He's Right...

One of the many scam emails going around out there are online loan scams.  They claim to be legitimate loan services with ridiculously low interest rates, childishly simple applications, and incredible amounts of 'money' to loan.

And once you fall for it and Western Union or Money Gram the *application fee*.....you're screwed.

I get a half dozen or so of these a month.  Almost none of them reply to me when I 'edit' the scam right out of them, and have them loaning things like animal genitilia and such.

But one got rather mad for what I did to another scammer's online lotto email scam.  Yep, he did.  Now, I won't bother you with what I did to the lotto scammer's email; by my own standards, I was pretty crude.

Crude enough to get this loan scammer to fire back at me in what I suppose he considered pretty damning terms.  Here's what Expact Loan Offer <expactfinance7@hotmail.com> had to tell me about my edit of one of his peers scam emails:  You be really mugu, idiot.

That'll leave a mark.

The funny thing is...to a point, he's absolutely right.

Mugu, for those of you who've missed it being explained here, is Nigerian for "big fool".  Idiot, well...I reckon that needs no explanation.

I have friends and colleagues who've long considered my 'hobby' of engaging email scammers as a waste of time and suggesting that I'm a 'fool' for doing so.  A couple have even gone so far as to suggest that my time spent on this past time is time "idiotically spent".

Even 'friends' agree with the scammer.

And let me be clear from my own personal point of view:  there have been times in my life where I have, in fact, been and acted the role of a 'big fool' and an 'idiot'.  Times in my life that I shamefully or uncaringly "didn't play well with others".  Life experiences squandered; business opportunities ignored or mishandled.  Personal relationships fumbled.  Fiscal decisions poorly made.  I have made mistakes; not all of them well-intended or well thought out.  Some of them avoidable.  And you can find people who were there, who don't have a high regard for me as a result.

After 55 years, I can acknowledge my failings and accept how they reflect on me up to today.  Unlike with some folks these days, I know that I have no further than the mirror to look into, to see who's responsible for any time that I've been a 'big fool' or 'idiot'. 

So I wasn't insulted, nor did I take amiss, this scammer's response to what I'd done.  In fact, I thought he deserved thanks for the truth of what he spoke to me.

So I thanked him.  I took the email I'd originally edited so crudely, and edited it even more crudely, and made it look like it was from him.  And sent it to him and 50 of his peers and colleagues.

He was right.  So what?  Replying to email scammers thus probably IS a foolish waste of time and idiocy.  But that's okay in my book; I've already acknowledged that I don't always play well with others...