Internet love & being phished: A series on A ‘lil HooHaa

Over the course of a few months, I’ve slowly been chipping away at a series of stories I wanted to place on the blog. Through all of it, I needed to research and figure some things out before pushing forward.

I’ve finally completed it and it will run over the next two weeks (six-part series, runs M/W/F each week) here at A ‘lil HooHaa.

The overall theme of the series is phishing scams, notably by using love as a crutch.

It starts off with a few parts about somebody who contacted me through a penpal site several years ago. Because I knew from the beginning what was happening, I went back-and-forth with the girl for a couple of months (purposely going long gaps without responding) in the hopes one day I’d have something to write about.

I finally followed through.

See, I played it as best as I could – I promised the moon and delivered nothing but e-mails.

The second half of the series deals with a friend who was contacted through a dating website. This one hung around for a bit as she seemed semi-local and everything seemed on the up-and-up.

That is until she showed her true colors.

I wrote these stories because I found them each amusing, but it also shows a different thing – such as scams that people are falling for each day. These people never ask for millions of dollars, rather something they think they could get somebody to send. The funny part is the amount they usually ask for wouldn’t come close to paying for what they say it will go for (such as $500 or so for a plane ticket and passport from Russia to the US).

I’ve attempted to do this several other times, whether it be a dating scam, or that I won money, or that I inherited something — but most don’t give much beyond their first e-mail, so it makes the hope of a good story kind of hard.

I’ve spread this series out over the course of the next two weeks so I could also put in a few regular posts to break it up. I hope you’ll come along for this journey of crazy stories and see how outlandish some of this can be. Included will be photos (each sent photos) and direct quotes from e-mails.

Hopefully you will enjoy the series and see how crazy and how much people will push to get you to buy what they are selling. The series starts Monday.

Schedule :

• Monday, August 18: A Russian beauty chases me
• Wednesday, August 20: Falling fast for the American
• Friday, August 22: The truth is revealed
• Monday, August 25: Utilizing dating sites to cash in
• Wednesday, August 27: No money for you!
• Thursday, August 28: And that’s a wrap, folks!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!