Saturday, November 11, 2006

Scamming The Scammers - The Astrologer's Tale

Ever had one of those scam emails? You know the type, someone needs your urgent help to access millions of dollars, but first you have to pay them a few thousand to get the ball rolling. They always have the same tone of urgency, the same bad grammar, and the same curiously old-fashioned, rather stilted approach in etiquette and manners. And always those millions of dollars...

Anyway, have just spent a happy half-hour reading an email exchange from this site, which deals solely in reversing the roles and scamming the scammers, by engaging with them, gaining their confidence, and making endless promises to help without ever coming up with the goods.

This particular laugh-out-loud scam-busting epic featured a character who was apparently a top English astrologer, motivated to help out the scammers by the thought of using the money to fulfil his dream to set up a school of astrology.

Our astrologer wanted to study the stars for signs this would be an auspicious business opportunity, so asked the principal scammer for his birthdate. It might not be the real birthdate of course, but the stars have a strange way with synchronicity and the date provides just the right chart for the occasion. I noticed Mercury retrograde in Leo, which interested me as the scam-bust started during the last Mercury retrograde period in July, and Mercury is currently in retrograde phase as I write this.

As the scammer had north node in Gemini, his destiny clearly lies in communication, and with Mercury in Leo he was obviously destined to be famous for his writing. I expect thousands across the globe have read his work by now :-)
No surprise there's also a lot of Neptune energy involved - his Mercury is square Neptune in Scorpio, and the story concludes on the day Sun opposed Neptune in Aquarius, linking up with his Mercury/Neptune square. Perhaps in this case Neptune square Neptune indicated the scamming of the scammer.

It must have felt like the ultimate Mercury retrograde experience for him - endless repeating emails, frustrating delays and fruitless responses. Bless. Mercury isn't called the trickster planet for nothing...

Enjoy the full story here

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have my own sad tale. My ISP is convinced I am a spammer and has blocked me from sending email! I got it straightened out after four phone calls... only to wake up the next morning, blocked again. I'm innocent!!

Barbara Palliser said...

I am sure if some scientist did a study on Mercury retrograde related events we'd get this whole 'evidence for astrology' debate wrapped up quickly and neatly.

Sorry to hear your astrologer's tale! I hope everything gets sorted soon!

Tumblewords: said...

Scamming scammers. Too funny.
I hardly trust the smallest thing during retrograde Mercury. A slow learner with Natal RxMercury. :)