October 29, 2012, 11:03 am

Scam Me Once…

Apparently even one-eyed alien nurses wear caps!

For the life of me, I cannot remember where I found this photo, but it looks straight out of Doctor Who circa 1963.

There were nurses in one episode of Doctor Who: a race of humanoid feline nuns called the Sisters of Plentitude.

I was about to say, “You can’t make this stuff up!”, but obviously someone did!

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You would think that after 18 years online and more than 7 years as a blogger, I’d know better.

But no, I actually fell for a scam this week.

No money changed hands.

Worse.

They ticked me off.

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It has been a long time since any sort of scam-type email has come through to me.

They have improved! They don’t misspell. The grammar almost passes muster.

It seems a company wanted to use “Emergiblog” as their domain name and keyword in….wait for it…China/Asia.

You’re already smacking your head, right? “Doh!” Ding, ding, ding….scam!

The email wanted to know if I was connected with this “company” and if they were my distributor in China/Asia, because there was a conflict.

The company is a UK construction firm.

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Hmmmm.

I sent a cordial email back that said (a) I was not affiliated with the company who wanted the name and (b) I did not want the name registered by anyone else and (c) it would be a cold day in hell before I’d give the name up.

And that was that.

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Then, a second email arrives from a Yahoo address in….wait for it….China (with broken English, “Dear Sirs,”…ding…ding…ding!) saying basically, we got your message and we are going to do it anyway even though the guy who sent the first email advises us to find another name.

Okay….now you’ve done it.

Now you have pissed…me…off.

And you do not want to piss….me….off….

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The first rule of internet correspondence is that one remains cordial.

So, I sent a cordial response stating “oh, HELL no,” indicating that legal representation was being obtained.

You can’t swing a cat two feet in this family without hitting enough lawyers to form a firm.

It wouldn’t be hard to get exactly what I need.

But…

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I decided to let Web-guy extraordinaire, Shane, know what was happening.

About ten seconds later, I got the response:

“Oldest scam in the book.”

Followed by my Facebook blogger pals telling me the same thing.

How could I not have seen this?

It was only as large as a neon, freaking billboard!

I smacked my head so hard I had LOC for ten minutes.

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It won’t happen again.

I’m chagrined it happened at all.

How embarrassing.

The only consolation is that the threat to my blog identity brought out my killer instinct, even if I’m not blogging as much as I would like to.

One does not mess with another’s domain name.

It just isn’t done.