Fool me once, shame on you... fool me twice, shame on me.

Last Friday I received a phone call from a man with a really thick East Indian accent. Amused by the accent and the urgent tone in his voice (as well as the many other East Indian voices I could hear yelling in the background), I humored him. He struggled through a script detailing how I was selected to receive a $4500 grant from the government because I am an upstanding citizen that pays my bills on time. The funny thing was, he needed me to tell him my name address... and then proceeded to ask me where I bank and if he could have my bank routing number.

Now I may not be the sharpest nail in the bucket, but I do know that if the government was planning to send me free money (yeah, right) that they wouldn't have to ask me my name and address (he listed off the address of the guy who previously had our phone number). The way things are today, I wouldn't be suprised if they knew what I ate for lunch today. He kept pressing me for my bank account information (which I would not give him) saying (cue thick accent here) 'Ma'am, I assure you, your bank account information is secure. Not even George W. Bush could access your account unless you wish him to'. I told him he could go ahead and send the information to me in the mail, but I would NOT give him my account number. After telling me he could not do that, that 'this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity', I hung up on him.

Intrigued, I called our new banker and asked him if he'd heard of this happening. He laughed and said that it is, indeed, a scam. That companies trick people into wiring money to them, saying that a large sum of money will be sent out after a 'filing fee' is paid. Sometimes it's worse- people have lost all of the money they have saved in an account that way. Unfortunately, it's next to impossible to catch the thieves.

Today something priceless happened. THEY CALLED BACK! As soon as I heard the thick accent again, I started laughing. It was obviously a different person- he asked me for all of my information again. This time I drilled him with questions instead of answering any of his. He was not prepared to answer them, and got nervous when I started asking him for his name, telephone number, and supervisor's name (he gave me bogus information). He asked me why I didn't just hang up on him... and said to me 'I know you are recording this conversation'. He asked me several times 'What should I do now?'

I told him it's wrong of them to go around scamming innocent people out of their hard earned money. I told him they need to take our phone number off of their call list... then I hung up.

Score: Cristina=1, Scammers=0