A Right Old Fraud

I took a trip to the Post Office yesterday and left a letter with the Postal Inspectors. It wasn't just junk mail; it was mail fraud.

At first, it appeared to be junk mail because it didn't have a return address. Then I saw the funny stamp -- valued in Euros. (That's when the alarm in my brain started going, "Whoop! Whoop!") I even wondered if I'd become the victim of a mysterious white powder.

The letter inside claimed to be from an attorney in Madrid (Spain, not New Mexico) who had finally tracked me down as a distant relative of someone who had died, leaving any heir an estate worth millions of dollars -- and I had to pay just $200 to claim it. Sure, that sounds like a scam, but that isn't the clincher.

I post here anonymously, but a few of you know my real name. Thus, you know how unusual my name is (about as far from Smith and Jones as you can get). In fact, my grandfather invented our family name. The only people in the world who share my name are my relatives (brothers, mother, aunts, uncles, and cousins) in just a few of these United States. Therefore, it is next to impossible for me to have a long-lost relative in Madrid.