Just Say No

I'm not necessarily against scams. The thing about most scams is that it's fairly obvious they're scams. It's a wonder (to me, anyway) that they ever work in the first place. Therefore, as a proponent of "A fool and his money are soon parted", I have a hard time being overly sympathetic toward people who get taken to the cleaners by people who aren't even cleaners. You need to pay attention. If it's too good be true, it probably freaking is! Thus, don't do it! And I know that some softhead out there is going to be thinking "What about the elderly?" The elderly need to pay attention to! I understand that they're all nice and want to help and always have those weird peppermint candies in their purse that they're always trying to give away, but that's no reason to try to take advantage of them. They need to THINK. (And this is coming from someone (me) with an elderly mother. Lemme tell you, that old broad isn't going to help anyone with anything. And that could not make me happier. I don't know if it's because she doesn't want to get scammed or just because she's mean, but I really don't care. It's an effective strategy against evil-doers.)

But not everyone has any sort of built in B.S. beacon in their head. Let's look at a story from the Orlando Sentinel. Yes, it should come as no surprise that this goes on in Florida, but it can (and does) happen anywhere. Here's the scam: Someone who is over 60 years old and Hispanic is approached by two Spanish speaking people. The two people tell the person that they are in possession of a winning lottery ticket. How exciting! To make it even more exciting, it is, of course, a multi-million dollar lottery ticket! Oh, but then comes the sad news. The sad news is that the lucky couple are in this country illegally. See? Sad! But the person (about to be known as "The one with no more money") can help make this situation not so sad by cashing the ticket for the Spanish speaking foreigners.

Now, to me, I can see that situation occurring. The part about where a couple of illegals buy a lottery ticket and win the friggin' thing. I can also see them needing someone else to cash the ticket for them. Both of those things make perfect sense to me. Everything else, however, does not. They don't have any friends who are legal? What about the nice lady at the welfare office who I'm sure helps them get benefits? She couldn't do it? (These are rhetorical questions because, as you know, the whole situation is fake. Please don't email me with answers to these questions. I understand. You, on the other hand, clearly do not. I'm surprised you even read this blog. Grateful, but surprised.) The other thing that doesn't make any sense to me is why they need money first. The part that doesn't make a lick of sense to me at all is why anyone would give it to them first.

Yes, for some reason, this scam involves the person withdrawing a ton of money from their bank account and then giving it to the scammers. In turn, the scammers give the person the lottery ticket and then take them to a grocery store where they can turn it in. It's when the person is inside and finding out that the ticket is worthless that the scammers have drove away, likely never to be seen again, and taken all of the scamees money with them. In the most recent case, it was $14,500. What a bunch of a-holes.

Does the person deserve to lose that money? Well, I'm not trying to be a royal jackass here, but they kind of do! It's a pretty easy nut to crack in this instance. What say you check what the winning numbers are BEFORE you go taking every dime you have out of savings? Is that so far out of someone's realm of problem solving skills that it would have never occurred to them? And if so, WHY is that?! Why would you not question why they need YOUR money first? Apparently, it was for "collateral". I'm not giving someone ALL of my money for freaking collateral. And if you're someone who considers giving all of YOUR money to someone you've never met who isn't even in this country legally, you might deserve to lose that money. I'm just saying. Granted, I am also wondering how someone who could fall for something like this could have been able to amass that kind of money in the first place, as their dense, dense way of thinking doesn't seem like it would allow for the accumulation of riches.

And even though I've just explained my stance on the scamees, don't take that to mean that I am perfectly OK with people being scammers. I am not. Those who prey upon older people are the scum of the earth and should be treated in such a manner. People like that are not fit to breathe the air that is inhaled by humans. I despise people like that. Despise. But the only reason, the only reason that their scams can work at all is through the cooperation of those who are being scammed. If those people would just stop and think things through for a few moments, I really think that things would turn out a lot better in the end for everyone. Well, except for the scammers. But then again, that is the point!

According to the article "Many do not report the thefts out of embarrassment and fear their adult children will think they are senile". Yes, I can understand that. If my mom told me that she gave all of her money to a couple of Spanish speaking shysters, do you know what the first question I would ask her would be? Naturally, it would be "I didn't know you spoke Spanish." But after that? I would absolutely be questioning her state of mind. Why can't these people think of these things before they make these completely ill-advised moves? Why can't they just think, "If I get taken, my kids are going to be looking at homes for me. I'll be completely embarrassed AND broke. Maybe I won't give my life savings to two people I've never met who can't even follow our immigration laws. Yeah, maybe I won't do that." I don't get that. I doubt I ever will. Why are people so eager to help people that they've never met? I hardly want to help anyone. Maybe more people should adopt my surly attitude about goodwill toward men. It's not always overly pleasant, but there would be a lot less of this sort of thing happening, that's for sure.

You People Fell For That?

Sometimes there are scams that I am just amazed that some people are able to pull off. And it's not because the person or the people pulling the scam are stupid. It's because the people getting scammed are actually going along with it and letting it happen! We're not talking about some complicated scheme that anyone would have fallen for or that no one could have done anything to stop it from happening. No, we're talking about a scam that is so perplexing to me, I can't believe that ONE person fell for it, let alone THIRTY.

Here's the scoop: According to an article by the wiry folks over there at Wired, over in Wisconsin an 18-year old male "...was sentenced to 15 years in prison Wednesday for an extortion scheme". OK, what kind of extortion scheme. Oh, you know. The kind "...that had him tricking male classmates into sending them nude photos of themselves". You may be asking yourself, "That's a scheme?" Well, it is when he was "...then blackmailing them with exposure if they didn’t have sex with him." Oh, yeah. That's a scheme all right! Wait. What?

Correct. Meet 18-year old (and old enough to know better) Anthony Stancl. Behold!

Yeah, that seems about right. Anyway, Mr. Stancl apparently "...posed as a girl on Facebook and tricked more than 30 male classmates into sending him photos of themselves." Now, you know that these photos that were sent weren't just any photos. No, they were the photos of the nude variety.

Let's just stop right here for a moment, shall we? What is it with younger people taking pictures of themselves naked? Or just taking pictures of their genitals? And then sending said pictures to other human beings. How does that work? Do you take a picture of your penis and send it out to all of your friends with the caption "Here's what my wiener looks like on Tuesday."? I don't understand the motivation behind these actions. And when you're sending said genitalia photography over the Internet are you thinking, "Oh, it'll be fine. Things only stick around on the Internet for like a week or so. It'll be gone soon." Or are you just planning to never have any sort of a job where you work with the public or what? Why are you sending pictures of your reproductive organs to other people? Why?

Since those questions, among others, cannot be answered right now, let's continue with how this scam worked. So Mr. Stancl found 30 guys who were really proud of their manhood and they snapped a couple of Glamour Shots (maybe with the penis by a lake or with the penis in the middle of a meadow) and sent them to Mr. Stancl, but who they thought was "Kayla". Huh. OK. Then what?

Well, as Mr. Stancl began receiving photos of male genitalia, he needed to keep them organized so he organized them within 40 folders on his computer and named each folder "after a victim whose photos were in the folder. In one case, police found 24 pictures of a single victim." 24?!?! Really? One for every hour of the day? (Here's my penis at noon! Here's my penis during rush hour!) Seems odd.

And it was odd. But to me, it wasn't as odd as the fact that seven of the victims claimed that Mr. Stancl "...threatened to post their nude pictures on the internet or send them to their friends unless they engaged in sexual activity with a male friend of “hers.” When the victims met with the male friend, who was Stancl, the perpetrator performed oral sex on the victims and took a photo of the activity with his cellphone." Wait. What now?

HE performed oral sex on THEM?! Huh. I would have thought he would have wanted it the other way around. He did all of the performing, eh? Strange. But what's stranger is that those folks thought that was a good idea.

I don't get that line of thinking at all. I guess because the victims were still in high school that they went along with this little plan. I mean, seriously. What went through their heads? "I'm not gay or anything, but this guy is going to post a picture of my penis online unless I let him get me off in an oral manner. Um, OK." NO! That's not right! That's not logical! But that's what happened.

The whole thing came unraveled when Mr. Stancl, still posing as "Kayla" ended up actually having sex with one of the male victims and then instructing the victim to send him a nude picture of his brother. That's when the victim went running to his parents and told them about this crazy, Facebook penis picture scheme.

Mr. Stancl has now been sentenced to 15 years in jail. Since he seems to enjoy performing fellatio, I'm sure that over the next 15 years, he'll be able to find plenty of willing participants to let him do his thing to them. Plenty of them. So let this be a lesson to you, kids! If someone wants a picture of your penis, just say no. Because really, no one wants to see that. No one. I promise. That's why y'all wear pants.