I drove over to Charlie’s Truck Stop this past week to pick up some chicken soup and to visit with Jake. When I pulled up to the gas pumps, Jake came bustling out as usual to fill my car. There was not a cloud in the late afternoon sky and the temperature was pleasantly warm, but there was the smell of coming winter in the air. Winter has that certain smell about it, no matter the temperature on a given day. Jake finished with the gas and screwed the cap back on the tank, then I followed him inside. There were several customers about the store, but the chairs and nail kegs over beside the pot belly stove were vacant. That is most unusual for Charlie’s. No matter the time of day, there is normally someone taking up space and discussing the issues of the day.
A lady I do not know came up with a basket load of groceries to check out and I wandered off to get my soup and a few other things I could use. Charlie’s is a small store as compared to the big supermarkets in the city and Jake does not keep the exotic selections common in the big stores, but I generally find I can pick up most everything I need at Charlie’s. When I came back with my shopping cart complete with everything I wanted, Jake looked at the few items in the bottom of the cart and frowned. “You sure don’t buy a lot,” was what he said. “If I had to stay in business on what people like you pick up. I’d soon have to close up the doors.”
I told Jake I bought all I needed and he agreed I probably had. The lady who had just checked out before me had paid for almost a hundred dollars of meats and canned goods and laundry items and snacks and other things. Those are the customers that keep Jake in business. But if Jake were buying just for his own use, he probably would not buy a full shopping cart full in a week. Women just seem to need more to run a house than a man does. They just think different. It’s probably a good thing. Jake thinks he would hate to live with a woman who ran a house the way he would run it if he was living alone. Maureen keeps a good house and always has. Jake is glad to go across the road to his house every evening after he closes up the store. Maureen is a right smart woman.
Then Jake lowered his voice though there was no one up close who was trying to listen in on what he had to say. It seems Maureen had fallen for one of those internet scams that come in e-mail, one Jake would never have thought a woman like Maureen would have taken the bait for. She had not gone so far as to respond to the e-mail scheme, but she had come over to Jake all excited about their miraculous internet opportunity.
How it happened was Jake had gone out to take a delivery of feed to Mister Joe Higgins out west of Chewalla and Maureen had come over to mind the store. She had decided to check the e-mail on the iMac computer Jake keeps in the store. Maureen had gone through the e-mail downloads and found one claiming to be from the wife of the son of the former Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher. Maureen immediately thought of Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain, which is what the originator of the e-mail was hoping she would think. According to the e-mail, the son of Baroness Thatcher and husband of the sender of the e-mail message is under house arrest in Cape Town, South Africa, because of his alleged involvement on a failed coup to overthrow the president of equatorial Guinea, President Teodore Obiong. Supposedly Baroness Thatcher’s son had financed this plot, or was accused of same, is how he came to be under arrest. As the writer’s husband is detained, those holding him are rapidly confiscating his vast fortune. Obviously he has a considerable fortune at his disposal. He also is reported, so the e-mail confides, to have even more money the authorities do not know about. The originator of the e-mail is willing to transfer this fortune to Maureen’s personal account for safe keeping until the crisis is past. Speed and discretion are of utmost importance as the e-mail sender is not sure how long this second fortune will remain secret before the South African authorities learn of it and confiscate it also. The e-mail sender claims Maureen and Jake were recommended to her as sincere and trustworthy persons, which is why they were contacted. Once the crisis had abated, the e-mail sender would reclaim the fortune, but allow Maureen to keep ten percent for assistance in a time of need. Such an opportunity indeed.
When Jake returned from making delivery, Maureen was all excited about the good luck. She had no idea how this woman had secured Jake’s name and e-mail address, but they could certainly help the unfortunate folks out and get the reward payment. Jake had explained the writer had obtained their name and address in the same manner they had obtained thousands of other addresses the same message had gone out to. The thing was a scam. If Maureen responded, somewhere along the way a credit card number or bank account number would be required and money would be taken from Jake and Maureen’s account and they would never again hear from the wife of the son of Baroness Thatcher. Jake grinned it might be fun to follow through on the scheme because Jake did not really have enough in his account to make it worth the trouble for the wife of the son of the Baroness Thatcher to steal.
Maureen had said she felt like a fool for believing such an obviously transparent e-mail scheme. It had sounded too good to be true. Maureen had just not thought it through in her excitement. Jake insisted Maureen is not a stupid woman and he is sure she would never have followed through with the scheme once the request came for bank account and credit card numbers. But Jake understands there are people who are taken in by these scams and his advice is that any e-mail that looks too good to be true most certainly is.
END
