I just got an email from Dorothy. Dorothy doesn’t tell me her last name. So right away I’m giggling because I know where this is heading.

Dorothy tells me that my Visa card ending in “xxxx” will be charged $3,187.26 shortly. I’m advised to look at an attachment for details. Dorothy gives me a password of  1115.

Well I’m not going to open the attachment for obvious reasons, so obvious that even a pro-wrestling fan or a Bigfoot enthusiast would pick up on this con. Maybe.

Dorothy does not have a return email address posted up top. It’s just her name. Then right under her name is  a note that says “reply to Dorothy” and the word “bulk” is printed twice.

So I’m wondering if bulk means a mass mailing or if bulk indicates her size. What I mean is, if she was buying groceries and missed the peanut butter on aisle seven, would she beep when she backed up?

Yea, I know that’s cruel but I’m willing to bet Dorothy is not a real person — at least not in the sense that this would be the name on the sender’s drivers license.

Without opening the attachment, which might be the cyber equivalent of one of those fake snakes in a  Pringles can, I’m guessing Dorothy will pose that she can keep this charge from being applied to my VISA account for a nominal price.

 Well the joke is on her. My card doesn’t end in “xxxx.” It has real numbers.

This scam is about as corn pone as I’ve seen yet. It’s the kind of thing one might have seen on an old Andy Griffith Show. Remember the one where Barney tried to hypnotize Otis Campbell, the town drunk, seeking the location of a moonshine still? That didn’t work either.

I thought it was cute that Dorothy gave me uneven numbers right down to the  cents. I suppose she thought that this would be more convincing than a round number. Maybe she thought with that specific amount I would think that someone was using my Visa to buy one of those fancy beds where each side adjusts. Or maybe someone was taking their family out for a movie with refreshments all around.

So like I do many times, I responded, just to yank her chain.

I said, “Hey there Dorothy, you didn’t give me your last name, but I went to high school with a Dorothy, and I just wondered if this was you. If so, did you and George ever get married. And did he get rid of that rash he was so worried about?”

“Well you’re  probably not the Dorothy I’m thinking about,  because the Dorothy I knew wasn’t smart enough to use a computer. She thought Newton’s first law had something to do with not stealing the Fig Newtons.”

I’m thinking the person who sent this ridiculous email is male and not female. I think of Sgt. Clinger on the old television series MASH. But with the simpleton nature of this con, I also think of those three idiots on the old Bob Newhart Show. “Hi. I’m Larry. This is my brother Darrell and my other brother Darrell.”

Well I ended my commentary to Dorothy by advising her that I have fraud alert service on my ViSA card. Maybe Dorothy hasn’t heard of that yet, though it has been around for a while. I suggested she might get a job with that guy who poses as an IRS agent. She could be his secretary. Or she might want to hook up with the scammers who want to secretly remove millions of dollars  from some Third World. They seek bumpkins to give them their bank account numbers so they can deposit these funds.

And this time I didn’t mention the “riding in on a turnip truck” analogy. But I’m betting Dorothy got my drift.

(Dwain Walden is editor/publisher of The Moultrie Observer, 985-4545. Email: dwain.walden@gaflnews.com)