A Nickel Worth A Million ...

Earl taught me a valuable lesson when I was in the third grade at Giles Elementary School in Beaumont. I really did not grasp the concept until later but my experiences with Earl started the learning process.
One day at school, Earl came up to me and said, “Loan me a nickel. I’ll pay you back tomorrow.” He wanted to buy an Eskimo Pie. Those were vanilla ice cream bars on a stick and dipped in chocolate. Back then in the early 1940s, they cost just a nickel and you could buy them in the school cafeteria. Anyway, I saw no harm in loaning Earl a nickel so I did.
The next day, I saw Earl at recess. I asked for my nickel. He replied, “Oh, I forgot. I’ll bring it to you tomorrow.” This went on for a few days till finally I quit asking about the loaned nickel. A week or so later, Earl came up to me and wanted to borrow another nickel. I said, “I won’t loan you another nickel until you pay back the first nickel you borrowed.” Earl informed me that he would not be my friend unless I loaned him a nickel. And so, Earl and I had little to do with each other thereafter.
But the lessons Earl taught me were valuable and contained many truths about life. I learned that not everyone plays on a level field. It’s a shame because you really want to have everyone as your friend.
I must look pretty naïve because I have had many “scam” attempts directed at me over the years. In recent years I have received lots of mail offering me something for nothing. Just out of curiosity I made a list of my scam mail received during the months of January and February 2007. Following is a brief recap of that two-month scam log:
I won eight lotteries with cash prizes exceeding 10 million dollars. I think my favorite was winning the British South Africa Soccer World Cup Lottery. The other seven were sponsored by the London International Lottery. The really neat thing about all my luck with these lotteries is that I didn’t even enter them. My name was selected randomly from more than 50,000,000 e-mail addresses worldwide. As I am writing this column, another e-mail arrived notifying me that I just won another one million dollars from the United Kingdom Lottery Fiduciary. This is nothing short of unbelievable.
Also during this same two-month period, I received twelve requests from foreign countries where individuals wished to transfer large sums of money to my personal bank account. In return for my troubles, I would be paid 60% of the moneys.
And Mr. Choo Fat e-mailed me from Tokyo, Japan offering me a job stateside where I could earn a net income of more than one million dollars per year working at home only 10 hours per week.
Miss Hope Obi of Nigeria asked me to handle five million dollars of her deceased husband’s money. Other similar requests came from Liberia, Ghana, Sudan and Colombia.
In every case, these individuals wanted my personal banking account information.
And they wanted me to pay them some money up front to show my sincerity. That’s the big red flag. Never send money to anyone you do not know.
Here are a few tips that will help safeguard your financial interests:
Never reveal personal information to an unverified recipient. This includes:
• Login names and passwords
• Credit card numbers
• PIN numbers
• Bank account numbers
• Mother’s maiden name
• Social Security number
• Date of Birth
I may have lost a nickel to Earl back in the third grade but the lessons I learned from that nickel are priceless.

Winston Hamby
The Beaumont Enterprise
Whamby2@houston.rr.com