I
don’t know the resolution of that puzzling reverie because early this morning
my telephone rang right in the middle of my denunciation of the unfairness of
the situation before a panel of judges. You guessed it, before a court of six
Cardinals…and I’m not talking about red birds with topknots and feathers.
The
caller was an old friend asking why I’d gone to Manila so soon after the
terrible hurricane hit the Philippines. That was my first clue my computer had
been hacked. I thanked him and bounded out of bed to try to address the
problem. Please understand, the email address hacked was for my other iteration
of Don Morgan. Apparently everyone on my/his contact list received the
following message:
###
Hello,
I
am sorry for reaching you rather too late due to the situation of things right
now. My family and I had a trip visiting Manila (Philippines), everything was
going on fine until last night when we got attacked by some unknown gunmen. All
our money, phones and credit cards was stolen away including some valuable
items. It was a terrible experience but the good thing is they didn’t hurt
anyone or made away with our passports.
We
have reported the incident to the local authorities and the consulate but their
response was too causal, we were ask to come back in 2weeks time for
investigations to be made proper,But the truth is we can’t wait until then as
we have just got our return flight booked and is leaving in few hours from now
but presently sorting out our bills here and also getting a cab down to the
airport. Right now we’re financially strapped due to the unexpected robbery
attack, Wondering if you can help us with a quick loan to sort our bills and
get back home. All we need is ($2,650.00 USD) or anything you can afford, I
promise to refund you in full as soon as I return hopefully tomorrow or next. Write
back now to let me know what you can do.
Thank
You.
Don
###
I
have reproduced the phony email above exactly as received by one of my other
email accounts. What a sorry piece of writing, not to mention a criminal act.
It’s not too hard to figure out someone with English with a second language is
the author of this pitiful literary effort.
So
all of my foreign friends and acquaintances are suspect. If it were done in
poetic form, I’d have the culprit nailed.
“…sorry
for reaching you rather too late…” was bad enough, but “…My family and I had a
trip visiting Manila…” is terrible. And really, can you imagine me saying “$2,650.00
USD?”
Even
though I’m “Oopsie prone,” I don’t use run-on sentences or commas in the
place of periods. I put commas after introductory phrases and use proper
spacing after the close of sentences. And everyone knows I’m a
slave to the serial comma. I don’t mix tenses, and my subjects generally agree
with my verbs.
I
have an idea! If the perpetrator of this fraud will come forward and join our
writing class, we’ll teach him/her/them to write a proper extortion note.
My
heading says I’m pissed. And I am. The bastards deleted all of my contacts, so
I’m starting from scratch in getting them reentered. I changed my password, ran a
Norton full check, tried to contact Yahoo (that’s a subject for another post),
and did everything I know to do to protect against this happening again.
Despite
all of this, let me wish everyone Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday.
Thanks,
Don
Next week: Depends on what
disaster befalls me between now and then.
New posts are published at 6:00
a.m. each Thursday.
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