Parasite

 We’ve all heard that prostitution is supposed to be the world’s oldest profession, it is an arguable statement, but I believe that swindling people out of their hard-earned money or goods has to be a top contender. Scamming has always been a thing. Those who prey on their kind in order to avoid working for what they need are a special breed.

Fortunately, they aren’t as abundant as the rest of us, but it doesn’t take many to create a serious impact on society. The elderly were probably among the original, and still the most favoured, targets of this special breed. Being more trustworthy and less savvy when it comes to the latest plays, this segment of the population has probably suffered the most from swindlers. Here in Portugal, most of the more remote regions are populated primarily by seniors, and scammers are afoot knocking on doors disguised as inspectors, government agents and whatnot. For instance, knowing many keep cash hidden at home, they’ll ask to see all their 50-euro bills in order to ‘verify’ that they´re not fake. Police actually go door to door to educate, in order to try and prevent such crimes. As for the rest of us, parasites nowadays don’t even need to leave home. They shop online. Not a day goes by where I don’t receive a message or an email inviting me to throw some money out the window. I’m sure you are all familiar with what I mean.

On a daily basis we are asked, by legitimate businesses, to provide contact information. Most of the time these requests are for marketing purposes, (in the guise of “improving our experience” with said firm), but many also sell on the info to third parties who, in turn, spread it around to a point that one ends up being contacted by everyone and their uncle, all with something to offer. For this reason, I try to defend myself by having a second email address that I provide in situations such as these. Once a month, I log into it and am confronted with a barrage of messages, none of which are requested, needed, or even wanted. Unfortunately, this isn’t a silver bullet, because even my primary email address gets hit.

There’s no way to hide. If you’re connected, you’re a target. Everyone you volunteer your contact information to is going to make money from it, I don’t care how many privacy promises they make. Lately, I’ve been receiving phone calls from Eastern European countries, an easy scam attempt to spot, considering I don’t know anyone in the region, but the first time I got one I actually answered, but hung up immediately. It was a gut reaction. Later I learned that it is indeed a scam attempt which doesn’t even require conversation, they somehow rifle through your phone electronically in order to swipe passwords and such. About a year ago, I put an old wood-burning stove up for sale on OLX, a popular European online site, and minutes later I got a call from a guy stating that he’d have a courrier over the next day to pick it up. He quickly asked me to open the banking app on my cell in order to transfer the money, but when I told him I didn’t bank using my phone, he hung up. Get the picture? I get messages on my smartphone from scammers pretending to be the police, the government, the bank, among others. If it smells undesirable, then it probably is. We have instincts that sometimes tell us things aren’t what they are proposed to be, and we need to listen to them.

These situations aren’t ever going to disappear. For every safeguard set in place there are thousands out there figuring out ways to get around it, it’s always been like this. It’s now common to read about hackers getting into sites that are, we assume, supposedly impenetrable, such as banks, government departments, and especially corporations, because you figure they have all the resources to be able to safeguard their stuff, but no! They are as vulnerable as the rest of us, let’s not kid ourselves. So, the only possible defense is erring on the side of caution and erasing anything that we deem suspicious, without even checking to see what it is. If it’s real and/or important, it will reveal itself. If it’s over the phone, tell them to go &%# themselves.
Remember, when you surf, look out for the sharks.

Fiquem bem.

Raul Freitas/MS