Marking the start of the scam season

I’d like to be the first to wish you a merry Christmas, a happy Hanukkah and whatever other commercial holidays I may have missed, because as we all know, October heralds the beginning of the spending season.

The smell of money is in the air.

Once we waited for Thanksgiving to pass before we decked the halls, but that notion is just in the way now of warp-speed hustlers who dive like rodent-seeking hawks into our pockets and purses.

I become aware of this each year due to the early thumping of the advertising drums, the influx of catalogs and the joyful efforts of scammers from far and abroad to tap into our spirit of greed.

It is that spirit we will address today, a universal need to con our fellow man out of his money, and an equally pervasive need to get what we can, however we can.

I am especially conscious of spending at the moment due to a property investment we have made with funds that we do not possess.

A simple man with no capacity for economics, I am told that using the money of others to make money for one’s self is the kind of modus Americana that creates Eli Broads.

But I’m not sure I’m of that ilk.

“We have to be brave,” Cinelli tells me as I sit trembling with doubt.

I am not brave and I never have been brave, which is why I am seeking other sources of revenue.

Just in case.

Doing so, I have begun paying closer attention to e-mails from Africa and Europe offering me big bucks if I would help the senders stash away millions they have either stolen from deposed tribal leaders, inherited from crooked parents or found in abandoned doghouses.

All I have to do is send them the number of my bank account, my date of birth, my Social Security number and various other scraps of identity and they will transact their business and send me a check for a percentage of the take just for being a nice guy.

That’s the main thrust of a stack of e-mail offers I have before me at this very moment, although there are variations on the theme.

Here’s a plea, for instance, from one Beatrice Williams in achingly primitive syntax: “I sent to you this e-mail proposing to you my intentions to transfer my heritage of FIVE MILLION EURO to your country for investments to enable me continue my studies.”

The e-mail was from France and addressed to “pls dear one.” Details awaited my response, so I wrote back: “Dear Ms Williams. Five million euro should cover your studies nicely, as long as it’s not a private university.

I would be happy to assist in investing it if you would send me a cashier’s check for $1 million U.S. to get us started.”

Beatrice must be busy because I haven’t heard back.

Here’s another, this one from 19-year-old Esosa Etinia David of the Ivory Coast, who seeks help investing $6.5 million left by her father.

It was addressed to “Dear Beloved.”

She too needs it to further her studies. I don’t know what these people are studying, but I wrote back suggesting a different major at a smaller college.

And then there’s: “My family are poor, I am not able to work as my baby is only 3 weeks old and I need to care baby.”

In tune with the Age of the Internet, she asks for donations to her website, “Mother Pixels Promotion,” for which she is selling space at $1 a pixel.

I don’t know what a pixel is, but my family are poor too, and I’ve spent all of my money on other pixels.

The most intriguing of the, well, offers comes from a man who says he is a U.S. soldier fighting in Iraq and, with two other G.I.s., came across money hidden in some doghouses near one of Saddam’s old palaces.

His share of the loot is $21 million and he wants me to smuggle it into the States.

He’s asking how much I would charge. Since I have never smuggled before, I am asking if anyone out there knows a smuggler that I might contact for help.

I will give you a finder’s fee equal to 10% of my net smuggle.

Space forbids that I offer more examples of the early Christmas spirit, but you get the idea. Many from across the seas are anxious to join those at home in acquiring what little money we have.

E-mailers from China are the latest to join in the parade of those who require our help with their millions, but since they write in Chinese, I am ignorant of the details of their offers.

I just tell them to send a check and I’ll think about it.

Meanwhile, I’m hoping our property investment turns out OK. If not, expect an e-mail from me any day now: “Dear beloved: Me am make bad investment wife hungry too dog sick send money pls. I send pixel.”

I’m waiting.

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almtz13@aol.com