A few days ago I walk into my office and my son, who works with me, said that one of the agents we know quite well was in trouble. She has just sent him an e-mail and she desperately needed help.
My guts have that elusive sixth sense that my head doesn't, and they started telling me that this was going to be a hoax. I told the guts to shut up and listen to the story.
Well, it was simple. Poor Virginia went to London for the weekend. Her purse wth money, documents, credit cards was stolen. She had contacted her bank, but it would take a few days for them to get her a new card, and meanwhile she needed to get o a plane.
Could we help her with some money, and she would pay us immediately upon return.
My guts started playing drums and some victorious tune. They felt the hoax.
I told my son that it was a hoax, but he was hesitant. He said it came from Virginia's e-mail.
No, it didn't. We went to headers and, yep, it was redirected. We immediately called Virginia and left a message for her on her voice mail.
Later we got another e-mail, from the same e-mail. But this time my guts told me it was real. She wrote to please, not to send any money to anyone, that some bastard(s) had hijacked her e-mail address, and, of course, she did not go to any London or any other place for that matter.
She also wrote that she was very thankful for the outpour of support and offers to help.
And I thought that maybe bastards help us understand how good we are as people. If they are exploiting our kindness, empathy, honesty, it means we have it.
We still have it...
* Image courtesy of SweetOnVeg via FLickr.com under Creative Commons License
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