If you’ve ever been on the internet for any length of time like say, oh five minutes or so, then you know what it is full of…
Lots of amazing information, beautiful photos, fun facts, thought-provoking material, and videos of every kind that you could ever imagine.
Yeah, that’s exactly what I was going to say.
Okay, dear reader, I can’t lie to you.
What I was originally going to say is that the internet is full of horse hockey. And, yes, I’m using this phrase because this is a family newspaper, not because I’m channeling Colonel Potter from the TV show “MASH.”
Because the internet is full of lies and urban legends (which often are debunked thanks to great sites like Snopes.com—I’m sure they’ve settled many a bar bet quickly which avoided the potential fist fights that could have followed).
Unfortunately, they’re also full of scams.
If you have email, you know what I mean.
If you don’t, let me tell you how it works: someone with a peculiar email address will send you an email saying that you’ve won a contest, had a rich relative you never knew about die and leave you all of his or her money (like any of us would ever have had a rich relative that no one in the family knew about—maybe they wouldn’t talk with anyone in the family, but, trust me, we would all know about them), or they have come into money but somehow can’t access it without an account in the United States—and that’s where you come in.
They always end the same way: you have to send them money in order to get your supposed money.
Note—don’t ever send anyone money when they contact you like this. If you want to throw some good money away, then go buy my humor book.
Um, you know what I mean!
For some reason, these emails often say that they are coming from Nigeria. Or that your relative was somehow tied to Nigeria. Or that you’ve won the Nigerian lottery. You get the gist.
I wonder if folks in Nigeria have nothing better to do than to spam people to try to bilk them out of money. Or perhaps since these are coming from the World Wide Web, the people sending them aren’t even Nigerian in the first place. They might be sitting in a basement of a bowling alley in Walla Walla, Washington for all we know.
But, I digress…
Now, though, the scammer spammers are getting really creative. How do I know this? Because I was recently scam-spammed…in Polish.
Yes, my last name is Polish. I come from a Polish family. (If you’ve ever wondered, yes, I did keep my maiden name when I got married. If I had to learn to spell it in kindergarten, I’m taking it to the grave.) But that doesn’t necessarily mean I speak the language.
I was taught many useful Polish words and phrases as a child. Like how to say, “Give me a kiss.” “Come here!” and the always useful “Go home and go to bed.”
Yeah, even I don’t know why my grandmother taught me that one.
Oh, and butt. I know how to say “butt” in Polish. It’s “dupa,” in case you were wondering.
But I recently received an entire email in Polish. Because I don’t speak the language, I pasted it into Google Translate. Here’s what came up:
Dear Wojciechowski
“Good day, I am Barrister Urbert Mboko, legal counsel in the Republic of Togo in West Africa, and on the personal advocate (engineer Gregory Wojciechowski), died my client, who was killed in a car accident along the expressway Abidjan on 20 April 2010, my client lost his life with his wife and their only child, I did a couple of questions to the embassy. I contacted to assist in the distribution of resources left. Valued at 12.5 million dollars. I have all the necessary information and legal documents needed to BACK to claim. Contact me on my private e-mail address or you can send me an e-mail to contact for more information.”
Wow! $12.5 million bucks! All because a relative of mine, whom I never knew, passed away!
Alas, this one wasn’t from the Nigerians. It was from Togo, West Africa. I wonder if they don’t love me anymore.
I’d write more, but I have to go email this guy. Maybe he’s got a bridge he can sell me too! Or some swampland!
Michele Wojciechowski, when she’s not being completely amazed by the number of formerly unknown relatives she has in Nigeria and Togo, writes “Wojo’s World®” from her home office.