When traveling in poor countries, you are constantly bombarded by people who ask you for money. there’s all sorts of ways to con people out of their money and one of ways we often saw in Ethiopia was a textbook scam. the poor kid would tell you that he doesn’t want your money, he just wants you to buy him a book so he can study english. who can say no to that? i mean, he’s not using the money for drugs, moonshine, or even toys… it’s books! it’s educational! you can’t say no to this kid’s education, right? well, of course the whoe thing is a scam. if you buy them the book, they will just go back to the shop later and sell it back for money.<\/p>\n
In a town called Yabello, one very persistant guy showed up on my doorstep after finding out which hotel i was staying at. could i buy him some textbooks? No. maybe when i got back to the US, could i send him money for textbooks? No. Could my family buy him textbooks? No. Maybe i could just ask one of the many rich people i knew in america to send him money? No. i kept telling him over and over again that i wouldnt give him money. man, this guy was so persistant. after fending off his requests for almost half an hour, he finally gave up.<\/p>\n
or so i though. it turns out, this guy will never give up! i was totally shocked to find out that he waited till i got home, and is now *emailing* me asking for money. $100 actually. Now, a hundred bucks goes a looooong way in ethiopia. i wonder how many suckers he finds that actually end up sending him the money? hell, even if he finds like 10-15 people per year, he can live quite comfortably over there.<\/p>\n
here’s the email:<\/p>\n
—————————
\nTo Dear my brotherVlad
\n Thank you for the replying email letter tome. How are your? I am with my college. I want to ask something you? Would you like it? If you like it I am learn in this college through foster mother of Germany called mayr. She is pay to me thee fee of subject, food and boarding \u00e2\u20ac\u201c school to me .you are live in good life of U.S.A so that I want to buy same book about my subject for this I want $ 100 dollar from you? If you want send to me by bank address.
\n Name of bank; -commercial bank of Ethiopia western union main branch
\n Name of receiver; – Basure Debebe
\n Address; – Addis Ababa \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Ethiopia
\n My Account N0 28710
\n My telephone No 251 112 137 317
\n My full bank Address is this one please please sends to me same money? I am in problem, student with out book meaning lass. If you send to me write by email money transfer control No the is put in bank the money from U.S.A. to Ethiopia. Last time when I am in yabello I give to you one my past address that is wrong my new post address is this one
\n To Basure Debebe
\n Addis Ababa College of
\n Technology and commerce
\n P.o. Box 180501
\n Addis Ababa
\n Ethiopia
\n This is my post address for 3 years. Until next time good-bye! And reply to my
\n From your brother student Basure. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When traveling in poor countries, you are constantly bombarded by people who ask you for money. there’s all sorts of ways to con people out of their money and one of ways we often saw in Ethiopia was a textbook scam. the poor kid would tell you that he doesn’t want your money, he just … Continue reading “The Scam”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethiopia","category-rtw-trip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}