May 03, 2007

Schemes and Scams

Tim, our church secretary, almost took the bait of a con man yesterday. Tim received a phone call saying that her phone number was selected as the good luck phone number and as a result, she would receive 60,000 Baht (about $1700 US). However, she had to pay 5700 Baht in taxes first in order to receive the winnings.
All Tim had to do was give her bank account number and go to a bank machine to transfer the money at a set time. Tim was super excited, the only problem was that she didn't have her bank account information with her so she ran around the church building asking people for their bank info.
In all the commotion, "I asked, what is going on?" Tawm told me what had happened but didn't tell me how much she had won. I asked Tawm, "did she win 60,000 Baht?" Tawm answered, "Yes, how'd you know". I told her, tell Tim to hang up, it's a scam.
Some people would probably say it is coincidence but I think it was the hand of God working in our daily lives. Earlier in the week, after working out, I sat down to read the newspaper at the gym, something I almost never do, and the major story was a story warning people to not to take the bait with this scheme. If they did, there was nothing that could be done. The article gave the details of the scam and it was exactly what happened to Tim. The con people get people to transfer money and then they end up taking all the money out of the bank account. Praise God that nothing happened and no money was lost.

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