UPDATE: 8/16 7:28pm – Well, if there is one thing to be said about this idiot, he is persistent.  He called again around 7:00am explaining that plans had changed and he needed to come pick up the check sooner (than the originally planned pickup time in the afternoon).  She informed him that she was busy and he would have to wait until the original time (don’t ask, I can’t explain).  Soon after she saw a suspicious SUV in the neighborhood who drove by and stopped up the road. She called the police and they check him out (just a lost general contractor who probably had to go change his shorts).  Well, from 3:00 until 5:00 nobody showed up (which would have been quite funny seeing as how her son’s were waiting), but the guy called and asked for Mizz {First Name} when her son picked up the phone.  He promptly told him that there was nobody that lived there with that name and he had the wrong number – click, scammer hung up.  A quick *69 revealed a number that ..wait for it.. wait for it… was from Jamaica!  This seems odd since the caller originally said he was in Belvidere IL.  So apparently the dude was too stupid to even go with Skype and calling card minutes to cover his tracks.

UPDATE: 8/15 5:30pm – Mother-In-Law recently got ANOTHER call but get this, things have changed.  Apparently they can no longer wait until tomorrow to meet and need the money immediately.  Still pretty bold of them to continue to harass knowing everyone is on to their little scam.  The police and the phone company are now both fully informed and hopefully on the offensive.

… now back to your regularly scheduled blog

I have good news everyone!  My mother-in-law is apparently one of the luckiest people out there.  As of this Monday she will have increased her bank account by $50K.  The amazing part is she does not have to do anything to receive this incredible gift.  You are probably thinking to yourself, “this is incredible, how does someone fall into such a wonderful opportunity?” or maybe ” Hey, our government is spending us into the ground, maybe this is another benefit of the great CHANGE and NEW HOPE”  Well, to the later I simply say NOPE (as I will in November) and to the former I can safely say you too can be part of this joyous event.  However, there is just one tiny (itsy, weenie, microscopic crumb) of a detail I accidentally left out.  Well, accidentally may be a small untruth, but let’s put everything in perspective, we are talking about 50 THOUSAND dollars.  Umm… sorry about this, but that is a slight untruth as well…. make that 49,850 dollars but who is splitting hairs here, we are talking about getting free money for doing really very little work at all and in fact you even have the option of having THEM do the work for you.

Oh, you are still a little skeptical are you?  How about some details.  First off, this is not some hole in the wall lottery outfit, this is the Donald Trump Foundation from Las Vegas.  That’s right, VEGAS BABY, the bright spot in the desert that has more money than they know what to do with.  They could have picked anybody they wanted to, even people living outside of the U.S. but instead they picked my mother-in-law because.. umm… well not sure why, but let’s gloss over that for now.  Turns out some representative of the foundation has been calling her over and over badgering her to answer some basic questions before they can release the 50 THOUSAND DOLLARS to her.  Some of the difficulty has been trying to understand the caller’s thick foreign accent, but that is to be expected because a large corporate foundation like the Donald Trump Foundation would be drawing the best employee candidates from all over the world.  Oh, remember that tiny insignificant glitch I mentioned above?  Unfortunately, in order to actually release the money, she will need to pay the taxes on it.  After all, we are in America and according to Joe Biden, “It’s our patriotic duty to pay taxes. (note to Joe, let’s compare our charitable donations and see which party is working harder for the disadvantaged).  The good news is the tax rate appears to be only 0.5%, probably because she is retired.  So for a mere $250 dollars she makes $49,850.  Rather than have to do all that extra work of finding a check, locating a pen, getting finger cramps from signing the name etc. you can simply give them your bank account numbers and a few other small details like SS# and maybe a few odd facts like first dog’s name, birth date and by the way, do you happen to live alone?  The caller is also so dedicated to getting you this  money he will continue to call over and over if you have any reluctance to providing the information because after all it is 50 THOUSAND dollars (with a few bucks taken out of the profits for those required taxes).

Turns out that my mother-in-law was not enthused about providing the details they requested, but somehow they managed to get her address and informed her that they would come to her home this Monday to provide her the huge prize in person and get this “Wanted to know if she wanted the media to be informed so they could be there to capture this fantastic moment”  In either case, just be sure to have the tax money ready or they would not be able to release the deck (what?) I mean chect (huh?) I mean jeck, (oh, the tax CHECK)…those darn accents trip me up every time.  As a quick side note, she did mention that she would be waiting for them with her two sons who happen to be deputy sheriffs.  No problem, they will be bringing an FBI representative with them just so everyone knows that this is an official event.

Too good to be true?  Well, common sense says she’s caught up in the all too common scam efforts likely originating out of Nigeria, Jamaica, Middle East or possibly even out of the States (my bet is Nigeria).  This one seems pretty bold with the added component of making an appointment to show up at her house.  I can’t imagine how easy it would be for the elderly to fall into this trap with all the constant harassment and promised opportunities for fixed income households.  The good news is both her sons are deputies for the Sheriffs department and would be a very nice welcoming committee for these criminals.  I say “would” because I truly doubt they will actually risk even getting near her house, not to imply by any means that criminals positively tip the intelligence scales.

Some things are just to good to be true.  If something happens Monday, I’ll let you know.  For those of you with elderly family, friends, acquaintances, you might want to just give them a heads up about this situation.  If it wasn’t lucrative for them, they wouldn’t be doing it.