Dupré: Lies, damn lies, and online scams
Published 12:00 am Saturday, December 21, 2019
Aristotle once said, “Don’t believe everything you see on the Internet!”
You get a card. YOU get a card! YOU get a card! EVERYBODY GETS CARDS!!!
Do you know that I have a pocketful of gift cards from a huge variety of merchants with hundreds of dollars credit for free merchandise that I read about on Facebook?
No? Well, neither do you! There are Internet trolls living at the family home, watching people all across the fruited plain fall for their lies, all the while waiting for mommy to cut the crusts off of their PB&J and fetch that special bendy straw they like so much.
Meanwhile their victims are doing things like freely spending money needed to survive because, “It’s okay, I just printed that $150 ‘HALF-DOLLAR ADMIRAL’ gift certificate,” or “But the ‘LAW-TRAM’ Superstore is sending me a $200 gift card because I liked and shared their link. I’M RICH!”
Gift Club
What do you mean, “You don’t just sit at home and watch the gifts roll in from your ‘Super, Double-Secret Internet Gift Club?’”
Unfortunately, this damn lie is not simply the work of trolls, but thieves that have dusted off that old pig of a Ponzi scheme and put bright, new Internet-savvy pearls on it – but it’s still a pig. They are illegal to run; they are illegal to participate in. Remember, Leonardo da Vinci warned us not to trust everything we se on the Internet.
What to do?
Judge things with a clear mind. I suppose I would love free money; I would love a steady stream of gifts; I’d like to teach the world to sing… Will any of these things happen? Maybe when that really, really, bad place (and I don’t mean Washington, D.C.) freezes over – the Eagles really messed up that expression when they reunited. Things being nice, fun, easy or enjoyable don’t make them likely or legal.
I don’t want you to be a Scrooge, but I also don’t want my friends and neighbors to get taken advantage of and have their families suffer. I want you to spend your resources (and that’s not just $$$) on your friends and family.
You can’t believe everything you hear from real, live people. And as one of our country’s greatest statesmen ever, Benjamin Franklin, said all those years ago, “Don’t believe everything you see on the Internet!”
Merry Christmas, and (unless you are mowing it) Get Off My Lawn!
Gary Wayne Dupré is enjoying his second career as the Administrative Assistant for L’OBSERVATEUR and can be reached at gary.dupre@lobservateur.com or (985) 652-9545. He’s an old man, so STAY OFF HIS LAWN!
