The lure of easy money - Survive from your own greed

For many yearsnow, I am getting the coveted mails - the ones informing me that I have own a lottery of XX millions of US dollars and whom should I send my so and so information to claim it. My 12 year old daughter saw one and demanded to know why I am not replying to it. I said whmmm.

Have you ever come across a person coming to your house wanting to sell a Gold chain at a throwaway price ? With a story that he came from another place and all his belongings are stolen and so he is trying to gather only the return fare by his last possession this chain and you can buy it at 1/10th the price ? One (otherwise very honest) gentleman I know even went to the extent of going to the local jewelers and tested it for purity before buying it (at double of what the man asked for, because by then he believed the story) and later found that even though he was alert, the man had replaced the gold chain by a steel goldplated one, priced at 1/50th of what he paid and is worthless.

As a principle, I never buy lottery tickets and never ever (except buying one of Rs. 5 long ago, pitying the vendor and throwing the ticket right afterwards) spent any money on the lotteries. I never subscribe to the free gifts of the products (for which you have to send the cutting or the label or sms or anything) or the sms campaigns. I always knew that nobody is there to give you anything for free and it is the conmen only who really understand the value of aggregation and devised all these schemes (and later passed on to the TV channels for devising the reality shows where they could get crores of sms-es at Rs.7 each and then manipulating the whole show so that contestants are from the regions where people will set up booths to do the sms-es in a frenzy so that their guy wins).

All my life, I have carried the view that I will try anything once. Generally I have tried to stick to that and till now failed only in a few areas (Having heroin – never could arrange one, going to a certain kind of women – never could manage the courage, doing bungee jumping – developed cold feet at the last moment in Blackpool pleasure beach many years before just before they tied the 100 mt long steel rope on my feet, going to the horse-races – but this I will definitely do some day, etc. ) . But certain areas are simply taboo. Buying lottery ticket for one. Gambling is another. I always fought the urge of the easy money and still do. It is the money with dignity that you can really enjoy. This is why I have brushed off any suggestion or proposal from different people from different quarters for taking an agency (??!!) of Amway or such other bubble kind of scheme, though I personally know some people doing it (and earning a lot if they went in early) and used some products (got them at 40% discount while they price it generally at 1000% markup scale) which were very good. What I always hated was the concept itself.

I did a project on the Ponzi bubble scheme variations for my Finance specialization and gathered enough knowledge to develop an ingrained hatred for the schemes, while gawking at the ingenuity of the variations spawned later and developing enough wisdom to stay away from all such kind of pyramidal bubbles that gives super profits to the schemers and their associates and sucks in all kind of greedy people, before breaking up like a pack of cards. The concept is that “A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors rather than from any actual profit earned. The Ponzi scheme usually offers returns that other investments cannot guarantee in order to entice new investors, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. The perpetuation of the returns that a Ponzi scheme advertises and pays requires an ever-increasing flow of money from investors in order to keep the scheme going”. Amway, though a slight variant and probably will not go away easily before it starts hurting too many people, is a good example of this scheme. One beautiful example of the scheme’s working is that : in 1979, a Chartered accountant (found out later) from Chennai came to Calcutta and took a room in a slum while he was looking for some small business opportunity. He was amiable and friendly with the slum people and gained their trust in a few months. Then he started a scheme that he will take a loan from anybody of Rs.10 every Friday and will give back Rs.12 the next Friday (but the upper limit of any one person lending was Rs. 100) provided the lender brings two more lenders of the same amount, otherwise he will get back Rs. 9 only. The return was nearly 90% monthly and people got interested. After a couple of months, the initial doubts and inhibitions also went away and every Friday there was a mad rush to give loans to him. After 5 months of running it, the guy disappeared, only to be found out in Chennai by a dogged journalist where the guy had bought a factory for Rs. 40 Lacs. At rough estimates, the guy had made about 70-90 Lacs in those 8 months he stayed out there. While nobody lost more than 100 rupees at a time and was not interested in going to the Police and get harassed.

For some of the best examples of the conmen, read “If tomorrow comes” by Sidney Sheldon where the protagonists, Tracy Whitney and Jeff Stevens shows the con trade in minute details. The main lessons are that “
1) You cannot con an honest person. It needs greed to be sucked into a con
2) But there is no dearth of people for them as most of the people are inherently greedy and is always on the lookout for easy money
3) The conmen are much smarter than the normal people, who, despite trying to be alert, can never stand a chance against a conman
4) Con depends on the innovations. But even the oldest ones like the sunken ship full of Gold, still works
5) Some people are inherently gullible and jump in any scheme that you set up, even selling the Tajmahal

Now, after I have spent so much time on you, best of luck on walking right into the next scheme you can find. Have an example of the mails I get (in the last one month, I received 23 mails).

From: pissa akaba
Subject: I NEED YOUR URGENT REPLY CONFIDENTIAL
To:
Date: Tuesday, 23 June, 2009, 12:55 AM
From Mr Pissa Akaba
Bill & Exchange Manager
Bank of Africa
Ougadougou Burkina Faso
W/Africa.
Dear Friend,
Pls i want you to read this letter very carefully and i must apologize for bringing this message into your mail box without any formal introduction due to the urgency and confidential of this issue and i know that this message will come to you as a surprise,

our customer a crude oil dealer MR.HUS BEN AN AMERICAN who was with the Iraqi oil industries and also an oil supplier to republic of Burkina Faso made a numbered fixed deposit for18 calendar months, with a value of Ten million United State Dollars(US$10m dollars) in our bank,

Upon maturity several notices was sent to him, even during the war which began in 2003. Again after the war another notification was sent and still no response came from him. We later find out that the oil dealer MR HUS BEN along with his wife and only daughter had been killed during the war in a bomb blast that hit their home. You can read more about the bombings on visiting these sites below: http://www.ccmep.org/usbombingwatch/2003.htm#3/19/03

After further investigation it was also discovered that MR.HUS BEN did not declare any next of kin in his official papers including the paperwork of his bank deposit,

And he also confided in me the last time he was at my office that no one except me knew of his deposit in our bank So I need your urgent assistance in transferring the sum of (US$10m dollars millions usd into your bank account within 7working banking days,

What bothers me most is that according to the laws of country A burkinabe cannot come out and claim this fund and I don't want the money to go into our Bank treasure as an abandoned fund,

So this is the reason why i contacted you so that our bank will release this money to you as the next of kin to the deceased customer, Please I would like you to keep this proposal as a top secret and delete it if you are not interesting,

Upon the receipt of your reply and indication of your capability, i will give you full details on how the business will be executed and also note that you will have 35% of the above mentioned sum if you agree to handle this business with me while 55% will be for me and 10% for any expenses that may arise on the process,

And remember i don't want anyone here in our bank to know my involvement until you confirm this fund into your account and ask me to come over for the sharing as indicated, Then after i and my colleagues will visit your contry for disbursement acconding to the percentage indicated,

Therefore to enable the immediate transfer of this fund to you as arranged, you must apply first to the bank as the next of kin of the deceased,
Please, dont entertain any atom of fear because the transaction is 100% risk free. Note that, to be relation with the deceased or not will not impose or prevent you to claim the money,

The fact is that whatever information we will present to the bank should be accurate. Rests assured that I will provide all the necessary information which the bank may require from you during the process to make sure everything goes well and fast.

Referring to the above explanations, await your urgent response,and fill those question below to enable us proceed this business
Your Full Name............................
Your Sex.................................
Your Country..............................
Your Marital Status......................
Your Age.............................
Your Occupation..........................
Your Personal Mobile Number....................
Your Personal Fax Number......................
To enable me locate you once i come over to your country immediately you confirm this US$10m dollars usd, into your nominated bank account, As soon as i receive your postive respond i will send you the text of application which you will use to apply in my bank as next of kin.

Thanks
Mr Pissa Akaba
B.O.A (Bank Of Africa)