It was the summer after my freshman year of Bible college. On this particular day, I was lounging at home, when all of a sudden, my cell phone rang. I didn't recognize the number, but I answered anyway. The man on the other end said, "Congratulations! You've won the Dreams Come True Sweepstakes!"
I thought to myself, "Wow. I've won these sweepstakes, and I didn't even enter them!"
Next he said, "You've won a free trip to Disney World!"
Now I'm excited because I'd always wanted to go to Disney World. I wasn't sure how all of this happened, but I was happy about it, so I said, "That's great."
The man replied, "Yeah. My name's Tom. I'm just giving you the good news. You also won some other things, so I'm going to transfer you over to my supervisor Bill, and Bill is going to tell you about these other things, okay?"
I still had no clue what was going on, but I said, "Okay."
I held on the line for just a minute, and then Bill came on. His voice was a bit older than Tom's. He reiterated what Tom had said and then went on, "You also won some magazines. In fact, you can choose from hundreds of magazines and we'll send you the ones you want in the mail. So let me get your address."
So I gave him my address. Then he asked for my email so they could send me a list of all the different magazines, and that sounded cool, so I gave him my email.
Next he said, "There's just one last thing. While the magazines are free, you'll need to pay for shipping, and that's just three dollars. So do you have a debit card or credit card?"
I had a debit card. He asked for the card number, and I thought, "Sure, why not?" So I read to him over the phone my debit card number. He said thanks, and hung up very quickly.
It only took a couple minutes after the phone call for me to realize, "That was a little fishy." I won a sweepstakes that I did not enter, got some magazines (supposedly), and then I gave this stranger access to my bank account. Oh no! What did I do?
So I went to my mom and told her what just happened, and she realized that I had been scammed! Bamboozled! So we immediately went to the bank and explained the situation to one of the bankers. She pulled up my account on the computer, and sure enough, they had charged some money to my debit card. But it wasn't three dollars. There were two charges. The first charge was 60 dollars, and the second charge was 80 dollars. That's a lot of money, especially for a college student. So I got a new debit card, and I cut up the old one.
On that day I was scammed. I got tricked. I fell for it. There were no sweepstakes or magazines. It was all a lie to get my money.
There's someone out there who wants to steal something from you. It's the devil. He's the greatest scammer in the world. But he doesn't want your debit card, or your credit card. He's not after your bank account. He wants your heart. He wants to trick you into giving it to him. Beware! Don't let him trick you. Don't give the devil what he wants. It's nothing but a scam.