There I was, minding my own business when the following landed in my inbox….
I’m Mr Terry, a crud oil dealer in Sudan, i have an interest to invest
in your country, and i need you support and assistance to guide me in
it, if you would be interested, will wait to hear back from you soon.
Regards
Mr Terry
Not being an investment guru, I sent out some “phone a friend” emails asking if anyone else knew of an investment asset class called “crud oil”. Sure, there was some questionable English in the email but I didn’t want that to get in the way of a golden opportunity.
I promptly got the following advice….
I think that’s industry jargon for oil that is even less refined than crude oil. What everyone will need when we run out of crude oil.
It’s the next BIG THING
…well that made my life more complicated. I had to then sit down and do a cost benefit analysis to compare this investment opportunity with one from a Nigerian Prince wanting to transfer money to an Australian bank account. It was all too much to do this late in the night….
More humourously, I got some email replies warning me that it was a scam after I wrote all of the above.
Clearly, some people take me too seriously.
Jokes aside, this was obviously a rather sloppy attempt at a con and not usually the sort of thing to be too worried about. Matter of fact, it made for a humourous little side-trip down silly lane.
If only life was that simple.
The real worries are the more sophisticated cultural con’s out there that coat jagged poison pills in smooth language which if swallowed en masse, will wreak havoc through multiple generations. The subject of my last article being a prime example of that.
Money is one thing, eternities is a whole other category of treasure. Stay alert team, the future needs us to.
