County Families nearly a Million Dollars

These are the kinds of news stories that truly make me ill. The article that appears online today says that two Gulf Coast families have lost nearly a combined total of a million dollars. They are victims of a lottery scam and at least one of the scammers has been arrested. But, he is a member of a larger ring of scam operators connected at least so far to Jamaica. And these stories are not at all uncommon.

We've joked about the emails we receive from here on occasion, and by now I think every single one of us knows that those lottery emails are either phishing or outright fraud. Most of them are generated from Nigeria. And since they continue to come, they must, at least in part, be working.

So I have to ask, how on earth do they continue to work. Are we as a nation so desperate for money that we will fall (still, and after having heard of these scams for years) for the you've won a bazillion, gazillion dollars and all you have to do is send the following information to me. Then you have to pay wire transfer fees, and taxes and it continues until the "mark" is totally broken. Bankrupt. Life savings gone.

I still fret about this one. About a month ago, I needed something at the customer service desk at one of my local supermarkets. As it happens, there was a nice lady at the counter just ahead of me who was sending money via wire transfer - Western Union. I could hear the conversation between the clerk and the customer, and the clerk was trying to locate the name of the recipient in her computer, as this was not the first time funds were being wired to this individual from this lady. It was a quiet Saturday afternoon, and I clearly heard the name, and my attention was then focused on this transaction. I knew it was bad manners to listen in, but the whole time I listened, I knew this was probably someone being taken by a scam. The name was oddly foreign. First red flag. The country was Nigeria. Second, third, fourth and fifth red flags. The amount being wired was ten thousand dollars. That's right. 10k. Ten Thousand. $10,000.00.

Now I know looks can be deceiving, but this lovely lady did not look or act like or dress or speak like someone who should be shelling out 10K to anyone in Nigeria. And with all the red flags going off, I kept getting stronger feelings that this particular lady was most likely being taken advantage of.

But, manners dictated that I should not interfere. It was not my business to butt in and ask her anything about what she was doing. So, I remained quiet. The funds were sent. And then it was my turn. I couldn't help but ask the clerk, if she knew why the lady was sending money like that to Nigeria. And the clerk's response was, "I don't know, but she does it a lot. I don't ask her why she's sending it. I just send it for her."

I left it alone, and I didn't butt in. And I will never forget that afternoon. Could I, should I have said something to try and save this lady? I didn't. Dis she need saving? I don't know, nor will I ever know, unless in subsequent news stories she and her face appear talking about the hundreds of thousand of dollars she was bilked out of. If she does, I will always wonder if I could have helped.

These stories make me sick. It could have easily been my mother, as in the early stages of her Alzheimer's disease, she sent money all over the place. She was so confused that when she received solicitations for donations, she thought they were bills she needed to pay. Gosh there were lots of donations sent out by her in that first year that she was still living on her own and before we stepped in to take over some of her life tasks.

She did not have a computer. And I thank our lucky stars for that. But I am grieved for those who don't understand that these emails are fraudulent and who spend their nest eggs in hope of a fortune. It happened here. It happens everywhere. And it really makes me sick.