I came across an article in Cosmo Girl that grabbed my attention right away. With all the talk of CMC and how popular it has become its not hard to find articles informing people and sharing stories. Usually, like most news the articles I find, they are to warn people and make them aware of the dangers of CMC and how to be more cautious.
The article I recently read in Cosmo Girl, "I got scammed on Crigslist," was a good article about research and trust. It was about a girl who received and internship in London and posted a seeking house ad on Craigslist. She was thrilled when a girl named Jolleen responded to her ad and was accepting of her budget. She kept in touch with Jolleen after seeing photos of her and the apartment and sent a down payment to her. She thought they had become friends and she trusted her. She trusted her enough that when Jolleen said she had someone else interested in living with her who could pay upfront that she wired her the rest of the money to hold her spot. Then a friend of the girl saw Jolleen's photos and showed her a Craigslist ad for an apartment in Spain that had Jolleens picture and same apartment.
She had been scammed. She thought she could trust Jolleen. Here she searched Jolleen on Google and was able to find out that she was a fraud. She should have done this prior to sending the money. This just goes to show that you never know how much you can trust someone through an online relationship. It is good that they place these articles in magazines because as CMC is growing I believe it is important for people to know that things like being scammed really do happen. It was funny to me too that all the girl had to do was search Jolleen on Google and she was able to find out different things about her. That also shows that privacy can be a very big deal with CMC. Try googling someone, anyone and you could probably find out something about them.
Everything worked out for the girl in the end, however they haven't found Jolleen and her money has not been recovered. I don't think it would ever be same to send someone money without meeting them in person. Also in their case because it was a housing arrangment there should have been a contract agreement.
Like I said earlier, it is easy to find the bad in CMC because it is the bad that people like to read about. I do not believe that all CMC is bad. It is just a matter of being smart and cautious.
2 comments:
It is so unfortunant that issues like this happen on such a regular basis. This may be an extreme example, extreme enough to end up in cosmogirl at least, but it is none the less a real life issue. There are computer master minds out there who have nothing much better to do but find ways into seemingly harmless individuals personal information via computers. People not only lose money this way but can lose their lives in a sense too as all personal identity and information can be stolen in a flash.
This happens much more often then it should. People just need to realize that when you are dealing with people on the internet, especially matters involving the transfer of funds and goods, they should be cautious and not whole-heartedly trust the person on the other end. If people would do this then these stories may happen a lot less often.
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