email Scam: SEND MONEY NOW!

send moneyHoly crap! I just got an email from a friend from high school I barely know who needs my help! Could it be an email scam? No time to ponder. She needs me to SEND MONEY NOW! No matter that I wouldn’t know her if she spit on me right now, but old ties are deep, even from people you wouldn’t recognize if your life depended on it. Turns out she is STRANDED IN ISTANBUL, TURKEY. Wow!

They have a lot of unscrupulous people roaming around Istanbul, apparently, because one of those buggers stole her bag and her money. It had her passport in it! She’s in a tight fix! Can you imagine being stranded in ISTANBUL without your passport? And to think I thought this was just going to be any other day. I hope she didn’t have her money in her bra!

plea for help or email scam?

send money

Her email was a little strange though. She started the email by asking me, “How are you doing?” Isn’t that selfless, given her precarious position? She’s pretty upset as evidenced by her lack of proper sentence structure, but if you’d had your “mobile phone and personal effects therein” stolen when you were in freakin’ Istanbul, you might be lax about grammar too. I’m not quite sure how she knew my email address by heart. Especially given that she doesn’t have access to her mobile phone.

Also, she hasn’t spoken to me in decades, but there must be an angel looking out for her. Still, the thought she could be involved in an email scam perplexes me. The hotel manager is giving her a hard time. He doesn’t know how often Americans get their personables stolen when they are in Istanbul. These folks are not the sympathetic type. I mean, they are FOREIGNERS. Although I guess not technically since they are in their own country.

send money

can i risk not sending her money?

I don’t even know what currency they use in Istanbul. I better act quickly! The hotel wants her “to settle her bill before leaving” even though she said she has a temporary passport and her plane is leaving soon. Why couldn’t she pay him when she gets back to the United States? Alas, it’s not for me to question the customs of such a foreign land.

I feel like I’m caught up in international espionage or something! She totally said she’d pay me back immediately upon her return. What kind of person would just ignore a near stranger’s plea for help and not send them cash? Right. Heartless, selfish people with their own responsibilities and more disposable cash than they need.

send money

The email landed in my junk folder because it was sent in bulk. She must know a lot of people to send it to so many folks, but when you’re in trouble in Istanbul, you must cast a wide net of people to ask to send money. I wonder how to best do that? Perhaps I should send her my credit card number, my mother’s maiden name and the card security code on the back. Do you think that would be enough to get her out of hot water? Maybe I could just send her my bank account details and passwords?

Wow! It sure feels good to help someone out in a jam, email scam or no. Karma’s a bitch, eh?

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