Scammed: An American Online Horror Story

This is a long post, and I’m not prettying it up with pictures. However, I do feel the message is important.

I recently met the darker side of internet business. As a freelance editor and writer, it is my duty to perform full diligence on each potential client asking for services from me…and I ignored every safety precaution on the planet. I got scammed for over $2,400 because I got in a hurry.

I have been called stupid by a very good colleague of mine, and I’m sure a slew of others who just didn’t want to say it to my face. Maybe I deserve it; but you certainly don’t. Don’t allow yourself to get scammed by a supposed client. Read below to get some tips.

The Scam Setup

First, I received an unsolicited email saying the client had found my information on guru.com, where I do have a profile made for finding business. The client wanted me to do some editing, the email asked how much I would charge for a 500 word document to be fully edited.

I responded with my fee, and explained that I required half of my fee upfront, paid through Paypal. The following email stated that the amount was within the client’s budget; but that they had been scammed by another editor who took their money and ran when they used Paypal. Instead, they would send a cashier’s check for half of my fee. So far, so good, right?

When I received the check, it was not for half of my fee, instead, it read two thousand plus dollars over what I was expecting. My gut told me something was wrong, so I contacted my client. They claimed that I had received the full amount of a donation for their charity by accident. Could I please cash the check, withdraw my fee (plus $100 for handling the situation), and send the rest by wire transfer to the charity’s event organizer?

Despite things feeling wrong, I did as instructed. I’m an honest person; and I didn’t want to be responsible for all of that money. Two days after I sent the money to the event organizer, my bank sent me a letter stating the check I had cashed had been returned for being fraudulent. How are you going to pay back this rather large amount of money, Mr. Neal?

Everything I Did Wrong

You can implement a caution strategy to just about anything. Screening potential clients is no different; but you have to take the time to actually screen them. When it comes to the internet, you must not assume anybody is who they say they are. Facebook aside (assuming you know this person, their account hasn’t been hacked, etc. etc.), anonymity is the name of the game on the internet. Anybody…can be anybody.

1: Accepting Everything at Face Value

I let this client get under my skin by feeling sorry for them that they had been scammed. Surely if they got scammed, they aren’t trying to scam me, right? WRONG. I’m not saying you need to be an asshole, or dead in your soul to conduct business. What I am saying is don’t let sob stories cause you to neglect your personal protection. Do everything you can to verify this person. Remember, just because the email shows a name, doesn’t make it real.

2: Allowing My Payment Options to Be Sidelined

My second, and biggest, mistake was stating that my payment plan is A, but allowing them to talk me into using payment plan D. I was in the right to demand payment by Paypal. I nulled my self-protection when I agreed to accepting a cashier’s check. NEVER ACCEPT CHECKS FROM SOMEONE YOU DON’T KNOW ON THE INTERNET. Never, ever let a potential client steer you away from your preferred method of payment. They don’t own you, or your business. You get to say no. And, nobody else is there to do it for you. YOU have to stand up for your safety, your credit, your honor, and your reputation. I didn’t, and look at what I’m writing now.

3: Assuming the Check is Real

Now this probably sounds like the biggest mistake, but really it’s a continuation of number 2. By accepting their payment method, you almost immediately trust whatever comes in the mail. That’s your payday, after all. Now, I did not know that a bank could verify authenticity of a check until after the scam was over. Now that I do, if I ever accept a check again I just feel even more the dipshit for falling for all of this.

Anyway, the breakdown is this. I received a check for thousands of dollars, when my fee was less than one hundred dollars. TEAR THAT BITCH INTO TINY, TINY PIECES THAT THE CSI MIAMI TEAM COULDN’T PUT BACK TOGETHER IN A YEAR. Trust me, that thing is caustic, and it’s going to cost you money. It sure cost me.

4: Following Directions/ Doing Extra Footwork

Wait James, what do you mean you made a mistake by following directions? Well, you remember that check I received for thousands? I almost stopped the scam right here. Almost. When the check was for thousands of dollars, I dropped it on the counter, jumped on my phone and texted my client. They’re reply was so soft-spoken though: Calm down. There was a mistake and our donor sent the full donation to you. Just cash the check, and then transfer the money to PERSON X after deducting your fee. For taking care of this mistake for the company, my superiors are allowing me to give you an extra $100.

Oh. A clerical error. That happens in real life, right? Except, I wasn’t thinking that a donor would never send a full donation amount to an entity that’s not even part of the charity. That check would be donated TO THE COMPANY. I wasn’t thinking that my client’s name hadn’t appeared on the USPS sender’s note. I wasn’t thinking that I was being scammed because all I was really thinking about is HUH. This is my paycheck right here in my hands; and all I have to do to be able to use it is cash it and take a little trip to send some money elsewhere.

Yep. It was a paycheck all right…for somebody else.

Watch Your Back

Believe me, in retrospect, it’s so easy to see the stupidity. Which is why my colleague secretly laughs at me while his bank account’s not sitting in the negatives. Okay, I don’t know that for a fact; but I’m pretty damn sure. Anyway, if the check doesn’t come directly from your client, or the company they work for, it’s a fraud. If that check is for more than your fee, it’s a fraud. And if it’s not, your client will be extremely grateful that you sent the check back to them without cashing it. Deadlines are deadlines, but nobody likes losing money. If you have to step out of your bank to anywhere but home (or wherever it is you write) to finish the payment part of the transaction, it’s a scam.

The only thing I ended up being able to do about the situation, after talking with my bank, the local prosecuting attorney, and the sheriff’s department, is visit this website: www.ic3.gov

Here, you may file a complaint and take a look at a multitude of possible scams and frauds. While there’s no guarantee your fraud case will be solved, it will help the FBI track online cases of fraudulent activity; and that may help somebody else down the road.

Last but not least, don’t quit what you’re doing. You may be called stupid for falling for such scams; but it’s more likely you merely had a moment of weakness or desperation. Learn from it; and don’t let somebody else take advantage of you. Thanks for reading, and good luck out there.

I'm Just an American

The greatest country in the world…not so much anymore.  I’m living proof: in 1999, my SAT scores showed a young man ready to take over the planet.  I scored better than 99% of American juniors in English, 89% in Science, and 83% in Mathematics.  However, by 2013, I’ve never graduated college, I can still only speak one language with any effluence, and I’m working up my fourth career path the hard way.  What happened?

The rest of the world seems to believe America is just lazy.  We are too busy living in luxury to bother with the gritty stuff like education, especially beyond high school.  To an extent, they’re absolutely right.  America has gotten lazy about everything from how to handle healthcare to what happens on Capitol Hill.  We don’t pay attention to our own country, much less anyone else’s.  In that regard, it’s easy to understand why arrogant and self-centered often describe us Westerners.

There is another side to our “laziness.”  We are busy, but not everyone is busy living it up on some New York skyscraper.  Oh, sure, we’ve got it kicked compared to third world countries; I’m not arguing that at all.  If it were otherwise, America would have long since lost its world-power status.  No…I’m talking about the America that works hands to the bone.  The average American books it hard to make his dollars for bread and milk, gas and electricity.  We’re so busy worrying about the next bill that we fear trying to get a higher education.  We’ve got kids to care for.  We’ve got a car payment.  We’ve got debt we’ll never get out from under before death.  So much for being #1.

From that, America is doomed, right?  Perhaps not.  According to Thomas Friedman, Americans are “just too dumb to quit.”  You know, he’s absolutely right.  We keep moving forward, attempting one thing after another until we settle into something we’re willing to put our blood, sweat, and tears into.  From big business and global marketing to indie-publishing and mom ‘n’ pop shops, Americans find their own reason to exist…just like everybody else on the planet.

I’m sorry…no honestly…I’m sorry I don’t know a second language.  I’m sorry if I don’t understand why England drinks tea all the time.  I’m even sorry that I don’t understand the cultural significance of French women not shaving.  You know, when I’m less busy paying the bills, I’ll learn French and come visit you in Paris.  I’ll drink tea on your patio.  I’ll safari on the plains of Australia.  I just need a little something in my pocket first, preferably earned from the greatest country in the world.

The “Top 10 Controversial Topics about the US,”  by Al Davenport, inspired this post. There are a few good points, though I don’t agree with everything (it is controversial topics, after all).  Thank you for reading, and please leave any comments below, regardless of your nationality!

James Neal is constantly searching for the next paycheck.  He hasn’t had a pizza in over three weeks, and it’s about to drive him crazy.  If you see him, could you maybe spare him a pepperoni Hot-Pocket?  If not, at least visit and perhaps follow him on Twitter, @BloodandBlade.  He also has an author page on Facebook here.

Lessons from America's "Darkest Day"

With all that I owned, I traversed the streets of Phoenix, AZ, making my way to the Greyhound bus station on America’s darkest day: September 11, 2001.  I was leaving Phoenix for reasons beyond my control.  Simply put, I needed to get home to Missouri (again), in order to get my head straight.

I wasn't paying attention.  Two times before reaching the bus station, someone said something about America being under attack.  If I’m honest with you…I figured they were talking about some political so-and-so going at some political point of interest.  I didn't care.  I was caught up in my own world, my own problems, and my own life.

Upon entering the Greyhound hub, I noticed all the TV’s were on the same channel.  It looked to be a news feed, but the images on the screen weren't real…planes were crashing into buildings in New York?  Ha!  Never gonna happen, folks.  Boy, how wrong I was that day.

The Hardest Lesson

An attack on America was the farthest thing, I think, from anybody’s mind up until the first plane struck the Trade Center buildings.  A complete surprise.  Weren't we…invulnerable?  Who would dare?  We were the WORLD police.  Our military was the best.  We had every possible attack angle covered.  No, we didn't trust our government, but they did protect us from all the other government and military boogeymen, right?

Well, we know the answer now.  We can be targeted.  We can be hurt.  We can have scars eleven years deep carved into our society.  That was America’s lesson.  The one we had forgotten after so many years of nigh perfect safety from foreigners. 

However, we breathed in deep and…

Beat the Chest

The screams still haunt New York’s collective mind, I’m sure, along with the shattering of glass, steel, and concrete on a sunny day.  At one point though, the noises did stop, and so did the tears…just long enough to come out of the shock and demand retribution.

Retribution…another term we had become unfamiliar with using.  Oh, I know, the movies revolve around the idea, but in reality, our real world?  It was too strong a term.  Revenge, yeah, we’d seen revenge.  Retribution being demanded on a countrywide scale?  Really, what else could President George Bush do but answer America's call?  Say what you will about the politics that followed into the war…there was no other decision.  Any other person in office would have done the exact same thing…or America would have seen them step down.

So we beat our chests, we beat our drums, we looked at maps to know precisely where our troops were going and we pinned tacks into Afghanistan.  We cursed turbans and robes and spit out Al Qaeda like a fluent curse word.  We sang war songs; we cheered our celebrities who whole-heartedly agreed with taking out aggression on the terrorists.  Then, as a Nation, we watched…

The Rockets’ Red Glare

Don’t deny it.  You know that infra-red glow coming off the TV screen as well as every other American.  We WATCHED those bombs go off.  Over, and over, and over, and over again.  Penance, RETRIBUTION, was ours…until finally…

Our Humanity Returns

As a nation, we tired of the bombs.  The death statistics weren't exciting anymore.  Our public enemy #1 still hadn't been captured, or killed.  We’d done our crying, our chest-beating, and public outcry.  We’d watched so many bombs we could almost name them on sight.  Our anger was subsided…not gone…but it was time to move on.

We started talking other things: sports, the weather, bad reality TV shows.  We started DOING things again.  Other things became important, over time…gay rights, how our own government was doing things- and how they should do things; we saw in people the best that we knew how to see.

Unfortunately, we also saw the evil in certain kinds of people…even if it wasn't there.  While intolerable, nothing is perfect, no one person or country is.  Never will be.  Because we aren't invulnerable, and we can be scarred.  America knows that, now; and we will…

NEVER FORGET

The sacrifice of our troops, our firefighters, the bravery of America as a whole for continuing to live an American life because we know, we KNOW… how important it is not to let any enemy force us to be anything but what we are.  That means accepting the good, the bad, the ugly, the bad politics, the good politics, the awesome movies and the bad reality TV shows (that still haven’t disappeared).  The straight people, gay people, interracial and special people.

And you know what?  Despite the horror that was 9/11, here’s the thing: in that moment, we fully understood that all must be accepted.  All must come together under one banner, one flag.  That’s slowly been eroding from our practice, again.  NEVER FORGET that we know better.  We've been through it, we shared our sorrows already.  Always remember that:

United We Stand, Divided We Fall.

James Neal is a professional freelancer and, honestly, pioneered the term “Greyhound Therapy.”  It is from his bus trips that he developed his sense of person, and was forced to understand that you must take the “good with the bad.”  You can find his page on Facebook here, or on Twitter @BloodandBlade.  Stop by and say hello…so he’ll stop begging to spend the night…!

THIS WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED ON ROOSTERWORDS.COM, IN 2012. WHILE ROOSTERWORDS NO LONGER EXISTS, I COULD NOT LET THIS POST DIE IN THE ETHEREAL GRAVEYARD. 

Responsibilities of Being an American, Post 9/11

The twelfth anniversary of America’s oft-quoted “darkest day” has arrived, and gone. Rather than get overly sentimental, I believe it’s time to take a kick in the nuts. Why? Because we’re living a life given by men and women who developed a land of the free, and created a home of the brave…and we are no longer either of those. We’ve given our freedoms away, and continue to sit in silent, petrified fear because of a single, ugly moment in our recent history. We don’t live up to the example set by our forefathers- and if we do, we are labeled as misfits of society, extremists, or even, ironically, domestic terrorists.

Cracked.com goes far in realizing exactly how exuberant anti-terrorism is in modern American society. Fear locks us down the moment we hear “terrorist” or “terrorism.”

But I have a different point to bring up. What responsibility is held by the general population of America? Why should we stand up for anything? Because being American begins with bravery. You were born of it, and are expected to act from a stance of fearlessness.

9/11/01 taught us a lesson: terrorists are real. Post 9/11 holds a different lesson, one modern Americans are far too willing to ignore: We are willing to give away freedoms, hard earned in blood by our forefathers, for a largely fictional sense of security.

What’s your responsibility, post 9/11?

·       Begin with Integrity: America was built on a code of specific moral values and unimpaired solidarity. Represent those values, and stop fighting over stupid shit like religion, homosexuality, and women’s rights. Instead, fight for freedom, bravery, and a transparent relationship between our government and its people.

·       Realize You Control the Government: No, not as a single person…but come together as a people and take action when necessary. That’s how the Constitution was built, and the only way to enact good changes. There are nearly 314 million people calling the US home as of 2012. If we worked together in demanding our government perform a certain way, we would win every time.

·       Be Educated: A simple high-school diploma doesn’t make you educated. Neither does a college degree. Real education is found in the real world, in learning from every experience you have, and applying what you learn to what you do next. This also involves thinking critically, and solving problems on your own.

·       Own Up: The world doesn’t owe you anything. You were born into an unforgiving world, a world that has starved, killed, and tortured its inhabitants since the beginning of time. If anything, you owe the world for allowing your existence. So own up, live your life to make the world better, even if you affect only a small percentage of it. Stop expecting everything to be handed to you on a silver platter. Eventually, you’ll find that the more you put in generally returns more back to you. This means hard work, blood, sweat, and tears must come from you. That’s the reality, and it always has been.

·       Be Brave in the Face of Fear: 9/11 scared the hell out the American people. We weren’t invincible anymore. And while we got mad, most of that anger was spent in fruitless, useless, activity. War, hatred within our lands, and fear overtook the American population. We separated ourselves from our most formidable post, solidarity. And it continues today. Come back together, have the bravery to stand with those in your neighborhood, your county, state, and union. That’s how the old guard did it, and that is the mind-frame we need to return to.

There’s a reason to be proud of being American. That pride stands from our history; and it’s time we start earning that pride again.