Don't Be A Fool
As a New Year has started, I want to remind us to not be fools this year. The Bible often speaks on being foolish and King Solomon wrote about fools many times in Proverbs.
If you’ve ever purchased anything on Craigslist or Ebay, you may have run into a fraud trying to sell you the item you’re trying to buy, but it’s not the real item. I remember when I moved to London for university and I searched for housing on Craigslist, and most of the postings were fake. You know a posting is fake when there are misspelling and grammar errors, or when the scammer gives you a line that they’re working abroad so they can’t show you the apartment, so they ask you to send you the deposit and the first month’s rent, and in turn promises to FedEx you the keys.
Why am I saying all of this? There were people in my class in London who experienced what I wrote above. They sent in several thousand of dollars and discovered they were scammed. But the red flags were present before they sent money to the scammer.
Someone once asked a scammer why they put misspelled/grammatically incorrect sentences in fake postings on websites like Craigslist? Shouldn’t poor writing deter someone from doing business with someone who cannot correctly spell or write correct English? The scammer responded with just the opposite. When someone is foolish enough to continue conversing with someone who has poor language skills, and go through an actual transaction with them, then the scammer knows they have the person. They know they’ve met a fool, foolish enough to give them money.
I’ll tell you another quick story. In 2013, right before I moved to Berlin I was unsure of the German visa process, so I used the consulting services of a visa company. The website looked nice and the customer representative talked great. I kid you not, right before giving my credit card details over the phone, I had such an unpeaceful feeling about doing business with the company. They Holy Spirit was on me so strongly to not move forward. But I did because I wasn’t getting much help from the Germany Embassy. In the end I got cheated out of a lot of money. But God had given me a red flag of unpeace before the transaction. I was foolish. Now, the company has been shut down and hundreds of others have been cheated, and the owner has fled the UK.
2018 and life will be full of many decisions. But the decisions that show red flags before you make a transaction is the Holy Spirit trying to speak to you. Be still and open your eyes to what God is showing you. The scammer could be a visa company, a potential life mate, a future landlord, a business deal, choosing a doctor or a job related decision, etc. But as you’re deciding on the transaction, the scammer is sitting back trying to reel you into their trap. Don’t be a fool. And when you don’t know what to do, don’t move and make a decision. Pray, ask those with wisdom for advice and make a decision when you know it’s right.