Rutland columnist Allan Grey is stitched up like a kipper despite his best efforts to avoid scams
Just when you think you are smart enough to recognise and avoid all the scurrilous scams that attempt to pervade your life at the moment, you get scammed, good and proper, writes Rutland columnist Allan Grey.
They’re everywhere, fake emails, either I’ve not collected my £5m prize from the Nigerian lottery, not that I remember buying a ticket, but hey ho, let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth, or I’m due a £10,000 rebate from HMRC. Yeah, that’s right, I’m sure I paid far too much tax during my working life, or a seductive advert telling me I can work from home three hours a month and earn a fortune, a bit like civil servants these days, although it might be worth you all getting back to the office. You’ll save yourself a fortune on gas and electricity this winter, oh, such irony.
Then there’s the energy advisers, ‘visiting your area tomorrow’, offering you a free quote in order to steal your bank details, sorry I mean to ‘insulate your loft’, or the very serious lady from that online company named after a South American river, warning you of a £999.99 charge on your credit card. Press ‘1’ to speak to one of our advisers and we’ll make it all go away, not the charge you understand, just your money. Or the local itinerant who wants to clean your drive and then spray the dirt all over the front of your house and bugger off after having taken your money. The scam monkeys are everywhere.
Let’s not forget all those beautiful ladies on social media either, clamouring to tell you how much they enjoy your posts, how gorgeous and fit you look, well that bit’s true, how they’d love to hear from you, how they’d love to be your bestest friend and how they’d love to empty your bank account and tattoo ‘mug’ right across your forehead.
Well I’m alert to all these sophisticated scams, and I pride myself that I can spot them, either by email, or by telephone, or even at the front door, or at least I thought I was, and then it happened to me again. Stitched up like a kipper I was.
Why the phrase ‘stitched up like a kipper’? Isn’t a kipper a breakfast delicacy? Well yes, but only after it’s been a happy carefree herring, swimming around the North Sea with all its mates, having a whale of a time, if not a herring of a time, but then it gets caught, it gets gutted and it gets smoked. Well that’s pretty much how you feel after you’ve been scammed isn’t it?
So how did I get stitched up like a kipper, again? Well it was all down to my trusting nature, and that’s what your average scammer works on, your good nature, your trust, your common decency. The Lovely Lady and I had docked in Istanbul early in our recent cruise and were walking into town to the Spice Market. A man is walking toward us, I barely notice him, but I notice he drops a shoe brush behind him whilst he carries on walking, so I pick the brush up, call him back and return his brush. His gratitude knows no bounds and he begs me to let him clean my shoes, well tatty old sandals truth be told.
“That’s very kind of you”, I say, thinking his common decency is returning the favour, and before I know it he’s on with the job, brushes out, polish out, chattering away. He tells me: “Sir, sir, I have 14 children sir, most of them suffer malnutrition, and sir, my wife, she very disabled sir, she unable to get job, and sir, my elderly father, he losing his sight, he need glasses, and sir, sir, my nasty neighbour, he play heavy metal music very loud all night long sir.” All the time I’m thinking, I know he’s doing me a favour, but what a terribly tough life he has, and how lucky am I that I don’t have to face this litany of misfortune day in, day out, I guess I should give him some money, and so when the shoe shine is finished, I get my wallet out and give him the lowest denomination note I have, 10 Euros.
He looks at the 10 Euro note crestfallen, then looks back at me and says: “Sir, sir, I do two shoes, two shoes, that’s 20 Euros sir, 10 Euros each shoe sir.” This is the point at which I realise my trust in humanity, otherwise known as my abject naivety has done for me again. I’ve fallen for his sob story, stitched up like a kipper once more, not even being quick enough to riposte with: “I’m sorry my friend, but I think you’ll find that works out at 5 Euros per sandal, not 10, and that includes VAT. I should know, I got a D in O-level maths in 1965, and I can do quadratic equations if push comes to shove.”
The sad moral of this heartbreaking story is ‘trust no-one, believe nothing you read or hear, and only half of what you see’, and if you come across another shoe shine guy, ask him for his O-level maths certificate before he starts the job.
