Oh the irony: It IS the scam…

Scams are dime a dozen these days. There are phone and email scams and social media scams and those that show up in your letterbox promising marriage to a Nigerian prince and more money than you could imagine.

They’re annoying, but though many of us have been momentarily sucked in, we’ve all learned to be pretty ‘scam-savvy.’ Or so we think.

What does my head in these days is the number of ‘chainmail scams’ people fall for on Facebook. Sure, we all know that if we don’t pass on that letter or email we probably won’t have seven years’ bad luck, and our beloved dog Fluffy probably won’t die (I don’t have any beloved pet, but I’m sure it’s frightening for those who do). But it seems that thousands have missed what modern-day chain mail is.

Our fear has made us quick to warn our friends of any impending scams. What it seems people are missing, however, is: those ‘pass it on’ warning messages on Facebook? That IS the scam!

No, Facebook won’t shut down your account if you don’t share this notification.

No, Facebook is not rife with more hackers than usual, requiring you to ‘copy and paste’ on your wall.

It’s probably not even ‘International Siblings Day’ (for the 10^th time this year.)

Share what you like, but share what you like. Don’t share because you’re afraid that life as you know it might change if you don’t. I expect things will be okay for a while yet.

Things I’ve learned from killing consumerism #5 – Oh the irony: When trying to avoid shopping costs you 50 bucks.

How is that even possible? Well it is.

I’m traveling to Melbourne next week for a friend’s birthday. A few people are heading over for the weekend to go to the footy and shop and then they’ll drive back along the Great Ocean Road.

I decided to avoid the temptation to shop and just fly in on the Monday in time to do the drive back with them.

It all seemed like a good idea, until I booked the wrong flight. Somehow messing up the whole 24 hour time thing, I booked a flight that I thought was arriving at 2.55pm, only to realize it arrived at 22.55pm… long after my friends would have left the city.

Had I booked for any earlier day, it wouldn’t have mattered, but I’d tried to avoid the shopping.

So, I paid my $50 to change my flight, wryly acknowledging that it would have been way more fun to spend the money at a DFO, and I’ll look forward to another shopping-free weekend.