The Popcorn Stand: I won’t ever fall for a scam until I almost did

I consider myself to be a person who has some common sense anyway, but I’m also judgmental so when we run stories in the Nevada Appeal about watch out for this scam or watch out for that scam, my first question is always, “Do people really fall for this stuff?”

Well, it’s psychological. I don’t pretend to be a goody two shoes, but I’ve never been in jail. I knew somebody who said he had only been in jail once to which our friend replied, “I wished I could say that.”

So when I received an e-mail with this title: Notice to appear in Court #031952073, my first reaction wasn’t “there’s no way I’m going to fall for this.”

I know it’s persona non grata to mention his name, but my first reaction was the same Bill Cosby had when he talked about this sort of thing in his show, “Bill Cosby Himself” when he was considered an upstanding family man before turning into the creepy old many he is now. I said “it” and then I almost did “it.”

Never mind the e-mail came after 11 p.m. on a Thursday night, it looked official. It had the clerk’s name and everything. It warned me if I didn’t show up, there would be consequences.

It’s a scam. If you open the PDF document, your computer ends up with a virus. I tried to open the document. Luckily I couldn’t.

THEN I did the research to find out this is a scam that’s been going on for at least a year or so and the e-mail should be deleted.

I’m no longer judgmental of people who fall for scams. I almost did. Next time we all need to learn to be more careful.

— Charles Whisnand