A few days ago, we received an email from US Air Force General Lori Robinson, asking us to reply at once because she has something important that she “will like to discuss.” It’s a fake email of course, easy to tell what with the wrong grammar, though credit should be given to whoever sent it for even taking pains to register the email address as lori_robinson59@outlook.com to make it look authentic.
Lori Robinson just happens to be the highest-ranking female general (four star) in the history of the United States, Commander of the US Northern Command, and yes, she was born in 1959. While Robinson is not the first female to achieve a four-star rank, she is the first to lead a unified combatant command like NorthCom, a key cog in the defense and security of the US. She also heads the North American Aerospace Defense Command or Norad—that agency that almost always figured in thrillers and espionage novels about the Cold War era.
For sure, Robinson’s ascension has encouraged more female officers in the US military. Here in the Philippines, the first female general in the Armed Forces of the Philippines is BGen Ramona Palabrica Go, whom we wrote about in March 2013 when she was campaigning for mayor of San Enrique, a third-class municipality in Iloilo. Go, finished B.S. Chemistry at Central Philippine University and took her military schooling at the Women’s Royal Australian Army Corps School under the Officer Candidate Program. Go won in 2013 in her mayoralty bid, but unfortunately did not make it in the last May elections.
We really don’t know what the purpose of the fake “Lori Robinson” email sender is, but he really got us thinking because it’s a deviation from the standard scams we have been getting, like the supposed suspension of our email account or our non-existent bank deposit from RCBC. More often than not, these fake emails would include a link asking the recipient to click on it and supply certain details, plus of course a field where you have to provide your password for security purposes.
Among the most prevalent of these scams is the Nigerian email (also known as the 419 scam) asking for help to unlock a dollar account containing millions, or the one announcing that recipient just won millions of dollars in a grand lottery. Why people still fall for these obvious fakes really beats us—after all, don’t they even wonder why they would win in a lottery they have never even entered? Most likely, it’s the same mentality that drives people to wish they would also be as lucky as that laundrywoman who won the PCSO Lotto jackpot—and yet they never get around to placing a bet.
Many Filipinos also admitted falling prey to the Diversity Visa program Visa Lottery scam where fraudulent emails supposedly from the US government are sent, claiming that a DV applicant had been selected and to please send the payment to—yup—a fraudulent account. There are a lot of lessons here, among them that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And that it never pays to do things on the quick. Otherwise, you’d find yourself in a fix.
(Those who want to be amused at the numerous scam emails can check out http://fakeletters.org/, which is a repository of every kind of fake email that has ever been sent.)
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