Today’s post has a lot more profanity in it than usual. Proceed with caution.
It’s an unusually happy Monday morning for me. You see, in just a few days, Bill and I will be taking our first flight together since November 2019. We will be jetting off to Oslo to start our long awaited and much needed vacation. I love Germany, but sometimes I long for a change of scenery. And while Scandinavia is probably not the prettiest place I’ve ever seen so far, I do know that there will be parts of this upcoming trip that will probably stun the daylights out of me. I look forward to capturing new images for my photo stream, at the very least.
But that all starts on Friday, and I still have to get through the rest of the week. Bill is teleworking for a couple of hours this morning, because he has to go see our dentist in Stuttgart and get a new crown placed. I’ve spent the first hours of my day eating breakfast, laughing about a CNN story about the war in Ukraine (not because of the actual news story, but because of the delivery of the translator), and putting together a new “cocktail” playlist, inspired by Saturday night’s dinner at a charming restaurant in a nearby wine town.
Just before I started writing today’s blog post, I had a look at the spam filter in my Outlook mailbox. And there it was… yet another “hacker” claiming that they’d targeted and infected my computer, and caught me looking at porn. I’ve seen variations of this scam many times before. I’ve even written about it.
The scam emails that have me inspired this morning aren’t the same as the one I wrote about on my original blog, nor are they just like the one that I wrote about in 2019. The first email I got from “Elton” several years ago actually got my attention because the subject line included an old password of mine that I hadn’t used in many years. None of the spammy scam emails I’ve been getting lately have included any passwords, old or otherwise.
Still, I can’t help but shake my head at the audacity of these low life scumbags who think they can extort money by threatening to expose my masturbation habits to friends, family, and colleagues. Because folks, I know that none of those people care if I look at porn. And even if they did care about that, I wouldn’t care. I’m just a housewife. I’m sure some people might even expect me to be looking at porn during my boring afternoons. That’s if they think about me for more than ten seconds at a time. Hell, if there were any videos, I might even make some money.
Below is a screenshot that is very similar to the emails I’ve been getting lately…
Just the tone of this scam email pisses me off. When I read “let me break it down for you”, I want to respond, “let me break your face with a swift kick to your nostrils!” The way that email is written is offensive, obnoxious, condescending, and just plain stupid. What’s especially sad, though, is that some people actually believe that bullshit and fall for the scam. Otherwise, why would they be doing this?
I’ve probably gotten a half dozen of those emails in the past week or so, all of which are written in pretty much the same way, and coming from different email addresses. They all end up in my spam folder and, no, I don’t take them seriously. BUT– seeing the subject line, I must admit, really annoys me. Because who do those fuckers think they are?!
Somebody had to come up with that email. Some lowlife had to come up with the idea to blackmail people, compose the text of the extortion email, and procure email addresses of people, before they sent out this missive to millions of people around the world. Why doesn’t that person, and his or her dishonest ilk, get a real job instead of trying to rip off people?
As I write about this phenomenon today, I’m reminded of the YouTube videos I’ve seen about porch pirates. Mark Rober has an excellent channel in which he shows how he designs special boxes designed to teach package thieves a valuable lesson. It’s VERY satisfying to watch as these fuckers steal boxes they think contain expensive and valuable electronics, only to open the packages and get assaulted by glitter and fart spray, all of which is recorded on the phones in the package! It’s even better when they get busted by the cops! FUCK THEM!!!!
However, even these very satisfying and entertaining videos ultimately piss me off, because the thieves often have the nerve to be angry when they get glitterbombed after committing theft! In one video, there were even kids involved. In one scene, I could tell that a boy’s parents were raising him to be a thieving little shit. I could hear the kid encouraging his folks to steal what he thought was an expensive gaming system. When they opened the box and the bomb exploded, he started cursing Mark Rober, calling him a scammer! Cuz how dare Mark Rober come up with an ingenious idea to thwart criminals like him and his parents! The audacious little shit!
And the videos capture the thieves smashing people’s car windows just so they can steal the bogus boxes. Back in 2003, some thieving shithead broke into my car, when we lived in a scuzzy apartment complex. Someone broke my window in an attempt to steal my CD player– which I bought at a big box store. They couldn’t steal the CD player, because I drove a Toyota, and it was impossible to pull out the CD player without completely fucking up the dashboard… which they proceeded to do. And they STILL didn’t manage to steal anything, so all they ended up doing was vandalizing my car.
It’s great that Mark Rober has come up with these cool glitter bombs to get back at bottom feeding criminals. However, it’s also very disheartening to see how dishonest people are, and how so few of them have any shame whatsoever. The fact that they are pissed off that they got “scammed”, when they are actually STEALING from people, just shows how completely devoid of scruples some people are. And they’re raising their kids to be just as reprehensible.
Even as I write this, though, I realize that I write from a place of privilege. I have pretty much everything I need, or could ever want, so I don’t need to steal. I guess what makes me especially sad is that these people have no remorse and, in fact, some of them feel entitled to steal, and think of it as their “job”. So many of these people– kids even– are taking advantage of vulnerable people, like the elderly. What a world we live in!
Here’s another channel called Scammer Payback. Below is a video the Scammer Payback guy, Pierogi, being screamed at by a scammer, who thinks he’s owed the right to steal from innocent people! What’s especially gross is when the scammer is screaming at someone he thinks is an elderly woman.
Anyway… I hadn’t meant to write such a lengthy rant about scammers, especially since I haven’t yet been a victim myself. I just can’t believe the nerve of some people. The guy in the above video is hilarious, as he tries to lecture Scammer Payback/Pierogi about his “manners” as he believes he’s ripping off the elderly! He reasons that stealing from vulnerable people is his way of making a living, as he shames the channel owner for monetizing his videos on YouTube. All I can do is shake my damned head.
Well… I suppose it’s time to close this post and walk Noyzi. I’m expecting a package today, so I want to be home when it arrives. Here in Germany, the delivery drivers don’t typically leave people’s boxes on their porches without permission, so porch pirating is pretty rare here. And just as I wrote this, my package arrived… So, hope you have a good Monday, devoid of thieving creeps!
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