A Scam By Any Other Name...

It's the oldest trick in the book.....scamming people out of money. It's been done for centuries. Some people are better at it than others but their goal is always the same. They want to acquire money from others by deceiving them. For some people, it's a way to get money without working for it, for others it's a game to see how much smarter they are than everyone else.

Watching "Dan Rather Reports" last night, I listened to the latest and greatest.....the Jamaican Lottery Scam. Much like the Nigerian Dating Scam of the mid 2000's, in this ruse scammers target lonely people on the phone, befriend them, then ask for money.With all of the information readily available by the media, why do people still fall victim to these schemes? I was shocked at how unsophisticated these people were! One man claimed he was in Connecticut during winter, yet spoke with a thick Jamaican accent and there were roosters crowing in the background. When the victim asked what the noise was, he said that there were cock fights in the hotel he was staying at. In fact, he said there were cock fights all over Connecticut in every hotel. What?

The victim was in her early 60s and from Maine. She sent this man through Western Union thousands of dollars. The reason? He was there when her husband died. He called her everyday and asked her how she was doing.

So, I ask the question.....if someone willingly gives someone else their money, has a crime been committed? I'm not talking about the contractor who asks a senior citizen for a deposit for work and runs off with it never performing the work. I'm not talking about someone who gives their money to an investment advisor for retirement only to find out the person has spent their life savings. I'm not referring to people scammed who suffer from a disability which makes them unable to have the mental capacity to realize they are being taken. I'm talking about someone who talks to a person on the phone and sends money to them of their own freewill.

Case in point: In the 1990's my grandfather moved to Florida. He hired a cleaning woman who befriended him. She was in her thirties and he was in his seventies. He ended up buying a car for her daughter, spending thousands of dollars on her dental work and paying other expenses as she asked. Why? He was lonely and I think because he actually thought they might become a couple someday (even though she clearly had a boyfriend). Did we sue the woman? Did we take conservatorship of his money? No. We sat him down and told him while it was his money to spend as he sees fit, he needs to be able to live on the money for the rest of his life and perhaps, just perhaps, this woman was using him. He stopped giving her money and she went away and was never heard from again.

The TV program ended with the Federal Government getting involved to stop these scammers. I am all for protecting those who need it, but shouldn't our tax dollars be used for more worth while things? At what point do we need to take responsibility for our own actions?