Scam alert.
Last year, a friend of mine who lives in Denmark, had visited London and like the anglofile he is, bought the Times, and found in it a lottery ticket, which indicated that he had won something. He was quite excited, but the ticket indicated that the prices were only available to UK residents, so he asked me to help.
It was all quite complicated, there were many different prizes one might have won, and to find out which, one had to call a number and go through a lengthy phone menu. The number was a pay-per minute number, but surely it was worth it. At the end was a number I had to write down, they had not warned about this, so I had to call twice... Altogether I think it cost me $15 (£8). Plus my time.
On and on, mail in coupons, blah blah blah. I don't remember all the complexities, but in the end, no prize has ever materialized for my friend, only quite a few junk mail "opportunities" for me, since I had put his name on my address. (I sent them back and they stopped coming.)
Say they get 50,000 people to call that phone line at one pound per minute. That's good "business".
And all was legal, right? So that's business. Nothing to worry about.
ReplyDeleteWe have an ironic term for this in Lebanon: "shatara".
ReplyDeleteLiterally, it means cleverness, know-how.
Shatara rules this country. And it seems to be doing very well abroad, too.
):-P
Which reminds me, I should connect to my all-purpose email address and clear the Bulk folder. I must have close to a thousand spams to disintegrate since last month.
Bingo. 971 exactly. By Wotan, who SENDS all that garbage? And from Jan 18, 2038? WTF? Don't tell me now they can send spam back in Time, too!
<:-O
Pascal, that date is very significant.
ReplyDeleteYear 2038 problem.
Well, OK, only very slightly significant.
Ah, yes; but 2038 is only the latest date I received spam from. Got any explanations regarding September 2029?
ReplyDeleteIt's a pity the boiler room in the Overlook Hotel didn't reset automatically, eh? ;-)
This is a little like someone asking to borrow $20, but only taking $10 of it. That way, each owes the other $10 and everybody's even....
ReplyDelete