Holiday Warning: Oh, so Many Scammers, Cheaters and Thieves!
This morning's email included yet another notification (not a spoof) from PayPal that I had been sent a "money request" from someone I had never heard of, requesting payment of $459.99 for some product I had never ordered.
It's a common scam during the holidays, and I suppose scammers wouldn't be doing it if there weren't actually gullible people out there who fall for these things, and send off a large chunk of change without question.
This was, I think, the third or fourth of these I'd received since the beginning of November.
Meanwhile, reading through messages on our local NextDoor app, it seems that the "porch pirates" are hard at work again... perhaps even following the delivery vans around and swiping people's packages right off their front porches.
It all feels rather sad and dystopian. That said, if the economy gets worse, I'm sure this issue will only deepen.
I got to thinking about life when I was quite young... and I just don't remember there being nearly as much petty criminality, 40 years ago. I'm sure there must have been... after all, snake oil salesmen and pickpockets are nothing new... I just don't remember it being so prevalent, all the time, everywhere.
Which, in turn, got me to wondering whether the situation we see today is simply the bi-product of a much greater "need" for people to find some way to make ends meet in a world increasingly dominated by a huge — and growing — gap between the "haves" and "have-nots."
Let's be real here: if more people essentially "have to steal to eat" there will be more petty crime.
Or is the situation more a reflection of a world and values system in which people feel more entitled to have more with less effort?
Although I often lived in what would be classified as the "poverty" of the day, I typically managed to scrape by as a result of working two, or even three jobs. Seems like a cultural attitude of "I ain't gonna do that!" has become more and more visible... or maybe I'm just imagining things.
Sometimes, I also find it alarming to know that there are part/regions of the world in which scamming, cheating and stealing doesn't have the negative connotations associated with it, here in this country... and most places I have lived.
"Cheat, if you can get away with it" seems far more acceptable in some parts of the world... and with the Internet giving us a truly global economy... we're simply seeing things that were not actually visible in pre-Internet days.
The person trying to scam me out of $459 on PayPal definitely was not based anywhere near the US of A — going by their IP address. Of course, the "porch pirates" are undoubtedly quite local...
Regardless, the whole thing casts a bit of a sad glow over what is traditionally considered "the Season of Giving."
Sad that we DO have to "look the gift horse in the mouth..."
Thanks for reading, and have a great remainder of your day!
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Created at 20221214 12:25 PDT
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