“Doubt everything. Find your own light.” ~ attributed to The Buddha.

When I was growing up, I was introduced to a weird way of earning good luck. Or was it a way to avoid bad luck? I had already learned of one superstitious practice, to throw salt over your left shoulder to prevent bad luck.  Then there was the strategy of placing a champagne cork under your pillow at night, to dream of the man you were going to marry (FYI, it worked!).  There were all manner of superstitious practices, and since I grew up in Jamaica, you never knew if these originated in England, or on the continent of Africa.  But the one I am thinking of this morning, was the chain letter.

You received a letter (yes, an actual piece of paper in an envelope, with a stamp on it) telling you to copy this letter and send it to six of your friends.  If I remember correctly, failing to do would result in bad luck following you.  Of course, since this was back in the ‘hard copy’ days, there was no copy pasting, no cc or better yet, bcc to send it to multiple people at one time. No, you had to write the letter out six times, and buy six stamps, to mail them out to your friends, who were then supposed to send it to six of their friends, and so on, and so on.  I may have fallen for it once (probably so as not to let down the person who sent it to me), but I soon realized it was a waste of time, envelopes and stamps! But it seemed fairly harmless, and the only entity that benefited was the post office!

More recently you can find an equivalent version of this on Facebook.  It may be an action that is purported to ensure more friends can see your posting, or even a heartfelt plea on behalf of those who suffer from mental illness, or an auto-immune disorder, or cancer.  The plea is written in first person, so it sounds as if the person posting has a personal connection to the topic of concern, but it always ends with a request to ‘copy paste this message’ (do not share) onto your page.  At least you don’t have to go and buy stamps, and there is no warning of bad luck to follow, but it is the 21^st century version of the chain letter. 

I have an innate distrust of being told what to do.  It has saved me a lot of money in the past, as I usually smell ‘pyramid’ whenever any of my friends contacts me about a great way to make money.  I am not good at sales, so I am naturally averse to anything which requires me to recruit my friends, which will guarantee me income (and so on, and so on).  Although I do know of some friends who were on the first or second tier who made back their money in some cases, alas, we all know how these ‘ponzi’ schemes end up.

This week I listened to a horror story, of the way artificial intelligence (AI) is being used to con people out of their hard-earned money.  I have heard of this method before, but AI has made us even more susceptible to it.  The story told of a man who received a phone call from his son who had been in an auto-accident.  He had struck a car with a pregnant woman, and had sustained a broken nose.  He had been arrested for driving under the influence, and was begging his father to contact a lawyer to arrange for him to be bailed out.  The father naturally went into ‘action mode’, full adrenaline flying in to save his son.  He contacted the lawyer who gave him the docket number of the case, and the phone number to call the court.  All was verified by the official person on the other end. Unfortunately, the one bail bondsman in town was on vacation, but there was a special ‘attorney bond’ that could be posted. He just had to wire $9000 to a certain bank.  Fortunately for the father, before he was able to complete the necessary transactions, he received another phone call from his son, who was fine, had not been in an accident, and his nose was intact. The first phone call had been AI generated, using technology to clone his son’s actual voice.

Lest you think that the father was particularly gullible, he himself was a lawyer, and he was fooled.  The segment on these scams went on to talk about the shame people often feel when they are taken in by these scam artists, so often people do not let others know to look out for such schemes.  And many of us do feel as if we would be better able to detect such fraud.  But I had already heard other such presentations about much longer, elaborate schemes that sucked in lonely people, developing long-distance relationships with men or women, and educated people were fooled into sending money overseas, falling in love with these unlucky individuals, and ending up with their bank accounts emptied, their hearts broken, and their self-esteem shattered. 

The people who set up these elaborate ploys are not amateurs.  The businesses are run like corporations.  They invest in technology, they hire and train employees, and reap hundreds of thousands of dollars in return.  Seniors are particularly vulnerable, and you can imagine how the added impact of the voice of your loved one would have you reacting.  In the program they suggested that you discuss the possibility of such a scam happening, and plan a family ‘code word’ to deploy if such a situation ever did arise.  So if one of my kids actually was in such dire straits, they would say the code word (unsolicited) so that I would know their problem was legit.

It is indeed a shame that we have to live our life like this, but it would be more of a shame if you were to be fooled in this way.  This morning I had planned to write about a trip we took this week out to the boonies of southwest Florida.  On our drive we spotted a great blue heron or two; lots of egrets; a kingfisher; funny looking ibises (ibii???); plenty of blackbirds, mockingbirds and vultures (aka John Crows) with an eagle in their midst!; and on the last stretch of road before we headed back to civilization, I counted more than a dozen osprey hanging out on the top of electric poles, resting up after a long day.  For these birds life is about survival and some are predators, but they all look so majestic in flight.

This Friday morning, I would love if you could contact your family members to suggest a ‘code word’ to protect you all.  Please warn those who could be vulnerable to this particular use of AI (we know there are many more nefarious uses for it).  Let us keep each other safe, and forewarned.  And if you know someone who was taken in, please have them report it to the FTC at https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/  

Have a wonderful weekend, Family!

One Love!

Namaste.