TheBanyanTree: Ghost Money

[Dee Churchill]

Somebody in St. Louis bought a Powerball ticket that ended up worth $254 
million in Wednesday's drawing. As of this moment, the newest rich 
person on the planet hasn't shown up to claim the prize. It's nice, 
though, to see someone winning real money.

When I say "real money," I'm not talking about the amount, I'm referring 
to the spendibility of the stuff. That prize money will actually buy all 
kinds of things, as well as places to put them. Contrast that with the 
worth of all this ghost money I've been winning. You, too, I'll bet.

In November alone, assorted emails informed me I'd won a total of 
somewhere around $19 million in Yankee dollahs and another 4,250,000 in 
pounds across the pond. Not as impressive as the Powerball win, I'll 
admit, but it's more than I ever had in Monopoly money. And worth even 
less. Which is too bad because I'd have fun using it to buy all that 
property in Costa Rica they keep offering me.

This is what's known as the 419 scam and you can read a whole lot more 
about it at this web site:
http://www.joewein.net/419/419msft.htm

This morning I received the one that falls in the Microsoft Email 
Lottery genre and this time my winnings come to 470,000 euros. All I 
have to do is contact my claims agent, a Mr. Pixie Turker, to start the 
process moving. Yo, Pixie!

The fun part was the closing, wherein a lady with the hefty title of 
Microsoft E-Mail Lottery Promotion Coordinator assured me she was:

Faithfully yours,
Queen Salote Tupou III of Tonga (1918-65)
Jony Xinxy (Mrs)

Ohmigawd, I thought. There really IS email in heaven. Looky there -- 
they're channeling staff!

Well, not really. See, my mail program won't show images unless I tell 
it to. What I was seeing was the html tag that identifies the image in 
the space where it's supposed to go. The letter sender didn't expect 
that, of course. What they expected me to see (and I did when I clicked 
the image button) was a small photo of the late Queen -- a perfectly 
sweet old lady, happily working at her desk. I was supposed to think 
this was Jony Xinxy (Mrs) and be convinced she had an honest, 
trustworthy face so it would be okay to check in with ol' Pixie.

Decent psychology. Lousy presentation.

Tell you what, though ... they hadn't oughta be messin' with the Queen. 
No telling what she could zap 'em with from where she is now.

Hugs, Dee
Coffee Bean Goddess
http://cbg-dee.blogspot.com