Just a lilttle scam

My mother called me the other day to tell me that she had a letter from someone who wanted to send her $500. She had the notice. She had already won. She didn’t have to pay taxes on her winnings, and all she had to do was to fill out her acceptance form and send it somewhere overseas.

“You know,” she said, “I kind of worry when I have to send it overseas.”
Ding, ding, ding, ding! (Alarms going off in my head.) If any of you don’t know how old I am, you haven’t been paying attention. If you have, stop here and figure out how old my mother is. If you think “preying on the elderly” might apply here, you must have passed fifth grade math; and you are right.

I begin yelling at my mother over the phone. “Don’t send anyone anything. Where overseas? Was is Brisbane or Nigeria?”

“Well, let me see now, where was it? Oh yes, somewhere in Australia.” (Oh, my gosh! I frantically begin to go over my options. Whew, it’s after five o’clock; she can’t mail it today. I still have time to get hold of that letter before it disappears somewhere into the clutches of the United States Postal Service, which never loses scammer correspondence, only important social announcements and mortgage payments.)

“Did they tell you that they need some money so they can recover their family’s rightful throne and fortune?”

“No, they just said I won the prize.”

“Did they tell you you’ve won the lottery but they need to know where to deposit the money?”

“Well, no, I just have to say I want the money.” (Do birds fly?)

“Did they ask for your bank account number?”

“No, they just asked me to fill in my name and address.”

“They already have that,” I remind her through clenched teeth. “Did they ask you for your social security number?” (They probably already have that too.)

“No, I can’t remember it anyway.”

“Did they say they need some money so they can fly to Switzerland to unfreeze their assets?”

“No.”
“Well, you just hang onto that correspondence until I can look at it. It’s probably a scam.”

“A what?”

“You know, someone is trying to cheat you out of your money.”

“Oh, they wouldn’t do that.”
Next day I “drop in” to check on “the mail.”

“Okay, let me see that letter about the money you won.”

“Well, I am too going to send that in. It says I have already won $5,000, and it’s tax free.” (Do pigs fly?)

“Five thousand! You said five hundred.”

“I knew it was five-something. (Close.) Anyway, they probably want to reward me. Why, I’m their best customer."

“What?”

“I have been taking the Reader’s Digest ever since I can remember, and what’s more I read it. And my mother before me took it all her life, and Dad and I got it for all you kids for all these years. Who deserves their prize money more than I do?”
Good question. I guess Reader’s Digest is outsourcing these days.
I’ll let you know.