A guy approached me on the streets of Manhattan (that's New Yawk, for all y'all) and offered me a great deal on genuine Rolex watches, which he just happened to have handy inside his coat. Wow! Now, there are basically three possible responses that they guy could get: One - you walk away, recognizing the scam that this is. And if you looked closely, the watch probably is a Rollex or a Rolax. Two: you know it's a scam, but you need a new cheap watch and it might be fun to play with it for a few weeks, and have the fun or trying to get the guy down in price. Three: You REALLY do think the guy is doing you a fabulous favor and you buy that genuine Rolex for $25.
The guy certainly knows that probably 99% of the people he approaches are going to take number one. But it costs him nothing to ask. He makes his income on the 1-percenter who is too dumb or gullible to know better.
Somebody puts a Corvette C4 for sale on eBay, advertising it as unmodified stock, with a 383 motor. No Corvette ever came stock with a 383. But most people don't know that fact, and perhaps that there are other issues with this vehicle.
A Pender County teacher creates a listing on the Internet in one of those "personal page" webpages. He says in it that he was a gay swinger. The word of it gets back to his students and their parents, and hence the school authorities and he is suspended. Only after it is proved that he in fact did not create the website was he reinstated. The website was put up by someone else as a prank, and a nasty one at that. I saw this in the paper today, and it was the impetus for this column.
The point here, of course, is that you just can't believe everything that you see or read. But in the real world, it's sometimes easier to spot. The Rolex watch scam is so obvious on the surface that only the really innocent would get scammed. The Corvette situation was a bit more subtle, but if you were going to spend $15,000 for a vehicle, you would (or should) do your homework first.
But the Internet for some reason causes people to suspend their disbelief. I am not sure why, but we as a race seem to have a built-in desire to accept things on display screens. All those years of TV cigarette commercials had people believing that cigarettes had great taste. Or that Product Y was better than Product X because it had a new, secret ingredient. And that fact is that most of the email offers you receive are bogus, even if they come (or were forwarded by) a friend.
In the Pender County case, it cost the perpetrator nothing to build the website. It probably seemed like a good practical joke at the time, but certainly could (and did) have potentially disastrous results for the victim. But my point is: if nobody BELIEVED the website, there wouldn't be an issue. The fact that students and parents DID believe is, to me, the core of the issue.
Nobody should be replying to all those spam solicitations, but apparently enough do to make it worthwhile to the sender. Buyers on eBay get scammed all the time, because they suspend their disbelief and pull out their wallets. If it's too good to be true, it usually is.
The best example of self-policing of Internet material is the Wikipedia online encyclopedia. If you haven't tried it, it's really great. But the entire database is contributed (and monitored) by individuals, and anybody can update or re-write a section if they wish. When somebody comes along who adds something incorrect or maliciously wrong, it is usually caught and corrected quickly. But not always.
My message is to be skeptical. Don't believe everything you read on the Internet, and don't overreact. And, certainly, don't buy that fake Rolex.
(Bob Seidel is a local computer consultant in the Southport - Oak Island area. You can visit his Website at www.bobseidel.com or e-mail questions or column ideas to him at bsc@bobseidel.com. For specific inquiries, please call Bob Seidel Consulting, LLC at 278-1007.)