Scammed!
Monday, March 10, 2014 at 01:51AM Maybe it was just a matter of time before we got sucked into a scam on the internet. Last week we lost a cool $2000 this way, and it’s unlikely we’ll ever get it back.
It happened like this. My husband, who tends to err on the side of compassion and tends to thinks the best of people (i.e. he can be a little credulous) was fooled by a tricky email that purported to be from the Commonwealth Bank, asking him to send them confirmation of his confidential details. A little while later, I, who am by nature suspicious and withholding, received an sms that purported to be from the Commonwealth Bank, asking if I had changed the phone number that they ring to confirm internet banking transactions. I assumed it was a scam and ignored it, being paranoid about such things. It wasn’t. If I had rung that number straight away, they might have been able to stop the funds transfer.
Just as well for our marriage that it was both our faults! His was a sin of commission, mine one of omission, and to say we are both metaphorically kicking ourselves is an understatement. He put it succinctly with a good and underused word: ‘It’s galling.’
Well, we have both learnt from this. The folk at the bank are ‘investigating’, but we hold out little hope of ever seeing that $2000 again.
Once I had stopped feeling physically sick, I took an interest in observing our reactions. I was amused that his characteristic nature of taking things and people at face value, and mine of being careful and guarded, both of which are virtues up to a point, had, in this situation, let each of us down.
The initial sensation was one I had in India a few years back, travelling on my own on the train for three days. Very early one morning, a guy popped his head into my compartment, and asked if I had change of Rs 600. I blearily gave him the change; he disappeared. The amount of money I was swindled of amounted to about $15, doubtless his need was greater than mine; I couldn’t have cared less about losing the actual money. But I felt as though I’d been punched in the gut. Idiot! An old India hand falling for a cliché like that! Galling was exactly the word. I had travelled the length and breadth of the Subcontinent without being ripped off once and then, bang, I fell for the oldest trick in the book.
Losing $2000 isn’t the end of the world for us. It would have been a major disaster once upon a time, but these days we are lucky enough to have a bit to fall back on. As they say, it’s only money (a phrase that tends to be trotted out by people with loads of the stuff).
No, what hurts is twofold: the embarrassment of being so gullible, and a kind of disappointment knowing that someone cold-bloodedly schemed to cheat us substantially. Mostly I spend my time with honest people; an incident like this reminds me that the world is full of those who aren’t quite so principled. If the person who has our dough is in desperate need of it, good luck to them; I suspect it’s more likely to be a canny crook who is laughing all their way to the bank.
Most people have lost money under unpleasant circumstances; if not a swindle, then something vast and unstoppable like the GFC. All we can do is learn from our mistakes, be glad it wasn’t worse, and move on.
Reader Comments (2)
Oh dear! That is galling. And irritating that it was a scam by a 'canny crook' rather than someone who might need the money. (I always figure if I give money to someone who says they need it for a train ticket home and they spend it on alcohol instead, for example, that's their karma, not mine - which strikes me as a bit weird given that I don't believe in karma!) I don't think your husband is credulous in a bad sense, he thinks the best of people which is a virtue. But then of course I'd say that - I'm exactly the same way. :-)
Bugger! Aren't there biblical curses for people like that? But have no fear that you're alone in being taken in like this. We who basically trust others are particularly gullible and that is the price we pay for it - not a bad fault. I fell for the "You have a virus on your computer and I am from Microsoft and can fix it for you" Scam. They stuffed up my system until I paid up. So I ditched the old computer (overdue) and bought a new operating system I didn't enrich the scammer but it cost me $1500. Just another 'Tale of the City' in our sadly exploitative culture.