Tag Archives: scams

money, psychology, scams, true crime, videos, YouTube

Sleazy PayPal scammers and phishers are running amok!

Featured photo is PayPal’s logo, which is in the public domain.

Good morning, knotty crew. After a day of reflection, I’m back with some new content. In the past 24 hours, I see there’s been yet another mass shooting. And the anti-abortion wars continue to rage in my homeland, putting more and more women at risk. I could write about either of those topics today. I could have written about them yesterday, too. I just don’t want to… I need a break from both of those subjects.

So… today, I wish to air a grievance I have regarding PayPal scammers and phishers. Now… to my knowledge, I have not yet actually been victimized by these criminals. However, I have to admit, their tactics are becoming scarier, as they now send their fraudulent emails from what appears to be an actual PayPal address. Yesterday, I got three emails from these fuckers. I reported all three, not that it will do any good.

I knew this email was bullshit, because I rarely use PayPal to pay for things. Also, while I think Bill might have an Acer computer, I am a confirmed Apple user. I never would have bought anything like this. But the biggest clue that this email is fake is that it doesn’t address me by name. It comes from a site I’ve never heard of, and would never use. Obviously, the folks who are sending this shit are hoping people will panic and call them, so they can try to talk the victims into allowing them to remotely install keystroke trackers and wipe out their money.

I don’t keep money in my PayPal account, but I know some people use it as a sort of bank. I mainly only use PayPal when I can’t use my credit cards, which are US issued. Sometimes European vendors can’t accept them or don’t allow for me to enter my US billing address. PayPal comes in handy in those situations. I almost never receive money through PayPal.

I usually just trash these emails as a matter of course, but yesterday, I decided to look carefully at the sender’s address. I was surprised to see that it came from a legitimate PayPal address. And, unlike other phishing emails, this one didn’t have any obvious tip offs that it was fake. There weren’t any glaring misspellings or design flaws that would arouse suspicion in the savvy. It also came to the email address I use for my PayPal dealings.

I logged into my PayPal account and checked my recent transactions, just to make sure there weren’t any pending charges. I was relieved to find that there wasn’t any recent activity indicating that something was amiss. Other people who have reported about this particular email scam have said that they did find invoices pending in their accounts. Some of them panicked, called the fake call center, and got taken to the cleaners.

Even though I knew the emails I got were fake, I decided to do some cursory research to see what the Internet was reporting about this scam. I found quite a few articles from cybersecurity firms explaining these surprisingly realistic looking phishing attempts. The open invitation to call a phone number to cancel the transaction is a big clue. Why would PayPal openly admit that the invoice might be fake, and actually INVITE people to call them? It doesn’t exactly promote confidence in their product.

Some reporters wrote that when they called the number, it was answered on the first ring. The person who answered was clearly not in a call center in California, as they could hear traffic and people in the background. The person also had a very strong accent that indicated that English wasn’t their first language, although granted, a lot of companies do have call centers abroad. But mainly, the fact that the phone was answered on the first ring was a major red flag. PayPal never answers on the first ring.

It’s infuriating that these crooks are using legitimate businesses to perpetrate their crimes. PayPal allows users to invoice each other, which is why these creeps can take advantage of the official email address. The fact that the emails come from PayPal make it pretty much a sure bet that the emails will get through the spam filters. Even though I know I didn’t buy an Acer computer through PayPal, there are other people out there who aren’t that astute. A lot of people have been victimized through these scams, which only encourages the lowlifes to continue their criminal activities.

So what is a person to do if they get one of these emails? Frankly, I say if you know you didn’t buy anything, just send the email to the round file. Check your PayPal account, and if there is anything in your transaction history that shouldn’t be there and you feel you must speak to someone about it, call PayPal using a number on the actual Web site. Do NOT call the number on the email, which will probably be answered by scammers in a fake call center. Do NOT pay any invoice that you don’t recognize. Remember that an invoice is just a request for money. You don’t have to pay for things you never bought.

Always examine the emails very carefully before you take action. Look for clues that any PayPal emails you receive are fake, like misspellings, poor grammar, or graphics that aren’t quite right. If the email doesn’t address you by name, it’s probably fake. I shouldn’t have to state this, but don’t click on any links in a suspicious email. And again– don’t call the phone number, unless you just want to fuck with the scammers. I realize that some people do enjoy that kind of thing, but the whole point of these scam emails is to get you to call so they can talk you into downloading their remote viewing software. Sure, they’d like it if you just paid the invoice, but that’s not their goal. They want your information so they can clean out your bank account and rip off your identity.

If you want more information about this, have a look at YouTube. Lots of people have made videos and some have actually gone much further than I’d bother/dare to, just so they can show you exactly what the scammers do.

British barrister bares all about the PayPal invoice scam.
Another video about this “new” PayPal scam…
Another video… this one lamenting what the world is coming to… I like the way he describes the psychology of this scam, but I don’t like the way he ended the video with loud music as he continued speaking. However I do agree with him when he rhetorically asks why these scammers don’t get real jobs?

I just now decided to change my PayPal password, just to be safe. Interestingly enough, it was easy to do that on my computer. However, when I tried doing it with my iPad, I had to go through a total rigamarole, to include answering security questions that weren’t very clear, and entering a security code sent to my alternate email address. Even after going through two or three checks, there was still another. I finally clicked off the page and tried the password I so easily changed on my computer. It worked.

Of the three videos, I think the second one is probably the best. The third one is probably the most entertaining. The first one is especially good if you like bald Brits. And below is an entertaining video featuring a guy who enjoys scamming the scammers.

Bwahahahaha… I love these kinds of videos.

Anyway, I didn’t fall for the scam. I hope you won’t either.

In other news…

Bill and I are in the preliminary stages of planning our big vacation. I’m not sure where we’re going yet, but I do know it’ll be in June.

Standard
book reviews, lessons learned

A review of Guilty Admissions: The Bribes, Favors, and Phonies behind the College Cheating Scandal, by Nicole LaPorte…

A few days ago, I wrote a blog post about a young lady in Atlanta who applied to 70 colleges and got into 54 of them. That post, titled “I would not want to be 18 years old in 2023“, was inspired by comments I read about Daya Brown’s decision to apply to so many colleges. It made me recall my own days as a high school senior, trying to decide where I would go for my undergraduate degree. I remember those days were pretty challenging, especially since I was mostly navigating the whole process by myself.

When I was in high school, we didn’t have the Internet readily available. I went to a rural, public high school, with four guidance counselors handling about 1600 students. My parents, already well into middle age, with three already “grown and flown” daughters, weren’t all that invested in helping me find the “right” college. No one, other than me, pressured me to get excellent grades. I didn’t take any prep courses for the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test).

I don’t even think anyone looked over my applications before I submitted them and checks for application fees to Dr. Porter, the guidance counselor I barely knew. I don’t think Dr. Porter even said a word to me about where I was applying, and whether or not they were “appropriate” choices for me. I think I would have done fine at the other schools I applied to, but I was competing against people with better test scores and grades, and more school activities.

Consequently, I had one choice in the fall of 1990– the one school that admitted me out of the four I applied to. It turned out to be a fortuitous choice for me, as I did well at Longwood College (now Longwood University). But maybe if I’d had someone like Rick Singer in my pocket, I might have gone somewhere else… Somewhere a lot better known, more prestigious, and more expensive.

In March 2019, I was just as shocked as anyone when I saw the photos of actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman being arrested by the FBI in their fancy homes. A lot of people were outraged when they heard about what the famous actresses had done for their daughters, but they certainly weren’t alone that day. They simply had the misfortune of being the faces of the Varsity Blues scandal, a “sting” operation that resulted in dozens of arrests of wealthy parents who wanted a “side door” to prestigious universities for their children. They’d hired Rick Singer, a hustler who had convinced them that if they did what he said and paid enough money, their little darlings would be accepted to universities like the University of Southern California, Yale, and Georgetown. The parents were unaware that after years of hustling, Rick Singer was about to go down… and they would be going with him as their children, most of whom were completely unaware of any shenanigans, would watch in horror and humiliation.

I see I downloaded Nicole LaPorte’s book, Guilty Admissions: The Bribes, Favors, and Phonies behind the College Cheating Scandal, in early March 2021, about two weeks after it was published on February 23, 2021. I just finished reading it this morning, after some concerted effort. It’s not that it wasn’t an interesting read. On the contrary, I was often flabbergasted by LaPorte’s juicy stories about Singer and the many people who were caught in his web. It wasn’t just parents who got burned by his scam, either. Singer talked coaches, “smart” people, and admissions officials into going “rogue”, accepting money Singer coaxed out of powerful and wealthy parents to make sure their children got into the “best” schools.

LaPorte explains the high pressure environment of southern California, where even very young children are pressured to attend the best private schools that will give them the best shot at going to a big name university. As I read Guilty Admissions, I learned about elite private high schools like Buckley, Marlborough, Marymount, and Harvard-Westlake, all of which had their own vibes.

Each of those private schools have highly qualified guidance counselors, many of which had encountered Rick Singer’s “independent consultation” work and weren’t too keen on their students using it. Singer specialized in gaming the system, and as it’s become incredibly obvious, wasn’t honest in his dealings. But it hadn’t seemed like Singer had started out that way. In the beginning, he seemed more like a legitimate operator who actually spent time with the teens he worked with, helping them get better grades and test scores themselves, rather than falsifying their college applications, lying about their races, paying people to take their college boards for them, or inventing sports teams for them to claim.

Guilty Admissions is definitely a page turner. LaPorte writes well, and to a “nobody” like me, the story is astonishing enough that I don’t need to be “sold” on it. However, there are a few glitches in the book. For instance, at one point, LaPorte refers to “Seaton Hall University”, when she means “Seton Hall”. It was probably a typo, rather than a reflection of LaPorte’s knowledge or lack thereof of the subject matter, but given that she was referring to a university, that mistake was a very noticeable whopper. I also want to point out that it’s already 2023, so some of the information in the book is dated, which is to be expected. Thankfully, we have the Internet for updates.

However, LaPorte includes plenty of footnotes, photos, and other useful tools for readers who want to learn more. I got the sense that she interviewed a lot of key people in this scandal, even as she also watched the same news coverage we all did. When I finished reading Guilty Admissions, I wanted to read more, from a different perspective. I ended up downloading 2020’s Unacceptable: Privilege, Deceit & the Making of the College Admissions Scandal, by Melissa Korn and Jennifer Levitz. I don’t know when I’ll get around to reading that book, but at least one Amazon reviewer wrote that he thought it was a better book with a different perspective. LaPorte mostly focuses on southern California and the University of Southern California, with some mentions of other elite universities like Yale and Georgetown. I think it’s important to realize that there were more people and schools involved. This is a widespread issue.

I mentioned in my previous post that I had the “privilege” of being a temp in the admissions office at the College of William & Mary in the late 90s. William & Mary is a highly selective school, so I saw a lot of materials from very exclusive and expensive private high schools. It really opened my eyes… and that was in 1998! Nowadays, I think the prospect of choosing a college is worse than it was back then. So many young people think they need to go to a “brand name” college! It’s absolutely crazy!

LaPorte also adds that COVID-19, ironically, has really messed up the college game. Fewer young adults are opting for college now, as it’s gotten so expensive. COVID-19 made the experience less appealing, as students were expected to wear masks and take classes on Zoom, rather than have the immersive experience so many of us older folks have had. I often like to say that every cloud has its silver lining. What I mean is that every situation, no matter how horrible, has the potential to bring about something positive. I don’t think COVID-19 is, overall, a great thing at all… but maybe it has acted as sort of a bucket of water of sorts– cooling off the insane pressure to attend a certain university, or even to go to university at all.

I certainly don’t regret going to college or grad school. I got a lot out of both experiences. But the cost of attending is getting harder and harder to justify, especially for people who end up like I have. 😉 I just think it’s sad that so many people seem to think that it’s worth risking prison to get their kids into certain universities, especially when I know from personal experience that there are MANY excellent schools of higher learning in the United States. I think the Varsity Blues scandal is a good reminder to us all that chasing an image can lead to ruin… or at least uncomfortable familiarity with the sensation of wearing handcuffs outside of a movie set or a bedroom.

Anyway, I would recommend Nicole LaPorte’s book, Guilty Admissions. I’d give it four stars out of five, and recommend additional resources. I look forward to comparing this book with Unacceptable by Korn and Levitz, whenever I get around to reading it.

As an Amazon Associate, I get a small commission from Amazon on sales made through my site.

Standard
controversies, Germany, safety, silliness, social welfare

Men sitting down to pee and other acts of rebellion…

The featured photo was hanging in our first German landlord’s guest toilet when we moved in. I didn’t understand it then. I do now.

Happy hump day, y’all. It’s already gotten off to an interesting start for me. First off, I was having an erotic dream when I woke up. It was a bit kinky, but the people involved were a married couple (not Bill and me) and very friendly with each other. I probably ought to lay off the Lifetime movies for awhile…

Arran is bright and funny this morning. He will see the vet tonight and probably get a blood test and chemo. Bill told me last night that he has to go on another week long business trip soon, which is worrying for both of us. Somehow, I think Arran will go when the time is just right, but while my instincts are usually right, they aren’t always. I look forward to the day when Bill doesn’t have to do these business trips so often anymore. Or, at least he does them when our dogs are healthy.

But, enough about that. You probably clicked on this post because of the title. I’ll agree; it’s a weird one, even by my standards.

Last night, I was reading the Irish Times again, and happened upon an article written Brianna Parkins, titled “Now it’s okay for men to pee sitting down, here are a few other changes they could make“. I wish I could gift the article for non subscribers, but the Irish aren’t down with that. You’ll just have to rely on my comments here in this blog post, unless you are a subscriber like I am.

I was interested in Ms. Parkins’ article, because here in Germany, men routinely sit down to pee. There are even signs in some public restrooms addressing this phenomenon. When we moved into our very first German house, there was a postcard in the bathroom that showed a man lying on the floor by the toilet. It read, “Nicht im stehen.” I asked our landlord what it meant, and he said “Not while standing.”

In 2007, I didn’t know that German men are trained by the women in their lives to sit when they urinate. And I know some might call me sexist for putting it that way, but seriously, when I finally encountered an explanation about this particular cultural phenomenon, that was kind of how it was put to me. This was the comment posted on Toytown Germany in June 2008, which was when we were living in that first German house.

Stehpinkeln has been a big topic on my mind of late. Through watching day time TV I have come to realise that a vast majority of people (mainly German women) are disgusted by men who pee in standing.

I can understand that it can make a mess sometimes (I am not a man, thusly, I have no personal experience) but is it such a terrible thing? Am I the only one who seems to think that it’s OK for men to stand and pee into a toilet?!

This was such a mind blower for me in 2008. Apparently, it was for other people in that forum, because the thread went on for 445 posts and 23 pages. The last post was dated January 2015. I’ve seen a couple of other posts about it on that forum. I also read and reviewed a book about it a few years ago. Seriously, there is a book titled German Men Sit Down To Pee And Other Insights Into German Culture. I gave it a favorable review.

So anyway, last night, I was reading Brianna Parkins’ article about men sitting to pee. She writes that sitting to pee is also common in Japan, another country where a lot of American men work for the US military. Actually, given how fancy Japanese toilets can be, I can see why men don’t mind sitting down to do their business. They even have a fancy video for potty training kids.

I need a toilet that will sing to me when I do my business… especially in the morning.
FANCY!

Parkins writes:

But the German word for a man who sits to pee, Sitzpinkler, is used negatively, to imply unmasculine behaviour, “something like ‘wuss’ in English”, according to the Guardian. So that newpaper’s well-reasoned arguments for having a seat while taking a slash will have made men question their core beliefs: they had to ask themselves if a standing wee is just a byproduct of toxic masculinity.

It caused women to ask ourselves how men – them lot who can’t aim their pee in the toilet without it getting on the ground – ended up in charge for so long. The mind boggles.

Seeing the success of men adopting practices formerly considered “women’s business”, here are some other ways men could benefit by becoming more like women.

It probably won’t surprise some readers that Bill sometimes sits when he pees. He says he mainly does it that way at night, since it’s easier to sit down than turn on the light and blind himself. We do have a new Toilight, which is a stocking stuffer I bought at Christmas time. It senses motion and turns on a night light, which makes going to the bathroom safer and easier in the dark. But it doesn’t always work the way it’s supposed to. Bill’s habit of sitting down when he pees at night predates the Toilight, too. He’s always been considerate that way.

I had a look at the comment section, figuring the Irish would be “taking the piss”, so to speak, about this article. I wasn’t disappointed. Quite a lot of Irish men were offended by Ms. Parkins’ article, which they probably didn’t even read, since it’s behind a paywall. I saw a number of comments indicating that men who sit down to pee are “emasculated” somehow. It seems to me that peeing is mostly private business, unless you’re into golden showers or something.

It’s a pity those men didn’t read Ms. Parkins’ article, which I found delightfully snarky and funny. And you know, she’s right. Not only does sitting while peeing make less of a mess, but sometimes listening to people who have been educated about things like, say, medicine, is a good idea. Apparently, a lot of men in Ireland are averse to doing that. So is being less homophobic and enjoying some friendly skin on skin contact with other men, other than when they play contact sports.

At the very end of the article, Ms. Parkins’ real agenda comes out, and it’s a good one. She writes:

But that one’s not going to change the world. The one that would really count, just off the top of my head, would be getting men to inflict less violence, both sexual and physical, on women.

In Ireland, Women’s Aid has registered 256 violent deaths of women since 1996. Of the 200 cases that have been resolved, 87 per cent of the victims were killed by a man they knew. In Australia, where I grew up, five women have died from violence allegedly committed by a man in the first month of the year, according to Counting Dead Women Australia. In 2022, 56 women there suffered the same fate.

I would like to tell Ms. Parkins that men can be victims of domestic violence, too. Unfortunately, I know this because my husband experienced it with his ex wife. Like a lot of abuse survivors, he didn’t realize that was what he was experiencing at the time. It wasn’t until he told me some stories that I brought up the possibility. Many years later, after not having spoken to his daughter for a long time, she actually recognized it and sent him a news article about men in domestic violence situations. So, I wasn’t the only one who easily saw the truth.

It’s too bad some of the Irish men complaining about the article didn’t read it and get the actual main idea, which is that men could learn a lot from women, not just about urination, but also about not being so violent. But I would hasten to add that some women need a few lessons about not being violent, too.

Here are a few comments… obviously, most of the people didn’t read the article. I’ll admit, my own comments were about German men sitting to pee, too. I managed to “piss” off an Irishman, who claimed that he had lived here for over 20 years and that it’s not true that German men sit to pee. I guess he watched them. I mean, yes, there are urinals here. I’ve heard that some Germans even put them in their homes so they can stand when they pee. But I’ve seen a lot of signs requesting that men sit down for the performance.

Bill encountered this sign on his last business trip. I’ve more often seen these in southern Germany than up here in Hesse.

Moving on…

A hometown friend of mine shared the following post on Facebook. I was not surprised at all.

My friend wrote that he knew some people who needed this product.

I decided to click on the original post, to see the comment section. I had a feeling it would be quite an epic shitshow of ignorance and stubbornness, with a dip into hatred toward liberal politics, to boot. I wasn’t disappointed. Lots of people were cheering about this invention, which also is handy for opening beer bottles.

Here are a few comments…

These guys can relax, though, because it seems that this company is a bit scammy. On other posts on that page, as of 2020, many people have complained that they ordered this product and never received it. I guess the people who make it are too busy opening beer bottles to fulfill their orders. Or maybe they’re just hanging out with their labradoodles…

Here’s another area where Germans are probably smarter. It’s illegal in Germany to drive a car with your pet unrestrained, sitting in the front seat of the car. For one thing, an air bag would probably kill Fido if it goes off. For another, Fido might cause you to be distracted and get into a wreck. Pets in Germany have to either ride in a crate in the back, or wear a “seatbelt” harness in the backseat that clips to the seatbelt buckle.

And while I’ve driven with objects sitting on the front seat plenty of times, that’s also not the safest practice. In the event of an accident, that object– just like Fido or a human body– will likely become a flying object that could hit you or any other passengers or bystanders in the head when it becomes airborne. But, as a lot of us know, a lot of Americans aren’t long on common sense or practical thinking. That’s how so many of them thought Donald Trump would be a good president. The same people are ordering this product and getting scammed.

Maybe they’ve improved their business practices since 2020? I don’t know.

Ah well… if I weren’t married to a man who didn’t turn into Pat Boone any time I tried to skip the seatbelt, I probably would agree with some of the conservative knuckleheads on the Tikit page. But Bill is a total safety geek, so I guess that means I am, too. Just like I can’t sleep after about 5:30am anymore, thanks to my morning rooster…

Well, I think I’ll end this post and go see if my laundry is dry yet. Maybe today, I’ll manage to record some music. Since I retooled my workspace, I’m having some technical difficulties.

Standard
ethics, family, money

She’s back “on the fence” about things…

This is going to be another frank, and potentially “inappropriate” post. Proceed with care. And if you think I’m a jerk for writing this, you’re probably right. But that may be the worst you can say about me.

It’s Memorial Day, but not in Germany, where it’s a normal workday for German people. It’s not a workday for Bill, though, so he’s home, sneezing because of all the trees having sex, as spring begins to turn into summer. Bill’s big plans today are to get himself on my cellphone contract, at long last, and to pay a visit to the local Telekom and speak to someone about the useless cable box we’ve been renting since late 2018.

A technician came by our house at that time, but was unable to hook up the cable to our television. He didn’t tell me why, other than to say “it’s not possible”. My guess is that it has to do with the phone line, which we don’t use, since we have cell phones. Anyway, we are technically subscribed to German cable TV, but we can’t watch it. I’ve been bugging Bill to do something about it, since his German skills are better than mine are. He’s decided that today is the day.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to recover from my restless night. I am not quite menopausal yet, in spite of my apparently ancient appearance to mean-spirited “pro-life” losers on the Internet. I spent all night having to go to the bathroom, because it’s that time of the month. Consequently, for the second night in a row, I didn’t get much sleep.

Then, when I finally did fall asleep, I had a nightmare about the singer, Anne Murray, and her daughter, Dawn. There were some aspects from my recent life that were in the dream, to include people moving (common in the military community at this time of year), and people committing suicide, which sadly has also been something in our lives recently. But, you know how dreams dissipate when you wake up, unless you’re very disciplined about remembering, like Bill is. He’s been working with a Jungian therapist for the past year, so he makes a point of remembering his dreams. He even writes them down and sends them to his analyst. Then, at their weekly meeting, they have fascinating discussions about what the dreams might mean.

I have no idea why Anne Murray was in my dreams this morning, or why she would be part of a nightmare. I like Anne Murray’s music. Remember, I am a child of the 70s and 80s, so her music was a big part of the soundtrack of my extreme youth. I find some of her songs comforting, even.

Once I was awake, and tried to tell Bill about my bad dream, adorable Noyzi, the street dog, decided to pay us a visit. He still hasn’t figured that he can push open doors by himself. Maybe he’s too polite to try that. It took him forever to realize that he can push open the screen curtain on the back door, which is poorly held together by magnets. Once again, I’m amazed by how different Noyzi is from the beagles we’ve had. He’s very well mannered, and doesn’t try to make trouble. Ironically, I’m sure our former landlords wouldn’t have wanted him in the house, because he’s a big guy. But he’s probably the best behaved dog we’ve ever had.

So, once we were awake and enjoying breakfast, I decided to check in on Ex, to see if maybe she knows about the latest grandchild. I would have expected her to mention it on her very public social media by now. But nope… she still advertises her “4.5 grandchildren”. She was actually pretty quiet over the past few days, but I guess she needs money again, because she’s posted another crowdfund request for people to help fund a fence for her youngest son, whom she’s said has severe autism. Now… I have no reason to doubt that her son has autism. In fact, I’m sure he does have severe autism. However, I have learned to take what she says and writes with a grain of salt. After twenty years of observing her, I have concluded that she’s not a very honest person.

Regular readers might recall that a couple of months ago, Ex was begging people to help her erect a tall fence for her son, whom she says has a bad habit of escaping her home. She’s said she’s been confounded by his efforts to run away, and she’s tried a whole bunch of things to keep him from taking off. All have reportedly failed. So now, she needs the help of strangers to pay for a fence to contain the young man, so he can “play” outside. She also wants to get a therapy dog for him, and that costs big bucks that she doesn’t have, because there’s only one paycheck coming in to her household– my guess is that it’s #3’s work as a certified nursing assistant that keeps their household going.

In March, Ex paid a manipulative visit to my husband’s widowed stepmother, and asked her for “financial help”, which SMIL wisely declined to offer. Then, Ex brought SMIL packing and mailing supplies, in case SMIL wants to give Ex anything to “pass down” to Bill’s MIA older daughter, who still doesn’t speak to Bill, and didn’t have much of relationship with Bill’s dad when he was still living. On the trip to see SMIL, Ex brought older daughter and her daughter with #3. I’m not sure what she did with her “escape artist” son with severe autism, who desperately needs a fence because he runs away. Perhaps #3 took some time off work. I’ve heard that #3’s mother lives with them, but I’ve also heard that she isn’t in the best of health. It seems unwise to have her watch a teenaged boy with autism who runs away.

Anyway, after that visit, I noticed that Ex quietly took down the link to her fundraiser. But yesterday, she put it up again. Or, she put up another one, and tweeted celebrities, begging for money. Looks like she’s leaving Mark Hamill alone this time, but George Takei got tweeted at, as did a couple of actors from a show she watches, and a famous author whose books she reads. This time, she’s asking for $6000, instead of $5500. Last time she did this, she contributed $500 to her own campaign, which didn’t result in inspiring anyone else to add any funds.

The Seaglasshole is at it again.

You’d think that Ex might try to come up with another way to get the money she claims to need so badly, given that the crowdfunding technique hasn’t worked in the recent past. I know it can be difficult to apply for grants and loans, and I know for a fact that Ex isn’t the most creditworthy person. She says that crowdfunding is her only recourse. But, as someone who has a master’s degree in social work, I call bullshit on that. I think she just needs money, and figures that her son’s situation is the best sob story to present.

Money provided by grants and loans would likely require accountability, or at least paying back the money, plus interest. Ex would rather depend on the kindness of strangers to take care of her family’s alleged financial needs, as she also plays fangirl to entertainers, artists, and authors. Does she access their works from the library? Or does she buy autographed copies of things… or monthly “gift” boxes of trinkets from Scotland? Seems to me she might have more luck funding the fence if she spent more time figuring out how to make the money herself. But… I don’t think she actually wants to build a fence. I think she has bills to pay, or burning desires that she wants to fulfill. And she rationalizes that if nice people who have money to spare can help her out, she won’t have to repay them, and they don’t have to know how she uses the money.

I also wonder what will happen if she actually manages to get a service dog for her son. Does she realize that dogs are a financial commitment? How does she intend to pay for all of the things a dog needs? And what will she do when the dog is more into her son, as is appropriate, than her? She’s not proposing getting a family pet. She claims she wants a service dog. But if they get a service dog, that dog will have to pay attention to the boy. Knowing Ex, I think that might be a real challenge for her.

Anyway… I realize it’s none of my business. I am lucky enough to be wise to her. I think that younger daughter is wise to her, too. I suspect that she hasn’t told her about the latest addition to her family being born. I’m sure that’s because Ex will make it about her, and might even threaten to visit. And I’m sure that younger daughter could use some peace and quiet, not to mention some rest. I do think it’s interesting, though… that the people who were denied access to younger daughter for so many years, are the ones who care the most about her baby being born. And they were evidently the first to know. Meanwhile, Ex is “back on the fence about things”, again. 😉 Come hell or high water, she’s gonna get that fence… maybe by the time her son is legally a grown man.

Standard
condescending twatbags, funny stories, Germany

The plot thickens… and Bill definitely should have borrowed my Mister Rogers hat!

So, as I wrote earlier today, we were visited by a strange man yesterday afternoon. Bill was the one who saw and talked to him, and thanks to Arran’s enthusiastic barking and Bill’s generally poor German comprehension skills (which are still superior to mine), we didn’t understand what he wanted. Then he came back a second time, a few minutes later, was more polite, and said something about the dogs.

Looking back on it, Bill did say that he’d never seen the guy before, and he also said the guy seemed “out of it”, or maybe not quite all there. He definitely thought it was a strange encounter, though since he only heard and understood a few words from him, we assumed he was upset about the dogs.

This morning, I noticed in our local Facebook group that one of the group members posted this (translated from German to English):

FYI: There is a strange, probably alcoholic guy walking around the Old Village Street right now ringing in various court entrances for no recognizable purpose – he also rang at our place, after I was at the entrance, he is speechless and with grimmi I quickly walked towards the village square. Are there any potential break-in targets? Little Corrupt Man, Mid 50s, black and yellow sweatpants, gray sweatpants.

Other group members posted these comments:

Aha… I think I ran into one of these guys when we lived in Jettingen!

So I wrote to Bill and asked if the guy he spoke to fit the above description. He said this:

Yes.  Mid to late 50’s.  Black and yellow jacket with a circular logo on the front left breast pocket (couldn’t tell if it was a company or sports team logo), and black pants.  He seemed to be disoriented and acted like he was an angry drunk.  When he got belligerent with me I thought he was going to accuse me of something and demand money.  But now he knows that the house is always occupied.

And then he wrote back that at first he thought the guy was a “tinker”, like the people who used to come to our door when we still lived in Jettingen, BW. But then he got a “Beaune, France” scam vibe from the guy. To explain, when we visited Beaune at Christmas time in 2019, we were victimized by crooks at a rest stop who popped one of the tires on our then brand new car. They didn’t manage to steal anything from us, but they did cost us about 1500 euros because we got stranded an extra night and had to get both rear tires replaced.

Then Bill said, “Yeah, I was thinking circus too.  Funny how they all seem to follow the same storylines.  He definitely went aggressive pretty quickly.  I think the dogs unnerved him.”

Well… that just goes to show that when you live in another country and don’t speak the language fluently, sometimes you fabricate explanations that could be plausible… But it also goes to show that the truth is often stranger than whatever you can make up to explain when weird encounters happen. And obviously, we aren’t the only ones who were visited by this odd guy looking for euros for his “circus”. My guess is that the only circus he’s collecting for is the one in his mind.

At least now we know if he comes back, not to open the door or bother talking to him. He’s probably up to no good.

Standard