Wishful Thinking

A very unfortunate experience has recently befallen me. Its sort of a sore subject but I think I need to rant a little bit...
You see it all started with an ad on Jobdango. My father found it on Sunday (which was odd in itself because he never files his unemployment on Sunday and never searches for jobs either), the job had been posted that day and was listed as urgent. After reading over it, my dad encouraged me to apply for the position. I mean who turns down the opportunity to earn $2,500/month nannying?
Anyways, I sent in my resume and cover letter and waited for a response. And this is what I got:

Hello Kirsten ,
Thanks for your interest to babysit my baby boy, Eric. I'm Ford Witwicky, and my wife died three months ago of car accident, I don't want to talk about this but, I think it is important since you would be working as Eric's Nanny. Eric is 25 months old .. I am out of the city based on my business that is really booming here and my son and I will be arriving shortly back to the city by 8th of May, 2010.
Eric is here with me right now for holiday . After a serious discussion with my father-in-law concerning a proper care for him, we finally decided to search for a good and responsible Nanny/babysitter. Below you see our offers:
The hours are 9:30 am - 2:00 pm Monday - Thursday, on Friday until 3.30 pm. If you can't work the hours, you can work during the Weekend while I get someone else to do the this hours..
The monthly pay is 2500.00 for live out and 2100.00 for live in. We will be responsible for your transportation which in exclusive of your weekly salary regardless of the distance. I'm strongly searching for someone of well mannered attitudes, neatness and good sense of relationship. We are a Christian family and we love our religion so basically everything we do is according to our doctrines, I don't mind your religion but just letting you know so we don't offend you. If you are interested in this offer, please answer all the questions below so I can have a brief idea of your personality:
1) What academic qualifications do you possess?
2) Do you have any relevant certificate to back up your babysitting/Nanny career?
3) How old are you?
4) Are you married?
5) What is the name of your City?
6) Do you have any crime records?
7) Tell us more about your temperament .
8) Can we have one or two reference's from you, please send email and phone number for them?
9) Can you handle money if you are given an assignment to carry out?
10) Is your husband/boyfriend/parent in support of you doing this job?
Let me know if you will be available for the work offer. If you have any questions as regards this offer, feel free to get in touch with me. You can work during the Weekend only, if you can't work during the week due to other job or studies. I await a response at your earliest convenience.. If the hours are not okay by you let me know your schedule. Thanks Mr. Ford.

Sounded convincing enough to me...I responded, trying to sound as appealing, yet accurate, as possible.

After a few email back and forth things started to get a little fishy. My dear friend Ford Witwicky wanted me to purchase things for his son before I had ever met the child, he told me he was going to have his company send me a check for my first weeks pay, money to purchase items for the child, and a hefty sum that I was to mail to some "agent" in Ala-freakin-bama so that he and his son could confirm their flights to the US.

This raised quite the alarm for my family. Resulting in a full-fledged Internet investigation conducted by my older sister, Helen. Check out this website to see what we found: http://www.4nannies.com/info/Nanny-Scams.cfm

Suffice to say, I was scammed. Now feeling like a complete idiot, I am left to question why someone would do such a thing, what is going to happen now, why didn't I catch this earlier, why trust our society, etc. I admit there were red flags all over the place, but in an effort to give someone the benefit of the doubt, and out of wishful thinking, I let all these blatantly obvious signs pass over my head. And now I'm just a little bit mad. I mean who in the world does this idiot think he is? The "mother died in car accident" card is ridiculously wrong, seriously people, its hard enough for me to not be drawn to kids as it is but a kid without a mother...geeez! And really, does he think I am that stupid? I admit he had me tricked but I'm not stupid. I guess I just feel like its hard to trust people in our society when their are idiots out there like that. I feel really, really used, and I don't like that. I mean they didn't even have the decency to change the questions for me.

The moral of the story is this: SCAMS ARE REAL, they do happen, they are not fun, be careful people! And when is doubt take it up with the man upstairs! I just pray that who ever Ford Witwicky is will get the justice they deserve.

Until later,
Hopeless for our society