Hurry! Hurry! Offer ends soon!

     We are bombarded with ads that come to our houses, to our emails, through our televisions, on the websites we visit, and even through our phones via texts, apps and phone calls.  There is always an urgency in these ads: "Hurry, hurry!  Offer ends soon!" 

    We know why they do it this way: if they can create a sense of urgency, people are more likely to purchase whatever it is before their rational brain can kick in and point out that we don't actually need whatever it is they are selling, and often we don't even want it.  There is danger from companies that want to sell more! more! more! in giving people time for them to think about what they are doing.  There is also the fallacy that if you buy something on sale that you are saving money.  You are still buying whatever it is.  You are still paying money for that item.  Unless it is something you were looking to buy and planning to buy that you then found on sale, you have not saved money.  You have spent money on something you probably didn't need.  Most of the items people buy in this way might be used once, maybe, but then end up in the drawer or garage and are not used again.    

    While some of us can see through these sales tactics, other people also use this same method to trick us into believing certain things or reacting quickly in other ways.  If they use the scare tactic of, "If you don't do this NOW, then these bad things will happen!" it effectively turns off people's ability to think and make rational, logical decisions.  Propaganda ads use this urgency to convince you that dire situations will follow if you don't vote such a way, for example.  

    Scammers also use this urgency effectively.  Those phone calls from "the IRS" that insist you better head down to your local target and buy copious amounts of gift cards or else you will be arrested within an hour affectively scare people into failing to consider how likely the whole scenario really is.  I was reading an article about the latest scams, one of which is to use AI to impersonate loved ones' voices who urgently ask for money to be wired in order to keep them out of jail or to save them in some other way.  Scams using Zelle or Venmo have also become common, and again, one thing they all have in common is the urgency with which they push you to respond.  

    I've seen this happen so often that at this point, anything that is presented to me with urgency I receive with great suspicion.  

    But today I found myself wondering if this manufactured urgency is part of the mental health crisis in this country.  That urgency creates anxiety, and if that anxiety cannot be addressed or attended to, it can lead to serious depression. We run around feeling that we have to move fast, fast, fast to get things done.  We make decisions based on urgency and how quickly we can move so that we have time for other things that we will also zoom through as fast as we possibly can.  We aren't living in the moment anymore.  We aren't taking time to enjoy the day.  Everything feels urgent.  

    My challenges for all of us today:

    First, be very wary of the urgencies others bring to you.  The faster others are pushing for something to be done, perhaps the slower we should move to respond so that we genuinely have time to think things through with our non-anxious, rational brain.  

    Second, and again, this is for all of us: I want to encourage us all to breathe!  This life is for living, for enjoying, and that means we need to take time to be in each moment and savor what is good, what is beautiful, to see where God is, where the good is, where love is, without letting our brains run to what must be done next.  

     Finally, try not to let the urgency of others become a contagious way to functioning in the world.  We change the culture by acting differently in the world.  For today, I encourage you to find the moments of quiet, of peace, to rest in those moments and to slow down.  What must be done will be done.  What does not need to be done in this moment or today can wait.  Maybe we will find it didn't really need to be done at all!      

Thieves and Scammers

  For Christmas this year, we received a number of gift cards.  Almost all had been purchased at Safeways around the country, and all of them had been tampered with.  All had already been used, all had been “scammed” in that someone had gone into the store, scanned the numbers on the cards, put them back into the envelopes so that once they were “activated” they were picked up immediately and put into someone else’s account.  The amount of money lost in this way to us personally ended up being around $500.  That was just in our own family.  I wonder how many other people lost money in this way, and I wonder how much money others were able to obtain by “stealing” these gift cards in this way.

Then, after Christmas, we ordered some supplies from Walmart using a bonus card David had received from his work.  (We don’t usually buy from Walmart, but again, this was a card we were given). This card was delivered digitally and so it “worked” for us in that we were able to order the supplies using the card to pay for them.  However, we received a notification that they had been delivered to our house at a specific time, and they never were. The total spent was about $100.  Fortunately, we now have REO cameras installed and we could see that no one had stolen anything from our porch: these items were simply not delivered, despite the company saying they were.  My guess is that these were stolen by the delivery person, though it is possible that they were delivered to the wrong address.  Either way, when we have packages wrongly delivered to us, we take them to the right address.  The fact that this never happened makes it clear that someone took something that was not theirs at some point in the process of delivery.  On another note, we tried to follow through with Walmart as well as the gift card companies.  David spent probably 10 hours on this, but Walmart made it impossible to contact them or to file a complaint. We still tried, not that this will make any difference.  Walmart is a billion-dollar company who does not care about the little amount we lost and will suffer no consequences for failing to make it right. (This is just one of the many reasons we don’t normally shop there!)   

I have several thoughts about all of this.  The first is that scammers and thieves seem to be more numerous than ever, at least in the United States, at this point in time.  Why?  Perhaps it is the general depression, anxiety and despair that so many are feeling that leads them to stop caring about morality or doing what’s right.  Perhaps it is the rising hatred and anger that is also leading to these choices.  Perhaps it is the huge increase in poverty that we are experiencing, the swallowing up of the middle class as the rich become richer and more greedy. Maybe it is that it is so easy to steal in these ways, and there is little consequence to doing so.  It is difficult to find those who have stolen packages, and the police generally won’t waste their time on small thefts or small vandalisms, even as they add up.  We know this because our church has had a number of thefts as well as vandalism lately and the police have admitted that they will not act until the amount stolen or the damage done in each instance is over $1000.   Whatever the cause, if you plan to give gifts this year, I’d encourage you to think through how you choose to do that, considering ways your gifts might be scammed and perhaps choosing the old-fashioned route of purchasing the gift itself and delivering it directly to the recipients.

My second thought was to remind myself that while we “lost” a total of about $600, that all of it was from gifts, things we did not earn, things we did not save for, money that was not expected or needed.  We have enough.  We have always had enough.  My own theology says that nothing we own is ours, anyway.  All of it is lent to us by God to use for the good of all people.  And while it is not ideal that it is scammers who took the money and the items we ordered, perhaps they are people who needed those resources.  I don’t know, and I never will.  The point is that this is something I need to let go of.  The things we received that didn’t work and the things we didn’t receive were gifts.  And it is the energy and care that went into the choosing of gifts and the giving of gifts that matters, not the receiving of more things that we don’t need anyway.

My final thought is that I feel like our lack of connection to others is also a huge part of the issue.  We have forgotten that we belong to one another, that we are deeply connected, that we are all children of God and as such siblings to one another, and that what effects one of us, at some deep level effects all of us.  The more that we can practice our connectionality and the more we can be kind to one another, even those who are very different from us, even those who we don’t necessarily agree with or like, the more we can change the world for the better.  Also, it is harder to scam people when you have come to care about them. I am reminded that it is my job to get to know those people I don’t usually interact with, including delivery people and the shady people I might see in the grocery store.  It is my job to get to know the unhoused persons who are damaging our church, to talk to them and find out their stories.  It is my job to tear down the walls that protect me from others and to reach across them to make connections instead.  This is our job as human beings.  It might not make a difference today, it might not change the number of scammers who are out there tomorrow.  But I have to believe that each effort for good that we choose matters in the world, and that all our efforts for good can add up, just as all the efforts that do damage have been adding up as of late.  It has to start with me.  It has to start with you.  And it has to start today.

Scammers abound

I received a friend request on Facebook from someone I'd never heard of.  We had no friends in common and I couldn't place him, so I just deleted it.  That happens once a month or so.  No big deal. Just requires a delete.  We know they are scammers and we just delete and sometimes "report" them. A couple weeks later, today, the same person (or someone(s) using the same name) contacted me through google plus.  I still don't know him, still have no friends in common that I can tell. This time he was required to leave a message of some kind and the message he left was, "hi barbara....i must confess you really look amazing.hope we could femiliarize sometime."

Uh huh. According to his google plus profile he's an ad consultant in San Francisco.  I don't know how he found me.  I don't know what in that tiny little blurry picture of me on the beach that serves as my google plus image and does not show my face with any kind of clarity would look "amazing".  If he had read anything I'd written, he would know that I don't really care about looks that much anyway and would be much more likely to respond had he commented on something I had written. I'm not interested in being "picked up" by a stranger, and even in that situation I would prefer being admired for my thoughts or strength, for my faith, for ... well for anything other than looks. Additionally, I would assume that ad consultants would need more than a basic understanding of the English language...how to use words as well as how to spell them.  Maybe I'm wrong here, but since I've never seen the word "familiarize" used in this way before, let alone spelled in that interesting way, I'm guessing he is not "for real."  He probably lives somewhere outside of the United States (I read that most of the pick up scam artists going after women are in Nigeria, and most of the pick up scam artists going after men are from Russia...don't know if it's true, but it would explain the interesting "accents").  "He" is probably a team of folk taking turns working these scams (another article I read).  And this is how they make their living, sending notes and forming "relationships" with single women only to have a 'grandmother suddenly die which means they need money, just to borrow temporarily, for the burial and for the...', or 'I have money to give you, just give me all your bank information and I will deposit it in your account."

I have to admit that if I wasn't afraid he might be dangerous or that opening a message from him might open much more to my computer and my life than I could handle, I would be curious.  I would be curious to see how the scammer operated.  I would be curious to see what kind of tactics he thought he could use to scam me out of money I don't actually have, or whatever it is that he wants. I also have to admit that I would enjoy being flattered and charmed and kissed up to.  I know what I have to give, and what I don't have.  I wouldn't be scammed that easily.  These scammers don't seem very sophisticated so I think I'd have a pretty good chance of outwitting them.  I'm the person who goes to the 90 minute "time share" sale and walks away with nothing.  I'm the one who can spend all day at the Home and Garden show or at the County Fair and not buy a thing.  "No" is easy for me when it comes to spending money or giving personal information such as my mother's maiden name, my kids' names or my social security number.  I am not afraid of that.  I am afraid of opening an email that opens up viruses on my computer or exposes my children to risk in some other way.

But either way: no.  I have too much integrity to play that game.  Still I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious...

However, more than curious, I found myself sad.  I am sad that there are people who do this to other human beings.  I am sad that there is such a need that some people believe the only way they can make money is to use and abuse others.  And I am deeply sad that there are enough desperate and lonely people out there who would respond to something like this that choosing to act this way has become a lucrative career choice.  At some level I guess all of us are lonely.  At some level I think most of us would like a "friend" who flatters and charms us.  It isn't worth the cost, and it is a lie, not a real friendship, but I get the appeal, I understand the pull to respond to an invitation like this.

So in the face of this, what can we do?  I think it is a call for all of us to reach out more to those who are lonely.  The best way to prevent something like this from happening is to offer people real relationships instead, to be present and loving even to those who are "unappealing", to search for the human core in every one that unites us and makes each of us valuable and worthy of being loved. Rather than feeling sad that people give in to these scams, we can actively work to prevent their success just by offering friendship to those who are lonely.  It starts with a smile and a "how are you?"  Not so very hard.  And we may find ourselves blessed through the effort, making a friend with depths we didn't imagine, growing in getting to know people who are different from us.  That, I think, is an effort worth making.