A Narrow Escape
So, I’ve been finally working on listing stuff for sale on Facebook Marketplace. Some of it will probably go onto eBay or Etsy also. I listed some stuff last night and some more this morning. And the most pricy thing I listed is a quality pressure cooker/canner.
Somewhat to my surprise, I received a message about it almost immediately. Someone named “Lucie” wanted to buy it. Lucie was very eager and pushy. She asked if she could pay me in advance so I could mark the pressure cooker as “sold” and then she would pick it up this afternoon. I said sure, she could send me the money via Venmo or PayPal.
That’s when it got weird. I soon received a message saying that she had sent me the money via PayPal. However, PayPal knew nothing about it. I thought maybe there was just a bit of a time lag. Lucie asked if I had received email notification from PayPal. I had not. So then she asked me to check my spam folder. That’s when I became suspicious.
Sure enough, there was an email in my spam folder purporting to be from PayPal. It started off with the line, “Hello valid customer.” Now, I’m not super smart, but one thing I know is that when an email is actually from PayPal, it will start by addressing me by my actual name. The email told me to call a number to release a hold on the money that Lucie was trying to send me.
No way in the world I was going to call that number. Lucie, meanwhile, was very impatient. She asked for my phone number. Haha! No. She also gave me the same number to call and claimed to be on the line with them at that moment. I told her I was sorry, but I knew the email did not come from PayPal and that therefore the number could not be legit and I would not call it.
Her response? OMG how is that possible?
That’s the last I heard from her. Thank goodness. Although it would have been nice to sell that pressure cooker!
Meanwhile, Walter and Jasper were out in the back yard cleaning up the dead bamboo and stacking it in the trailer to be hauled off. They ended up with a very full trailer.
This afternoon I had to run a couple of errands and then I called my dad. He is still in the hospital, and may be there a few more days. They did a second surgery on Tuesday to clean up the infection from the first surgery, and are culturing the infected tissue so they can fine-tune the I.V. antibiotics he’s receiving. His pain has gone way down, which is great, but he’s tired of being in the hospital. He could still use your prayers.
We heard back from the organization we applied to earlier this week, and they want more paperwork from us, including references, so we’ll be working on that.
I did devote some time this afternoon to watching the Olympics. I watched a replay of the women’s giant slalom and found it very suspenseful. I can’t even imagine the leg muscles you have to have to do that. And I had no idea that the ski outfits now have built-in airbags to protect the spine. Wow. Got quite a bit of knitting done too.
We watched the new episode of Starfleet Academy tonight. So far we’ve found it pretty disappointing. But hey, I got more knitting done.
Joy Spark: Hearing from my friend Anita in Sri Lanka this evening. (It was morning for her.)
Parting Shot:
We have very few camellia blossoms this year. That freezing weather came at just the wrong time.