LOL Nigerian Scam
(Reminder, I print these as a warning to others. If you want to mess with these scammers, you do so at your own risk 🙂 )
From: jn48@gmail.com
Attn: Beneficiary,
Re:Your ATM Card US$10.5M is Ready
You Are Hereby Notified That Your Inheritance/Contract Payment Of 10.5m Dollars United States Has Been Approved To Be Made To You Through our ATM Visa Debit Card Unit. You Are Advised To Re-Confirm To Us The Below Information Or Call Me Immediately For More Details: +22961027320
FULL NAME:
DELIVERY ADDRESS:
PHONE NUMBER:
COUNTRY:
OCCUPATION:
SEX:
AGE:
Regards,
Dr Fred Ibe,
Director,ATM Payment
+22961027320
Taxes and Credit Cards
I am not superstitious, yet I felt a little shudder when my Lucky Bamboo suddenly just died, and then on Chinese New Year’s, I shuddered again when I saw that my cookie, still in its little plastic shroud, was smooshed, not just broken a little, but broken a lot. (It turned out to be a good fortune.)
Things happen; as I said I am not superstitious. I’m a believer; I believe these things are in God’s hands.
So this week we were playing catch-up, and AdventureMan gathered all the materials for our taxes. He had a few extra minutes before our tax appointment, and made a phone call trying to straighten out a charge we had that was supposed to be removed, and we did not see that it had. While the customer service agent (who was really very good) was running through the list of charges, and I was saying “Yes.” “Yes” “Yes” she started running through a list of credits and I was saying “No, there is only a credit for X” and she is reading off a list that . . . is growing.
And then she says “I need to talk to a supervisor; I will be right back” and comes back very shortly and says there is some suspicious activity on my card and the bank will be sending us new cards immediately.
Just in time, because we have to go to the tax meeting. That meeting went well, except that there were a couple pieces of information our tax person needed and I knew I could get for her, so I would call her before the end of the day.
When I got home, I went to the file where I found two of the missing pieces of information, but not the third. I knew I could find it in my August credit card statement, but it was the only one I couldn’t locate.
Went online so I could download and print, but . . . there were only four months there. Call to the credit card company again, transfer to IT who says that once that card is cancelled, they can no longer “see” the information online, but that they can send me a copy. Yes, yes, good for documentation, but that doesn’t help me with the exact amount I need to provide to my tax lady. Aargh.
It wasn’t a big deal. AdventureMan tracks things through the year and the pieces of information are long-run things, not immediate tax things, but . . . all this happening on the same day.
“It’s a good thing I have my back-up card,” I say to AdventureMan, reminding him of a card I got for just these circumstances (yes, I charged ONE item during the period from Thanksgiving to Christmas at Target, ONE item) so I always have back-up, as well as in case a hurricane hits our house and we have to live in a hotel while our home is rebuilt, yes, I am a planner . . .
And AdventureMan turns white. “Oh no,” he said, ruminatively, “I couldn’t figure out why we had that one, so I cancelled it yesterday . . . ” and then he got on the phone to straighten it out. LOL, a lot of small stuff, all of which ended well, but I couldn’t help thinking maybe I need to get better at growing Lucky Bamboo . . . all these dribbles had to do with money.
My Chinese friend just laughed when we talked today; I had told her I didn’t notify my bank about the Target charge because I figured with 12.5 million people affected, I was just a drop in the bucket. I’ve had this happen now four times, and I was tired of re-doing my automatic charges.
“Oh!” she laughed, “You think it’s like the lottery, that you only had one chance in 12.5 million,” and she is laughing like a crazy woman – at me. Yeh. She’s right. Sometimes,it’s better to bite that bullet right at the beginning, before things get worse.
Most Criminals are Dimwits: Attempted Kidnapping
Today in Pensacola, from the Pensacola News Journal What I wonder – did the guy selling the ring get to keep the full $4,500 that his attempted abductors were buying from him?:
Two people have been arrested in connection with a kidnapping and shooting of a man after a botched robbery attempt in a Wal-Mart parking lot, an Escambia County Sheriff’s Office arrest report said.
Darius Beasley, 21, and Jamichael Tucker, 19, were arrested Tuesday afternoon after deputies responded to reports of shots fired near the intersection of Pensacola Boulevard and Hood Drive, according to the report.
A victim at the scene said that he had met Beasley in the parking lot after arranging to sell him a $4,500 wedding ring on Craigslist, the report said. The victim allowed Beasley into his vehicle, where they exchanged the ring and an envelope containing cash.
The victim said that immediately afterward, Tucker approached the driver’s side of the vehicle and pointed a gun inside. Tucker then allegedly opened the door of the vehicle and attempted to put duct tape around the victim’s wrists.
The victim was able to get out of the vehicle and run away, and the two suspects returned to their car and drove off, the report said. The victim began to chase the pair in his truck, and Tucker reportedly leaned out of his car window and began shooting at the victim.
The chase ended when a deputy arrived on the scene and advised the suspects to pull over. Tucker and Beasley were taken into custody without incident, and no one was injured in the event.
Both men are facing an array of charges including aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, robbery and attempted kidnapping.
Tucker is being held on $125,500 bond, and Beasley is being held on $103,000.
Headlight Flashing to Warn of Police is Free Speech
This is big news for people in my area, because they often flash lights to warn of speed traps ahead.
Warning Drivers Of Speed Traps With Flashing Headlights Is Free Speech
A federal judge in St. Louis has set the benchmark
A federal judge in St. Louis ruled Monday that a driver flashing their lights to warn other drivers of an impending speed trap is protected free speech.
On November 22, 2012 Michael Elli received a ticket for flashing his lights to warn fellow drivers of a speed trap, according to Fox 2. The American Civil Liberties Union helped Elli fight the $1,000 ticket all the way to federal court.
Judge Henry Autrey of St. Louis ruled a driver has the right to flash their lights under the First Amendment. Autrey issued an injunction to stop Ellisville Police from enforcing the policy.
“If you’re at the gas station on the corner and someone says ‘Hey be careful over there, there’s a speed trap,’ that’s protected speech. You can’t be ticketed for that. This is no different,” Tony Rothert, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, told Fox 2.
A lawyer for the police in Ellisville said the department isn’t affected by the ruling, as this kind of ticket has only been issued five or so times in the last decade. Across the country, however, the ruling will be considered the benchmark for such cases.
Energy Use and My Friend Who Kept the Cats Warm
“I was scratching their heads and ears and noticed that they were nice and warm! I wondered how they were managing to keep so warm in the awful cold, but I was glad they found a nice warm place,” my friend said, when I asked her how her outdoor cats had fared in the bone-chilling cold we experienced in Pensacola last week.
“Then I got my Gulf Power bill, and Intlxpatr, it was over a thousand dollars!” she exclaimed, her eyes huge.
Her normal bill is probably around what I pay. Not nearly a thousand dollars, not even on the hottest month of summer when I have to keep the air on full blast 24/7 on just to survive.
“So I called the heating people,’ she continued, and they had to crawl under the house, imagine, in this weather. . . ”
I imagined.
“. . . And they discovered the cats had clawed a hole in one of my air ducts and had luxuriated, down there under the house, while my heater tried to heat up half of Pensacola!”
We laughed, but a thousand dollars . . . that knocks a hole in anyone’s budget. It was one of those laughing-because-if-you-don’t-laugh-you-will-cry kinds of laughs.
I am an energy nerd. It comes from growing up in Alaska, I am convinced, where I had neighbors who fished in the summers and had to get by all year on that income, plus what they might come by with odd jobs the rest of the year. My friends had a huge garden in their back yard, and a root cellar where things were stored. In the root cellar, they had a chalkboard, where every potato, every carrot, everything they had stored was listed, and numbers subtracted as they were used. They had to keep track, to be sure they would make it through the winter.
In Pensacola, Gulf Power has a really cool feature on their website. You set up an online account, and you can check on your daily energy usage. LOL, this is mine for January. It has huge ups and downs – mostly we don’t need to have the heat on, but when the temperatures go down and stay down – it shows. There are also a couple days when we used our oven, and that shows up, too, but not badly.
I remember living in Germany, where I didn’t have a dryer (or any space for one) and my landlady brought me my energy bill. We lived in a very small farming village, where they were also all very frugal, but she couldn’t believe my bill was so small. I just smiled; I could hear her dryer going every day, and dryers are also a huge source of energy usage. Anything that heats up – or cools down – is an energy eater.
On the website, you can also compare this year against previous years – and my bill this year is nearly a third higher than last year, but last year we did not have a three-day arctic freeze!
Getting Back More Than You Give
This is a daily meditation from Forward Day by Day, and I know what you are going to say – you are going to read this and say “but she only got back $10; she got exactly what she gave.”
You would be wrong. She also got the joy of giving sacrificially, giving all she had. She didn’t know she was going to get anything back. She got the feeling of doing the right thing.
You give more, you get more. There are so many things that money cannot buy, peaceful sleep, loving family, faraway friends who call you out of the blue because they are thinking of you . . . the Lord blesses a cheerful giver 🙂
FRIDAY, January 31
John 6:6. Jesus said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do.
Sue’s young daughter barely got her offering in the collection plate in time. It was her entire allowance of $10. She’d given the money, she said, because she felt God called her to give all she had. But before the young girl could even take her seat, someone in the row behind gave her a folded $10 bill. Obedience had been rewarded.
Like Sue’s daughter, we are prompted to do things that might challenge our comfort zone. It could be the nudging to give more than we think we can afford, or to take on a task we are uncertain we can accomplish, or to provide a sacrificial act of grace or kindness for the sake of another. God often calls us to give beyond what we can see and reason, whether time, talent, or treasure. Perhaps then we can better see how much God can make of our little.
Jesus’ feeding of the multitude, told in the gospel we read today, did not depend on the disciples having enough food but on their willingness to bring what they had to him so he could increase it. As they served the food, the supplies grew until there was enough to satisfy the hungry crowd with leftovers. Our willingness to give always results in food that keeps on feeding.
Ms. Rebecca L. Morgan Wants to Make Sure I Get My 10.5M
What do you want to bet that those fees are whoppers? 🙂
From: MS REBECCA L.MORGAN service@un.com
From: Ms.Rebecca L.Morgan
Att:Dear Friend .
This is to inform you that I came to Nigeria yesterday from USA,after series of complains from the FBI and other Security agencies from Asia, Europe,Oceania, Antarctica,South America and the United States of America respectively,against the Federal Government of Nigeria and the British Government for the rate of scam activities going on in these two nations.
I have met with President GoodLuck of Nigeria who claimed that he has been trying his best to make sure you receive your fund into your account through their reserve account in USA.
Right now,as directed by our secretary general Mr. Ban Ki-Moon,We are working in collaborations with the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) and have decided to waive away all your clearance fees/Charges and authorize the Government of Nigeria to effect the payment of your compensation of an amount of $10.5M approved by both the British/United States government and the UN into your account without any delay.The only fee you are required to pay in other to confirm your fund in your account is COURT NOTARIZATION FEE to the UN.
Sincerely,you are a lucky person because I have just discovered that some top Nigerian’s/African’s and British Government Officials are interested in your fund and they are working in collaboration with One Mr.Ben S.Bernanke,FAKE FBI and others from USA to frustrate you and thereafter divert your fund into their personal account.
I have a very limited time to stay in Nigeria here so I would like you to urgently respond to this message with your full name, full address,direct phone number so that I can advise you on how best to confirm your fund in your account within the next 72 hours.
Sincerely yours,
Ms.Rebecca L.Morgan
United Nations Under-Secretary
General for Internal Oversight.
Promises, Promises (Lies, Lies!)
West Virginia is one of the poorest – and most beautiful – of the 50 United States, green with forests and uninhabited spaces. It also has pockets of some of the poorest people in the United States. It is a state which accepts that which other states might find unacceptable. And when the chemical spill poisoned the water of thousands of people, Freedom Industries, the responsible company, declared bankruptcy.
Even today, while their water has been declared OK, people say it tastes funny, and chemists have found unacceptable traces of chemicals that other tests were not even measuring. Today, we have this report that the spill was much worse that the company originally reported.
Its sad, and it is disheartening.
In Florida, there are constant proposals for land use restrictions being lifted. The military, the companies – they all promise that this (whatever) will have no impact on the environment. Why, no one could be more environmentally responsible than (_______) fill in the blank with whatever the requestor is.
Yeh. Right.
My guess is that if the true cost of the BP oil spill in the Gulf were known, it would bankrupt BP.
The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection issued an update on Monday evening indicating that the Elk River spill in West Virginia earlier this month involved more gallons of chemicals than previously reported.
Freedom Industries, which owned the tank that leaked into a river supplying water in the state, now says that approximately 10,000 gallons of the chemicals 4-methylcyclohexane methanol (also known as MCHM) and PPH were released. The company initially said 7,500 gallons spilled, and failed to disclose the presence of the second chemical until last week. The leak, first reported on Jan. 9, left hundreds of thousands in the capital region without access to tap water for days. Though the formal advisory on the water has been lifted, some in the region say they are still concerned about the safety of their water.
The DEP’s press release provides Freedom Industries’ newest estimate, but notes, “It is not known how much material spilled into the Elk River and shut down the drinking water supply for citizens across nine West Virginia counties.”
“We are not making any judgment about its accuracy,” DEP Secretary Randy Huffman said in a statement, referring to the company’s latest spill figure. “We felt it was important to provide to the public what the company has provided the WVDEP in writing. We are still reviewing the calculation, and this is something that will be researched further during the course of this investigation.”
“This is the first calculation that has been provided concerning the amount of materials that spilled on Jan. 9,” Huffman said. “This new calculation does not change any of our protocols in dealing with this spill, nor does it affect the ongoing remediation efforts. Our actions have never been dependent on what Freedom has reported to us. From the start, we have acted aggressively to contain the spill and remediate the site.”
West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin (D) has called for the storage facility to be torn down, and for a full remediation of the site.
Stock Market Dive and Psalm 30
Yesterday the American stock market dropped 318 points and it’s like all those chickens running around saying “the sky is falling! the sky is falling!” AdventureMan checked our holdings and said we had lost a significant amount. Oh well. It’s all paper gains and paper losses until you have to sell – or, LOL, until you have to pay taxes.
(Why is it the market never drops significantly just before the end of the year, at which point taxes are calculated???)
So this morning’s Lectionary readings make me smile. Life is transitory, wins and losses are ephemeral. We keep our eyes on the Lord, and give him thanks.
Psalm 30
A Psalm. A Song at the dedication of the temple. Of David.
1 I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up,
and did not let my foes rejoice over me.
2 O Lord my God, I cried to you for help,
and you have healed me.
3 O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol,
restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.*
4 Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones,
and give thanks to his holy name.
5 For his anger is but for a moment;
his favour is for a lifetime.
Weeping may linger for the night,
but joy comes with the morning.
6 As for me, I said in my prosperity,
‘I shall never be moved.’
7 By your favour, O Lord,
you had established me as a strong mountain;
you hid your face;
I was dismayed.
8 To you, O Lord, I cried,
and to the Lord I made supplication:
9 ‘What profit is there in my death,
if I go down to the Pit?
Will the dust praise you?
Will it tell of your faithfulness?
10 Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me!
O Lord, be my helper!’
11 You have turned my mourning into dancing;
you have taken off my sackcloth
and clothed me with joy,
12 so that my soul* may praise you and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you for ever.
The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
This is one terrific book.
Amazon recommended this book to me, and as a person who loves just about everything Sue Monk Kidd writes, I bought it immediately. AdventureMan had also read a review and said it might be a good book for our book club, so he gets it next. Most of my friends have it on Kindle to read soon.
The book is written in two voices, that of Sarah Gremke’, white, and Charlestonian, of Charleston society families, and the other voice of Hetty/Handful, the slave given to Sarah for her 11th birthday. First Sarah tries to refuse the ‘gift,’ then, using her father’s law books, she writes a letter of emancipation for Hetty, and neither effort works. Sarah and Hetty are stuck with each other, stuck with the times, stuck with their situation, and stuck with the institutions that determine and limit what they will accomplish.
Or are they?
There were times, as I read the book, that I felt like I was going to suffocate. First, the heat and humidity of Charleston, South Carolina, are bad enough without the kinds of close-fitting clothing women were required to wear in that day; the thought of wearing those clothes makes me choke.
The limited expectations for women would stunt and damage the strongest female character in that society where those who thrived were those who were pretty, good at getting married, and good at bearing children, dressing appropriately and socializing endlessly at the same stale events.
Slavery damages everyone. No one should have that kind of power over another human being; studies show that when human beings are given power over another their very worst instincts come to the forefront. Why do we need studies? We have the real world to show us what that kind of power does, how it corrupts the one who holds the power so thoroughly that they don’t even know they are corrupted.
These are stories from my time living in countries where people from poorer countries came to work:
My maid had worked for a family where the men pestered her because she was full time and live-in. They assumed she was sexually available to them and made life very difficult for her. Her mistress saw a beautiful silk blouse she wore, a blouse she had saved for and only wore on her day off, and her mistress borrowed it, stained it, returned it and didn’t take any responsibility for ruining her one really nice blouse. It was never mentioned again. Only when the men complained about this woman was she allowed to leave; her mistress didn’t want the men tempted, she got her passport back and come to work for me. Her previous mistress wanted an ugly maid, and the men were hoping for someone more compliant.
The woman who bought my car had saved and saved, and was working under deplorable conditions in a day care. I told her that she had skills, get another job, and she told me that she hadn’t been paid for three months, and if she left she would never get that pay, and also her employer would never give her her passport or allow her to leave. She was, in effect, a slave.
Most of my friends are very good employers, taking good care of the people who come to work for them, but I have seen those (not my friends) who are violent and abusive. Being a slave is being trapped in an existence with no control over your own life.
Monk makes an interesting comparison of white women’s lives with their limitations being not unlike a variant of slavery. Maybe the conditions were a little better, but the un-free-ness was similar.
Sarah Grimke’ and her sister Angelina, against all odds, break free of family expectations and societal constraints. They forge their own way, with Angelina’s gift for rhetoric and Sarah’s keep legal writing. I had never heard of these women before, and I am so glad Sue Monk Kidd wrote this book to raise their visibility both as abolitionists and as some of the very first proponents for women’s rights to full equality.
As a quilter, I also loved in this book that Handfull’s mother is a quilter, and while she can neither read nor write, she puts down her history in an applique quilt which clearly spells out significant events in her life, and is a tool for passing family history from one generation to another.
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