I was going through some old papers today and found reference to a really nasty little scam that is still very popular in the USA and perhaps around the world. It is typically called The Diamond Ring Scam but it can take several different forms.
Here is how it typically works…
A very well dressed and affluent looking person (male or female) will go to a business that only has one person working there. Quite often this is a gas or petrol station but it can just as easily be a liquor store or a convenience store. Once inside this establishment, the scam artist flashes a quite beautiful diamond ring (one that has a large stone) and by one way or another, makes sure the employee notices this ring. After a bit of chitchat, the scam artist asks where the bathroom or restroom is and proceeds to use it. On the way back, he or she hands the employee a fat tip, and waves kindly good-bye.
A few moments after all this has transpired, the scam artist runs back into the business, intently looking at the ground with a very worried look on their face. The scamster claims that the diamond has fallen out of their ring, and begs the employee to help them look for the stone. After a fruitless search that lasts several minutes with no trace of the stone, the scam artist hands the employee a business card along with another big tip and tells them to keep looking for the stone and that they will give him a thousand dollar reward if they find it…no questions asked! He or she explains that they have to leave immediately because of an urgent meeting to attend but they write their personal phone number on the back of the card, urging the employee to call and collect the reward.
Once the scam artist leaves, the employee is diligently looking high and low for this diamond on their hands and knees on the floor. In walks another customer who asks to use the restroom. After a few minutes this new person walks out of the restroom and guess what they are holding in their hands? Why the diamond of course! The employee then tells this person that someone just lost that stone and that they are willing to split the reward if they will wait until the owner comes back from a meeting.
The person holding the stone refuses, saying that they are only passing through and must catch a plane at the airport but that if this is true, he or she would be willing to settle for some of that money right now in exchange for giving the employee the stone. What happens then is that the employee normally takes a few hundred dollars or so from the register and exchanges this for the stone. When this person leaves, the employee calls the personal phone number and never gets an answer. They keep trying and trying hoping that they will get the reward and it slowly dawns on them that they have been had and that the stone was worthless. The two scam artists split the money and repeat the same fraud someplace else.
Have you ever considered how similar this scam is to what the Witnesses offer? Hmm, it seems to me a lot of the elements are in place. Someone knocks on your door showing you that they have a happy and wonderful life and they just want to share this with you (the ring and tip) and you need to help them get the reward by being a JW (searching for the ring). Eventually along comes the shock that you cannot contact God, no matter how many times you try (the phone that keeps ringing) and eventually it dawns on you that you have been screwed (giving up all your time and resources for the good news) and at last you end up paying the cost out of your own pocket (paying back the till) and vow you won’t be suckered again (becoming an apostate)!
Would you have fallen for the diamond ring scam? I sure fell for the JW one.
Skipper
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings." - William Shakespeare