2 fatal car crashes and I must be the luckiest bloke alive!

I must be blessed. In the last week I have had more good fortune fall my way than most get in a lifetime. It all started last Monday when I arrived at work.

I checked my emails and, as usual, I had about 70 of the little chaps. Most of them were total rubbish but of course I had to read them to establish that fact. One of the things I dislike most about going on holiday is that, when I return, invariably after 3 weeks of soaking up Sri Lankan sun and hospitality, I have about 300 - 400 emails sitting in my inbox. The important ones will already have been taken care of by one of my partners but I still have copies. So I have to read all of them, only to discover that precisely 98.46% are junk and just need deleting. The rest are not junk, just crap, and I save them with good positive and motivated post holiday thoughts of "mmm I'll read that when I have a minute, it'll come in useful". I never do.

So back to last Monday when I was checking my emails. After I had filtered out the unwanted stuff I was left with about 10 important ones. I won't explain the work ones here, because I only have about 3 readers and I don't want to lose you. All but one of the remainder were warnings about potential fraud on the many internet accounts I have, some of which I don't even know I have. The other one was a bit of great news that i'll come to.

To start with there was a warning from Paypal. It told me that I had bought a Sony Vaio laptop for $2600 and, as it was an unusually high transaction, I was asked to either confirm it or click on a link to report it as not being mine. There were a few spelling or grammatical mistakes in the email but I guess Paypal's fraud people are quite busy and don't have time to write properly. Naturally I clicked on the link and all I had to do was to type in my account details, including my password and confidential stuff. Those kind people at Paypal assure me they will now take care of everything.

Next, I had an message from Barclays Bank asking me to confirm my account details, as they were reviewing their security arrangements. Of course I clicked on the link, submitted all my details and did what they required. I have always felt it is important to help these security types whenever possible.

Then there was HSBC. Two seperate emails asked me for my account details. One was for a security audit and the other was because someone had tried to access my account. I responded immediately, thanking my lucky stars that the criminals were outsmarted yet again.

That was it. After all this I was able to carry on with my work, safe in the knowledge that those anti fraud fellows at Paypal, HSBC and Barclays are all working away to protect me, the customer.

I think I have made a small error of judgement. I discovered today that my Paypal account has suddenly bought about $15,000 worth of goods and both my HSBC and my Barclays accounts have been totally cleaned out. Clearly the evil criminals managed to get away with the money even before the anti fraud chaps got into action.

People have asked me why I don't seem too bothered about this. Why, they ask, am I walking around with a big smile on my face? Why do I look as if I have won the lottery when I have actually lost every penny I have and a bit more?

I'll tell you, but keep it to yourself.

The other email I got last Monday, although somewhat tragic, also gave me some good news. It was from a Solicitor in London. He told me that there had been a terrible car accident in Manchester about 6 months ago. The husband and wife and children in the car were all killed instantly. The solicitor couldn't trace any relatives of the family until he came across my name. He contacted me straight away and assured me that he would be honest with me. That's good enough for me, so I sent him all my details, some blank paper with my signature on it, that kind of thing. By a stroke of good fortune the family left about £3 million and I am the only distant relative that can be traced.

And then, on top of that, I got another email this morning to say that an American family had been killed on the Sagbama Express Road in Lagos under similar circumstances, only they left $20 million. Of course, I have emailed the chap all the information he needs and I am now just waiting for a cheque.
Please keep quiet about this as it would seem that the man was someone quite high up in the army and he "acquired" most of the money through rather dubious means.
The Solicitor said it is lucky that I am so trustworthy and am not the sort to go to the Police.

So, all in all, although I have lost a few quid I still reckon I'm about £12 million up. Not bad for a week's work!