It was in my email spam folder, a note from the chairman of one of the world’s biggest philanthropic organizations. I should count myself lucky – I had been chosen to receive $5,300,000.

I didn’t click on the link. It seemed strange that I would never have heard of such a prestigious organization, so I did what anyone else would do: I put the name into Google Search. Got lots of hits.

None of those links had to do with philanthropy; all were identifying an internet scam. So you have to wonder who falls for these things? But someone must – the email has been making rounds for a couple of years. The lucky recipient gets $3 million more now than when it started. Business must be good.

The idea of someone handing out millions of dollars randomly seems a little far-fetched. Capitalizing Every Word In The E-Mail Should Also Make The Recipient Wonder.

Still, there are organizations with similar names, legitimate ones, that can be found online. I wonder though if people are fooled merely by a similar name? Would you be?

Then again, the scammers aren’t looking for people like me or you, who question what they read online. They make their pitches a little over-the-top to weed out those who might question their motives or methods. They are looking for the gullible.

Apparently they find them.

If I was looking for a change, maybe I could start a whole new career as a scammer, taking advantage of people online. Think of the money I could make!

It must be a rather hollow existence though. I don’t see what satisfaction could be derived from taking advantage of others. All it would do is lower your opinion of human nature.

Those who are involved in such scams probably don’t realize what their chosen career says about them. Or maybe they don’t want to know.

Every time I get one of these ludicrous offers I am tempted to reply, to string the scammer along for a while. Yes, I know there is a risk, that there are bad people out there and they might try and track me down and hurt me. But there are ways I could do it without them being able to trace me.

The problem is, interacting with scammers takes time, more free time than I have at the moment. And there’s nothing in it for me, except perhaps the satisfaction of knowing that time spent trying to fleece me is time not spent taking cash from the vulnerable.

That in itself could be a worthy thing to do. Do you think I should consider it?