The day the cynic got scammed

I thought I would share this amusing -- but at the time, infuriating -- incident from the other day with you.

I'm not exactly what you would call a trusting sort of person.

It can take years -- even decades -- before I will ever permit myself to completely trust someone. Of course, this makes it tricky to invite folks into my Good Friends Inner Sanctum. There are a lot of people in my "acquaintances avec potential" circle, but these, I feel, are the ones who require extra care in their Person Assessments. And if I suspect someone has cooled on me, or are just playing nice because they don't have the balls to tell me to get bent -- well, they get shunted back to the end of the line, and I generally regard them in a much cooler sort of way.

Of course, I can share all this with you, dear stranger/close friend/family. But I digress.

I've been on the hunt for a part-time job -- but not just any part-time job. I'm being quite particular. No retail (I've served my retail sentence, dammit). No telemarketing. No sales. No pimping shitty products or services for cash, credit or generally being a nuisance to the world. I'm trying to avoid contributing to the consumer chain. I mean, it's nonsense to whore my soul out to strangers for $7/hr.

Unfortunately, most jobs with good pay, flexible schedules and somewhat redeeming employment value are likely a) already taken; b) don't want me for some inconceivable reason ("You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it does"); or c) they don't exist and I should just whore myself to the advertising world full-time and be done with it.

Which leads to the ad on Craigslist Toronto...

Well, damn. The ad is gone (hardly a surprise). Anyway, it was a data entry position. Work from home, input orders, requires computer skills, internet, some writing skill, blah blah blah. Pay between $250-$500 week. Sounds reasonable, huh? Well, there was a fee. It was $14. I figured, "OK, perhaps it's just a material, administrative fee. Doesn't seem unreasonable."

Turns out, the manual was instruction on how to post free employments ads exactly like the one I responded to. You make your money by posting an ad exactly like that, and people send you their money. And the spiral continues.

So, right. I'm a dolt.

Sometimes I make myself ill with how gullible I can be. In my defense, the ad truly sounded legit. Anyway, in my fury, I wrote to the person who posted the ad, lambasting them for being a lousy, shitty and manipulative human being. This was her response (sics retained):

"How did you come to the conclusion that this is ascam. I started doing this Friday and I have made200.00. It is a job, When people ask me questionsbefore they decide to pay I tell them the truth I dontlie to them. I have made some extra money, just likethe person I purchased the material from and thepeople who have purchased it for me. It would only beun-ethical if I lied and didn't give the people whatthey paid for."

How do you argue with someone who doesn't see what was wrong with the set-up in the first place? How do you teach intelligence? Or ethics? I mean, I could have made my money back by conning other people out of their money the same way.

I'd rather just lose out on the $14.

Balls.