Let us be honest: In this country, we have this incredible ability and notion to steal anything, bribe our way to wealth, cover up corruption without losing a moment’s sleep and rob people blind through dubious costs of service – the list simply goes on.
Trust me, at the Advertiser we have encountered so many scams and shams. At times you do not know if you must cry, or laugh, or cheer because it is actually amazing how creative we have become when it comes to scams. No really, we are imaginative to such an extent that we have to come up with all kinds of weird and wacky ways of creating scams.
It is just a pity that we don’t harness such amazing creativity to do something good and productive.
I am talking about scams because of the story on page 3 in this week’s issue. Police are hunting for a so-called sangoma, who recently conned a Sunward Park woman out of an amount close to R1-million after promising her that he would ‘cleanse’ her and triple her money.
Read that story and be astounded. The sangoma apparently convinced the unsuspecting woman, who runs a local business, to withdraw all her money after telling her that she and all her belongings, including the business and her money, were cursed.
In the pre-scientific Middle Ages, the world was at the same time both fascinating and frightening. It was a world of great superstition and strange beliefs, such as that the world was flat and you could actually fall off it.
Superstition can be defined as a widely held but irrational belief in supernatural influences, especially one that leads to good or bad luck… or as a practice based on such a belief.
At the time, in the absence of proper knowledge, people had no choice but to fall back on their own imaginations to make sense of the myriad of natural phenomena around them.
The result was a world where everything seemed magical. It was a place teeming with fairies and goblins, elves, gnomes, and strange events. Because of widespread ignorance, superstitions were rife.
Fast forward hundreds of years later to 2018… Surely this is a time of knowledge with free access to knowledge? How on earth can we still believe such blatant nonsense that your money can be tripled when a curse is removed?
I mean really – we are not living in the Dark Ages, even though at times it feels like it with all the strikes and protests!
But seriously, when it comes to any potential scam or sham, just do some simple homework. Ask someone for advice and use Google for goodness sake, before withdrawing money in the hope that it will multiply and the curse of the evil witch will be lifted!
These days to scam someone has become the epitome of entrepreneurship. If I consider the effort it takes to actually scam someone, then I’m already flabbergasted.
Almost weekly I get some or other scam filtering through to my email. You know how it goes – somebody proposes a business opportunity, or you have won a lottery, or a dead someone has left you something – the list continues.
Some time ago, a scam did the rounds in which users received a text message saying a case had been opened against them by the police. People who received this message fell victim to fraudsters once they replied to it and, in some cases, money was extorted from them.
Indeed, we have become very creative in this country. We are definitely not willing to work for honest pay, but we will use all our energy to embezzle, commit fraud, swindle and deceive.
Scams are like computer viruses – they keep evolving and are becoming nastier and more sinister. We, therefore, need to remain alert, aware and definitely become totally paranoid.
Some scams are indeed quite clever, but some are downright just stupid because they feed on ignorance and superstition. Let us, therefore, please remain cautious. Let us use some common sense and all available knowledge to make sure we do not fall victim to the evil fairies roaming the bushes…
