Posted by There's More [Keflar] on November 18, 1999 at 19:59:04 {KEdmzBXaT6jc7.1TE24IvhKqcjatLo}:
In Reply to: ***Apology to Ros posted by Milky on November 18, 1999 at 18:36:03:
Milky,
My parents were recently defrauded out of over $12,000 dollars by a mail-order scam. They ran up their credit cards to this amount. This took many months to occur, as they only sent in ten to fifteen dollars at a time. Each time they did this, they received a cheap gift worth a dollar or less, but each time they were told that they and only ten or so other people were the finalists in a drawing where they would win a brand new car. Finally they were told that they were the winners of the car. My dad even went down to a dealership with the letter and wanted to select his car. Of course, the salesman told them they had been scammed.
My dad is 75, very ill and has Alzheimers. My mom is 73 and well, she's got a bunch of mental problems. They both survive on around $1,100 a month worth of social security and nothing more. A good chunck of that money goes for medication for my parents. There only major asset is a 30 year old mobile home. The monthly payment to the debt on their credit cards for this scam consumed 60% of their actual income, and if paid, wouldn't allow them to eat or take care of basics, which they can barely do even without any debt. If my uncle had not stepped in to pay off their credit card debt, they would have had to file bankruptcy and lose everything.
What if the scammers were mentally ill, emotionally unstable, etc., etc.? Would it have been any less evil that it was to take advantage of gullible, older, working-class people and deprive them of everything they owned?
Is it any less evil for someone to take emotional advantage of JWs and reform-minded JWs and ex-JWs and to offer them some hope that was a total and contrived lie to begin with?
Focus on the VICTIMS and then you will see how bad the perpetrator really is, mentally ill or not. You've really got your priorities crossed on this one, Milky.
Farkel