We've all seen the emails. 'There's a sick
kid in Randomville, USA who needs your help. X charity will donate
for every person who forwards this email'. 'Send money to X Person or X Political Group to
solve all their problems.'
I don't doubt that these are real problems for
some people. However, there are several ways that a person can scam
others by playing on their sympathies. They know that
people-particularly children and teens-will trust people they meet
online enough to want to help. Young people haven't yet developed the
cynicism I show above, so they are in particular danger of being
scammed. Since I've had experience with this, I thought it merited
its own post.
Scammers are people who will play on the good
natures of others for their own gain, be it financial or 'just for
fun.' For instance, one Christian forum I frequent had a visitor who
appeared to be going through a really rough time...her marriage was
failing, she was seriously ill but couldn't afford the treatment
because she lost her job, was about to lose her house etc. Basically,
her life was one tragedy after another. People began to listen, call
her (some internationally), send her money, etc...all things a good
community would do. Problem is, none of it was true. There was no
illness. There was no foreclosure, no job loss, no looming threat of
homelessness...nothing. It was all fake, costing several people money
and energy they didn't have to give. What makes it worse is that some
of the people who contributed were emotionally fragile and/or sick
themselves, so the deception hit them even harder.
Unfortunately, this story isn't all that uncommon.
The internet has a way of getting people-particularly children and
teens-to 'suspend' their normal disbelief and be taken in. I myself
was once the target of such a deception, although I didn't send any
money. It was someone claiming to be an HIV-positive teenager whose
life was basically a train wreck, just like the one above. I think we
can liken the willingness to believe such stories to the 'big lie'
theory I learned about in history class. It says that if you want to
convince someone of a falsehood, don't tell a small lie. No, make up
a huge, involved story because a) such tales often confuse people,
and b) many people will assume that a story with that many details
has to be true because we
don't expect to hear such involved tales outside of a novel. Have you
ever heard the phrase, 'you couldn't make this stuff up'? That's the
case here.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that it helps
to be aware of scams like this to make sure you or your teens won't
be taken in. I'm not saying not to reach out and help people, but be
cautious before you send any money. I know this seems like common
sense, but you'd be surprised. Even if they don't ask for money,
though, scammers can elicit emotional distress that no one wants to
see in their child. Overall, trust your gut.
Here's another
interesting article on the
subject-http://www.h2g2.com/entry/A56030573.
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