Receiving a phone call at 8 a.m. on a Saturday is irritating enough.
When the person on the other line greeted me with "Congratulations! You just won $5,000 cash," I knew I was up for a more irritating morning. $5,000 is too good to be true. And I didn't buy any raffle ticket in the last few months. The woman said she got my name from a roster of credit card holders, and that all I needed to do is send $30 or $50 so they could send my check, blah blah. I told the woman that I don't have any credit card and I don't bank online. She retreated by saying there may have been some mix up, blah blah, and hung up the phone.
About three months later, I received another early Saturday morning phone call, this time from a man basically saying the same thing.
It's one of those moments you're thankful you don't have credit cards; the rate of being fooled is low, even if your common sense fails you. haha.
Someone I knew befriended a man online from another part of the world, and the guy said he would send her a $1,000 check after weeks of exchanging IMs. The man sent her a check for $2,000, asking her to send the other $1,000 to his friend in China. Fortunately, the bank called her about the bounced check before she could send the money to China.
Another person I knew was notified online that he won $1 million. While it's too good to be true, he believed it when he received a check worth $1 million. Without waiting for the bank to cash the check (banks hold your check for about three weeks), he treated his friends to dinner and all that stuff. The check bounced; I don't know what else happened.
A friend of mine ordered a cell phone online. She sent the money through Western Union. Two or three weeks had passed and she started to worry. When she found out that Romania, where she ordered the cellphone, is home to many scammers, she knew she lost her $300.
Saipan is not immune to these scams. If it happens to you, ask yourself, 'was I too naive or I just had a bad luck'? Or both?
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