The other day I received an email from a nice lady called Rosemary. She had the pleasant job of informing me that I had won a million euros in a lottery based in the Netherlands.
I was particularly surprised since I don’t remember ever entering a lottery based in the Netherlands, but her helpful email explained that my email address had been selected at random, and so it was not necessary for me to have ever bought a ticket.
How happy I was, all of my dreams had come true and all I had to do to claim my prize was respond within 2 weeks. Surely this is the lucky break I have been waiting for all of my life.
At the bottom, she mentioned a small matter about me being responsible for paying the “VETT/APPROVAL DOCUMENT CHARGES (FEES)”. How simple is that, and she seems like such a nice lady that I am sure she would not even think about taking me for every cent that her soul-less organisation could squeeze out of me. I will have to get around to replying to her email some day as opportunities to walk away with barrow loads of money don’t come up that often.
How stupid do these emails seem to us? Do people really fall for them any more? Wake up world! It simply isn’t possible to get something for nothing. Is there any real way to shortcut genuine success? I don’t think so.
If there is something that is worth having, it always comes at a price. Whether the price is worth paying is up to each of us, but there is no way to avoid it. You simply can’t achieve anything worthwhile without paying for your success, and running is no different.
Remember this next time you see an advertisement promising you something that is amazing. No body runs faster without it costing them dearly, both before and during the race.
There is no such thing as a shortcut to speed. Isn’t that the point?
2 responses so far ↓
1 Vern at Aim for Awesome // Jul 2, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Man, you WON! Don’t question it! Claim your prize! Send whatever cash is necessary, it’s chump change because you’re gonna break the bank with what you’ll collect!
The scams work - I used to monitor sites for scams and I’ve seen so many, and so many of them WORK! Even if one out of 10,000 people fall for it… it’s easy to send 3 billion emails in a month. That’s a lot of incoming cash.
Sucks, eh?
My brother sent 1500 usd by western union to Romania for an Apple notebook computer that he found for 350 off the usual price, he phoned me ecstatic! I told him, Dave, as soon as humanly possible run to western union and see if they’ve sent the cash yet (it was middle of the night in Romania). They hadn’t. He killed the transfer. He ALMOST lost it all. My brother’s IQ is in the neighborhood of 160. It’s amazing who can get caught by scams! Be careful Tom!
2 Tom O'Leary // Jul 3, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Hi Vern
How was that for timing, your brother might have been very lucky to see his money again. There is nothing like losing money (because you were trying to save it) to make you realise that there are a lot of false promises out there. We all have to be so careful what we believe.
Thanks
Tom
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