Rowan Pendragon is many things. Chief among them are Priestess and Student of the College of the Sacred Mists, ordained Reverend and Witch, Usui and Faery Reiki Master, Ph.D. student with the University of Sedona,a professional tarot reader, and a psychic. In short…she’s exciting and smart. She took some time to put on her writer’s hat and answer the question “Do Stupid People Get Scammed?”
Modern technology is wonderful. Only on the internet can you win millions of dollars in a lottery you never entered held in a country you’ve never been to. Only on the internet can you win a free Xbox by entering your phone number on a website and then visiting another site and voting on a “hot or not” picture contest. And only on the internet can you get a month’s supply of the most sure fire, no fail diet pills for free. More amazing than the ability to find these things on the internet is the number of people that fall prey to these scams. In the end people just about never get what they were under the impression they would get and often people lose time and money and sometimes their identities because of the added elements of phishing that many of the websites advertising and promoting these scams have attached to them.
Pretty much all of us have seen the infamous “Nigerian 419 letter”, so named because the scam originated from Nigeria and 419 is the Nigerian criminal code for receiving property under false pretenses (i.e. scamming). The email that claims that a minister or other political figure needs someone to supply a bank account out of their country in someone else’s name that money can be deposited in for a time and for your troubles you’ll receive part of the millions that you’ll be hanging on to. In order for this to happen you need to provide the foreign council members who are contacting you with your name and bank information so they can deposit this money.
Have you ever stopped and wondered why you of all people, some mild mannered office drudgen or stay at home soccer mom is being contacted by the Nigerian government for help with their financial woes? There are different ways that this scam works; sometimes the victim is asked to send temporary money to another account, usually in their own country, which often ends up being where they lose money. Another way is by people doing nothing and by simply providing their own bank information their accounts are drained.
Most people let these emails go to their spam folder and do nothing about it, laugh it off, and let it go. Most of us actually can’t imagine that anyone would really fall for this stuff and believe that they are really going to somehow clear $2M dollars by doing nothing. But, believe it or not, these “419 scams” manage to catch a good number of people every year, even with all the news reports and attempts to teach people how to spot these scams. Even more unfortunate is that many of the people that fall victim to these scams are elderly; they think they’re helping out someone in need and in the process end up losing their life savings.
Another one that a lot of people seem to find themselves getting roped into is the Acai Berry Scam. Most of us that use the internet on a regular basis see this one quite often. This scam usually takes the form of fake blogs about people that lost weight with this plan or ads that claim Rachel Ray lost a ton of weight by taking acai berry supplements along with a colon cleansing supplement. First off, there’s no proof that Rachel Ray did this. Second, the concept of the acai berry regimen is legit however the results that most of these sites dangle like a carrot in front of people are greatly unrealistic (and the products that these scams offer are not of the quality that they need to be in order to gain results; these supplements when purchased in the correct dosage and correct concentration for the desired effects can get pricey).
The scam happens when you try to order your “free” 30 or 60 day supply of pills for the cost of just shipping and handling which is often under $10. When you go and fill out your name and address, give your phone number and your credit card to cover the shipping cost and hit send to order the acai, you often then find that you’re directed to do the same for the colon cleanse which is now something separate. So since you’ve done it for one you feel obligated to do it for the other. You enter in all your info again, give you credit card again, pay another $10 and off you go. In a week you get two packages in the mail and begin your pill popping, no dieting quest toward instant weight loss. Your first month passes and you track your weight and find that you only lost 5 to 10 pounds, not the 30 pounds that the ads claimed. In your frustration you decide to let it go and not order any more pills. But, lo and behold, within a few days you find another order has arrived and you now have another 30 day supply of acai and colon cleanse. You also come to find that you have two charges for around $80 each on your credit card statement.
The reason for this is that you, like everyone else that tends to fall for this because they are blinded by no effort weight loss, missed the fine print in both forms you filled out telling you that you’re signing up for a monthly subscription for anywhere from $70-80 a month for each of these two products. Your “free” pills were part of a 20 day or so trial period, which is specifically designed so that you haven’t completed the first round of pills and haven’t fully assessed your results before your full subscription kicks in and your first set of full charges has been put on your card. Now that you’ve passed your limited trial period in this subscription you have missed your chance to get out of the whole deal easily. Many of these programs in their fine print state that all you need to do is email their customer service departments before the trial is up and you’re subscription will be canceled. But now that you’re fully in their program trying to get out of it is like trying to leave the mafia. And don’t expect any refunds for the months that you might have paid full price for either.
So the ultimate question really is, are the people that succumb to these and other online same incredibly naïve, woefully uninformed or just plain stupid?
Ultimately, I don’t think it’s stupidity that is the problem but more it’s the nature of how scams work. People of all walks of life, with all manners of needs and problems find themselves being taken advantage of by these scams. There really is no single demographic of victims. The fact is that scams prey on our needs, our emotions and our desires. Scams typically happen so fast with a “too good to be true” hook to pull you in that by the time you realize you’ve been scammed it’s too late to do anything about it. Only if we’re able to have the time to stop, think rationally, do some research and ask questions are we able to really avoid these situations, however that rarely happens in these instances. Most of these scams seem so simple and obvious after the fact but the people that craft them spend a long time refining their technique that it’s not until later that we catch on.
The other big factor that is making people fall for these scams right now is the terrible state of our economy. The cheaper something appears to be and the better deal that someone can get they take it and run with it only to later find that they have charges on their credit cards, bills coming left and right and fees they never knew about that are now making that one off good deal a long time financial burden. So emails offering cheap getaways, free cell phones, months of free gas and groceries, things that you would think most people would normally never look twice at, are now fair game and look good to a lot of people.
The best way to avoid being taken by one scam or another is to follow the old adage that if it’s too good to be true it probably is. Don’t let your emotions rule your decision making when it comes to purchasing things or making any sort of investment deals turn out to be nothing more than fake “get rich quick” schemes. Take the time to stop, research and ask questions. If the person trying to scam you tells you this is a “once in a lifetime opportunity” you can guaranteed that it’s not and there’s another scam artist out there waiting for you to take the bait from their hook if you really want to explore what they’re trying to sell you. But if you take the time to walk away and give it some thought, chances are the once in a lifetime opportunity will be more obviously one that the con artist missed out on; the opportunity to take your money and scam you.
To learn more about Rowan and her work visit One Witch’s Way .
