Kill your TV

By Jason Parker

I was notified today that I won a two-week Caribbean vacation for two. Am I excited about it? No! Why, you ask? I get the same message every week in my email, that's why. I've fallen for a scam like that once and never again. Last year about this time I was notified via email that I had won a vacation to the Bahamas. For a grin I decided to reply to the email with my information. I wasn't stupid enough to give them credit card numbers or truly pertinent information, however I did give them my number here at work. After a few days of waiting for a reply, I put it in the back of my mind and didn't give it another thought. That was until I got a very freaky phone call one day at work. When I took the call I wasn't really in the mood to be jerked around. My B.S.T. (Bull S*** Tolerance) was low, very low. When I picked up the phone there was a very low scratchy voice on the other end. "Are you Jason Parker?" he asked. I replied with my usual response to that question, "Maybe". "Well you've won a cruise from Florida to the Bahamas." After he stated his reason for calling, my brain went into overload. My mind raced with various scenarios as to why this man was calling. Was it a prank? Was it some sort of sting operation by the man? I couldn't really pinpoint it. "All I need is your home address, phone, credit card number with expiration date, and your date of birth", he said as he mumbled at twice the speed he was speaking in when I first answered the call. In that moment I realized why this man was calling me.

After a few short seconds of intense thought I turned down the "free" vacation. But instead of telling the man, who was already growing impatient with my delay in accepting the vacation, that I was not interested and that it was just a moment of stupidity on my part, I played dumb. "I have no idea what you are talking about sir", I politely stated. At this point the man became enraged on the phone. He started screaming at me with real profanity and everything. "What do you mean you don't know what I'm talking about?" he shouted, "It's a free f-ing vacation, how could you not want a free f-ing vacation, are you stupid?" Normally when someone speaks to me like that I remain as cool as the other side of the pillow. But this time was different.

While mature Jason was on my right shoulder telling me that this man is just some poor sap who feels the need to scam instead of work for money, 12 year old horned Jason was on my left telling me to egg him on. So I tried killing the guy with kindness.

After a few minutes of telling the guy that he needed anger management classes and that he was going to suffer a heart attack if he didn't calm down he slammed the phone down and that was it.

The amount of scams on the internet outright scares me. While I feel that my eyes have been opened to this sort of thing I don't know if those around me have reached that point yet. For example my brother is planning on going to Cancun for spring break this coming year. "Yeah, this girl that's going with us found this great group rate on the internet." he said. How do you explain to your little brother that there is a 50% chance he'll be on the rough end of that screw without sounding like your mom? So I just asked him if he was a complete idiot. He still doesn't see anything wrong with it, but when he ends up calling me from an hourly rate motel in Mexico with money problems, I'll be laughing at him -well before I wire him the money. They say that there is a sucker born every minute. I think this is true. And with the utilization of the internet, those suckers are being reached at a much greater rate than with other medium. My best advice is something that you've heard many times over. And since you know what it is I won't say it.