Jack just makes it again – –

Wendy and I had a dear elderly friend whose son lived with her. After she died, he discovered she had been regularly scammed on the phone. A charitable thing, donating to a worthy cause again and again over time, had swindled them out of almost all her hard won savings.

But things are much more sophisticated now, and there are many more doors to be opened!

A few weeks ago we decided to reclaim our Netflix account so we could watch a few things. Then a couple of days ago I got an email, supposedly from them saying that I needed to update our payment details.

Something I have learned is to check two things – the title of the email subject carefully and the email address it came from. So I did –

Netflix doesn’t have three capital letters and they don’t normally email from a church office address! The return address literally said centralbaptist.

Bad form, scammers. Or perhaps some choirboy sneaked into the office or someone else created the email address randomly?

There are many vulnerable folks out there just ripe for the pickings, and I worry about them. Wendy and I got scammed a couple of years ago on a Black Friday deal—although we got our money back when we realized our amazing deal was never coming.

So if you see any signs of this going on within your family or friends pass on my advice – check and double check, or just ignore. Hover over the sending email. Compare spellings. And if anyone is Fed Exing a check instead of using the post office, stop right there. (Scammers who use the US Mail face felony penalties.)

It’s a silly world full of nice people and scammers out there. Know the difference.

Come back next Wednesday for more from Jack