Is this a scam? Yes it is, but it is an interesting one.

Hi guys, sometimes the most interesting discussions on my blog come from the comments that my readers leave me, sometimes these comments are related to the original blog post, sometimes they are completely out of the blue if my readers simply want my opinion or help. Allow me to stress before I begin to share this story that I have no intention at all to make fun of or belittle this reader, I am simply using her story to explore certain themes relating to this kind of scams. I shall refer to my reader as Ms Red (related to her username here, I obviously don't know her real name). Ms Red is a recent graduate from a local Singaporean university and has been working as a civil servant when she was headhunted for a role with a Chinese fintech company - the recruitment seemed genuine with over 200 recommendations on Linkiedin and the Chinese company also seemed real enough, with a sizable online presence including RNS press releases. Ms Red was offered three times her current salary to help a director set up an office in Singapore and this was when she thought, hang on a minute, something is not quite right here. The reason they gave for justifying that very generous pay offer was that Ms Red would have to travel a lot in this role, so she needed to be compensated for being away from home for a long time. Ms Red also spoke to a friend about the matter and her friend came up with two theories to make sense of the situation: firstly, that Chinese nationals have such immense respect for Singaporean civil servants that they are willing to offer such generous salaries in order to hire someone who has experience working for the Singaporean civil service. The second theory her friend came up with was the 'beauty bonus' - Ms Red was so incredibly beautiful that the Chinese boss is willing to pay a lot more in order to hire an extremely beautiful lady to be his PA, so he can have eye candy at work everyday. I have analysed what Ms Red has presented along with my reader Choaniki and we have both come to the conclusion that this is definitely a scam, but I want to share our analysis with you here, so you too can apply the same checks the next time you come across an offer that seems way too good to be true. 

1. Why was Ms Red offer three times her current salary? 

It is completely normal to get a modest increase in your salary when you change jobs, it is a gesture of goodwill by the new employer to make the employee feel valued, but this increase is usually around 5 to 15%, averaging at 10% in most cases. Sometimes, that figure can go up to 20 to 30% if there is a bidding war, that is when the candidate is in receipt of a few job offers at the same time and one way an employer can sway the candidate's decision is to offer a bigger increase than the others, "if they are offering you a pay rise of 15%, I'll offer you 20%!" If you have purchased items on a website like eBay before, then you would know how a bidding war works - the highest bidder gets to buy the item and your aim is to simply bid a little bit hire than your opponent. If your opponent stops bidding, then you would also stop bidding, you would never keep increasing your bid when there is no one forcing you to do so. Thus in this case, there is only one company looking to hire Ms Red and there is no bidding war - under such circumstances a modest, reasonable increase of about 10% on her current salary would be expected but to triple it? That just doesn't make any sense. Even if you were trying to make Ms Red an offer so good she can't refuse, then an increase of about 10% ought to be sufficient in the absence of another party triggering a bidding war to drive that price up. Thus for that pay increase to jump from 10% to 300% in the complete absence of a bidding war is absurd to say the least. It simply makes no sense for the employer to pay more than what they need to, as a business owner myself, I take responsibility for all the decisions I have to make and I have a simple goal really: to make as much money as possible. So let's say Ms Red's current salary is $100,000 a year, I would hire her for $110,000 and not want to pay a cent more unless circumstances (like a bidding war) forces my hand; even then, I would offer perhaps $5,000 more to tip the scales in my favour because that $5,000 is coming out of my pocket and for every extra dollar I offer Ms Red, I would always be questioning myself, if I offer her an additional $5,000 would she be able to generate an extra $5,000 in profit for me or am I just throwing that money down the drain? Can I hire someone else who will accept a lower salary and add the same value to my business? The mathematics of this situation makes no sense, how can this employer be sure that Ms Red is worth three times her salary, when her current employer already has a very good idea of what she is capable of and how much value she can add? Even if you want to make someone an offer they can't refuse, I just look at it and think, wait a minute - you have zero business acumen if you think this can actually be a good idea what kind of business are you? This must be a scam. 

2. The "big mole on the left cheek" theory. 

Ms Red's friend seems to believe that some people in China would put Singaporean civil servants on a pedestal and think that they are worth paying a lot to hire. Now if this was true, then there would be a bidding war by the top Chinese companies for civil servants like Ms Red but guess what folks? Such a bidding war doesn't exist, because Chinese companies do not think that highly of Singaporean civil servants like Ms Red. I suppose you can claim that Singapore is a very organized country, things get done efficiently in Singapore and thus there is a certain amount of credit that must be given to the local government and by extension, the civil service for this efficiency - that much is true. However, even if we were to give this theory some credence, the Chinese company ought to hire a senior minister who has proven themselves in implementing some efficiency-improving policy and has the track record to show for it. The Chinese would most certainly not hire a young, junior civil servant whose only job is to follow orders (rather than come up with original solutions to difficult problems). Even if that was the case, to tempt a senior civil servant with a great track record to the private sector, a pay increase of +30 to 40% would already be considered very generous, but 300% is just pure fantasy simply because (and with no disrespect to Ms Red), I'm sorry but she simply doesn't have the skills to warrant that kind of salary. In any case, even if we were to run with the hypothesis that Ms Red is a super genius, incredibly talented lady who can make this Chinese company a lot of money, then why the hell are they hiring her as a PA, a very junior role with virtually no decision making power whatsoever? None of this makes any sense at all, hence I want to talk about the "big mole on the left cheek" theory. This woman has a massive mole on her left cheek, she cannot afford the plastic surgery to have it removed and so she has to learn to live with that mole. So she convinces herself that some people find a big mole like that on the left cheek very attractive and thus in the eyes of some people, she is considered extremely beautiful because of that giant mole on her left cheek. She qualifies this by claiming, "Look, I'm not saying this mole will appeal to everyone, but in some cultures, such moles are considered symbols of good luck and a face without a mole is considered not just uninteresting, but unlucky. I know not everyone will find my mole attractive, at least some people out there will." If this is an innocent story that she tells herself to feel better about having to live with that big mole on her face, then fair enough, but in Ms Red's case, this theory is so ludicrous that she risks falling for what is clearly a scam, if she allows herself to believe that someone out there in China really values her abilities so much as a junior civil servant. 

3. Being compensated for having to travel a lot? 

I have news for you - this is totally normal for some jobs, take cabin crew for example, they are constantly flying as that's the very nature of their job, but do they need to compensated for spending so much time away from home? No, those who choose to be cabin crew want to travel and see the world, they often get time off at the destinations they are flying to and have generous allowances along with free hotel when they are abroad. It is a very suitable lifestyle for those who wish to have a job that allows them to travel all over the world without having to pay for expensive airline tickets and hotels. So would someone with two young children want to do a job like that? No, because that parent would need to be at home to take care of their children, that is not a suitable job for them. Thus airlines would only hire people who are very keen to travel a lot and would gladly embrace that kind of lifestyle with joy and gratitude - they would never hire someone like a young parent and then have to compensate them for the inconvenience of spending so much time away from home. Thus if there was a position for a PA which required the PA to travel all over the world with the boss, some young people would jump at the opportunity to do a job like that as they already have this burning desire to travel and see the world. These people would not require any additional compensation for this aspect of their job which they would see as a bonus, rather than a bane. Allow me to use a different analogy to make my point: let's say a pet store that specializes in dogs needs to hire a store manager. Would you hire someone who really loves dogs and would be thrilled to be in an environment where they get to handle dogs all day long? Or would you hire someone who is terrified of dogs and hate dogs to the point where they would need to be compensated for being near dogs all day at work? The answer is obvious of course: you hire the dog lover and in a world where common sense would prevail, those who hate dogs wouldn't even apply for that job in the first place. So going back to Ms Red's case, this company shouldn't have to offer any more money for a job that requires a lot of travel - the company should simply hire someone who loves traveling for the role and there are plenty of people out there who love the idea of traveling as part of their job, including me. The company pays for your flights, your hotel, you get an allowance for food, you often get quite well taken care off and dine at fine restaurants and when you're not working, you get to go sightseeing and shopping - many people pay to go on holiday but when you travel for work, you get to do all that and get paid for it? Sounds like a very sweet deal to me, so why should any company offer so much more money for an aspect of the job that would be really attractive to some people? That is why the way this was explained to Ms Red makes absolutely no sense at all and thus it must be a scam. 

4. The 'eye candy' theory

I have been informed that Ms Red is attractive, she is also engage which means she is clearly not in the market to find a sugar daddy. So would anyone be hired just to be eye candy for a boss who is a dirty old man? The answer is a flat no and I am shaking my head in disbelief in having to explain why. Dirty old men are not satisfied simply looking at pretty women, no they want to have sex with them and so they will simply visit prostitutes and pay for sex. When it is lunch time and I am hungry, I'm not going to pay to sit in a restaurant to look at the food but not be allowed to eat anything, no I want to eat what I am craving and that hunger will only go away after I have eaten that meal. Do I really need to state the obvious in this case? Some men visit prostitutes, some men pay for sex and there are women (and men) who are happy to provide that service in exchange for payment. I understand how some Singaporeans can be very prudish about sex and believe in abstinence, where there is absolutely no sex outside the strict confines of a monogamous marriage but not everyone believes in that. But for those who believe in abstinence and monogamy, then looking at 'eye candy' is as much as they would allow themselves to do when it comes to temptation, whilst for some men who have the money, they would follow through with that by engaging the services of a prostitute. I get the impression that Ms Red and her friend believe in that kind of abstinence and monogamy (which is fine of course and I respect that), but they made the silly mistake by assuming that this Chinese boss who made Ms Red the job offer is going to be satisfied with 'eye candy' if he was genuinely a dirty old man. That's not how it works in the real world, after all, Singapore has a long history and tradition of prostitutes and brothels. In the late 19th century, the ratio of Chinese men to Chinese women was 9:1 given that it was mostly young Chinese men who made the arduous journey from China to do hard labour in the city. This massive gender imbalance created a booming sex industry where these men would spend some of their earning at the brothel and this was accepted as normal because it was very difficult for these men to find a wife under such circumstances and visiting prostitutes at the brothel was the obvious solution. This wasn't frowned upon, nor was it considered immoral or unhealthy - it was just normal. Fast forward to today, there are still brothels and prostitutes in Singapore for those who wish to pay for such services and the internet has made it even easier for clients to do a booking online. Sex with the most beautiful and popular prostitute in Singapore is going to cost a lot less than three times Ms Red's salary and would certainly be a lot more satisfying. So Ms Red, time for a reality check please: men don't pay for 'eye candy' - they just pay for real sex. 

5. But I've heard of beautiful people using their looks to get ahead in their careers. 

There's always a logical explanation for this situation and here are two most common ones: I met Claire (not her real name) some years ago and she is extremely attractive, she also happens to be a senior director in an asset management firm in London. Claire has been subject to sexism in the workplace, like she would walk into a meeting to meet a new client and the client would assume that she was the secretary or the office manager bringing in the coffee. Often, she is not taken seriously in the workplace because of the assumption that someone who looks that beautiful simply cannot be intelligent as well - but having dealt with Claire in a professional capacity, I know she is every bit as intelligent and capable as she is attractive. So for Claire, she just happens to be very pretty but she has never had to resort to using her looks to get ahead in her career, even though some people may incorrectly and unfairly make that assumption simply based on their personal biases. Then there is Michelle (not her real name) who is as beautiful as Claire but not as capable and Michelle is aware of that. Michelle is the kind of person who would do anything to get that promotion and so she would gladly have sex with the dirty old men in her company in order to gain personal favours in the company - she was willing to have sex with the fattest, oldest, most ugly men in her company if they were in a position to help further her career. That may seem desperate but my point is that Michelle wasn't simply 'eye candy' in the office, no she was a lot more than that - she was effectively a prostitute, she was sexually available at a price and that price was related to you being able to further her career. But to be fair to Michelle, it wasn't like she was stupid and totally incapable of the most basic tasks. She was simply in an industry rife with nepotism and she was witnessing incapable people being promoted because of their family connections, as she was from a working class family (just like me), Michelle felt that the only way she was going to get anywhere in the industry was to give herself some kind of advantage and if that meant using sex, then so be it. But what Ms Red's friend was suggesting was nothing like Claire or Michelle's situation - Ms Red's friend had suggested that the dirty old man boss would be willing to pay a lot of money for Ms Red to simply be 'eye candy' in the office. It doesn't work like that, Ms Red would either have to be super intelligent and capable like Claire or have the mindset of Michelle. You can't get something for nothing, you can't expect to be paid a lot of money for simply being 'eye candy' in the work place, that is completely unrealistic of course and if I may be totally blunt, I do get the impression that Ms Red's friend is completely naïve and rather childish (if not downright stupid). 

 6. Can a PA be extremely well paid though? 

Yes but very few actually become super well paid and these are only those who are serving extremely important CEOs or politicians. The vast majority of PAs earn about the same as secretaries or office managers and the more important tasks are never delegated to the PA. So if a CEO is negotiating a deal with an important client, the CEO would never turn to the PA and ask, "what do you think we should do? Do we keep on negotiating or do we accept this current offer? Can we play hardball with them and drive the price down or is this price already reasonable?" The answer to that question would depend on factors and technical details that a PA wouldn't be expected to understand. If you want to be involved in complex negotiations like that, then you need to join the corporate team in a different role rather than become a PA. If you are ambitious and looking to develop your career or if you would just like to earn a lot of money, then no, you should not work as a PA. Go do something else instead. Let's apply some mathematics and statistics to make sense of the situation: Whilst a small number of PAs can make a lot of money, they are the exception to the rule; the vast majority of the PAs out there will earn a modest salary for their work. Let's contrast that with plastic surgeons, whilst a small number of plastic surgeons don't earn much, the vast majority of them earn a lot of money as their customers pay them a lot for their services. So if your sole aim is to become rich, the odds of you becoming a millionaire would be much higher if you became a plastic surgeon than a PA - this is not anyone placing any value judgement on the worth of PAs in this world, that's just the average earnings of a plastic surgeon vs a PA. So the answer to the question is simply no, the vast majorities of PA are not well paid. I know this CEO in Luxembourg who has a PA, I get along with the both of them very well but the CEO doesn't delegate everything to her PA, for the simple reason that her PA isn't qualified to deal with many of these issues relating to work - instead, it would simply be a case of, "send this to my lawyer and get him to offer his opinion on whether we can set up this SPV in Luxembourg as soon as possible, then send this other inquiry to my accountants and get them to go through the numbers on that on, because I don't think the figures are up to date." Her PA is not qualified to offer legal opinions or check those numbers, all she can do is get those tasks done on behalf of the CEO so the CEO can have a little bit more free time to deal with other more important matters. So whilst her PA is doing a really good job, she earns a lot less than the CEO's lawyer and accountant because she adds a lot less value to the CEO's business no matter how hard she works - there is also a total lack of career progression, a PA is highly unlikely to ever be promoted to a better, more well paid job within the company. All they can do is hope that their boss will appreciate them and give them a pay rise if they do a good job: all that simply doesn't lead to a particularly well paid job. 

7. So what the hell is actually going on here? Is it a scam? 

Oh it is most definitely a scam. If Ms Red accepted the job, she would get on a plane with someone from China and land in a country like Myanmar or Cambodia. Upon arrival, two things could happen, she could either be sold as a sex slave to a brothel there or be imprisoned in a scam centre. Such scam centres run a variety of scams - now there are a huge variety of scams that they operate but I shall just focus on those that involve pretty young ladies since Ms Red is clearly an attractive woman. Most of the women would be involved in romantic scams, so basically they would go onto dating websites and talk to lonely old men in richer countries. Once the old man is interested, they would then come up with a story like, I'd love to come and visit you but I don't have money for the air fare, could you send me some money for the air fare and the visa application please? Then there is also the scam where the scammer copies the content from an existing user on social media and then whilst posing as this very attractive and successful person, they will start communicating with people who leave them positive comments on social media and then persuade them to participate in some investment schemes which are all scams of course. Many of these scam centres are run by the Chinese mafia and usually operate out of countries like Myanmar, Cambodia and the Philippines where the local police are very corrupt and can be bribed to turn a blind eye to a scam centre operating right in the middle of the city. The reason why they need a pretty lady like Ms Red in these scam centres is because the target usually would want to speak to the person they have been communicating with on a video call to prove that this person is indeed genuine - that's when the pretty lady would have to get on a video call and convince the target to send money. Some scam target vulnerable, ignorant older folks, others target lonely men desperate to talk to a pretty woman and over the years, these scams have become more and more complex - the more complex scams require much smarter actors to carry out these scams and that could be why they are trying to recruit someone like Ms Red. But if she was offered a chance to work for a criminal syndicate, she would say no of course - she is an honest person and doesn't want to break the law. Thus the only way for such criminal syndicates to recruit new people is to trick them into accepting what appears to be a very attractive job offer but their passports are confiscated the moment they arrive in the new job and by then it is too late, they find themselves imprisoned in a compound in a foreign country, unable to call for help and threatened with violence and abuse if they do not work hard enough. I shall embed a video on the topic below as it is such a fascinating but very dark and sad subject. 

8. How common are these scams? 

They are worryingly common, but most of us have enough common sense to spot them a mile away. I get phone calls from people who speak English with some kind of Eastern European accent and I get the feeling they are probably somewhere like Russia, Belarus or Georgia. Life in these countries is very hard and some people willingly work in these scam centres if they can speak another language like English but what they can't get rid off is the strong accent. I would usually start swearing at them in Russian and tell them (in fluent Russian) that I know where they live, they would hang up on me pretty quickly after that. I also watched another video on social media recently when a scammer called a police officer in America and she recorded the whole exchange - it was laughable as it was so obvious that it was a call centre in India because of the super strong (almost comical) Indian accent. Eventually the scammer hung up when it became clear that this American police officer was too wise to fall for the scam and you might think that her reaction was obvious, but good grief. When a scammer tried to call my mother some years ago, she spoke to the scammer for a while, didn't know what to do and then called my father over to take over the call. The scammer then hung up when my father started asking more intelligent questions about the purpose of the call but I can imagine someone as naïve as my mother totally falling for a scam like that. Enough people fall for the scams to make it worth their while, if everyone was as wise as that American police officer, then the scammers wouldn't be able to trick anyone and they will go do something else instead. 

9. But why target someone like Ms Red?

Simple: it is very hard to find people to work in these scam centres. Maybe in some remote corner of Russia, there might be a well-educated young lady called Natalia who simply can't find any decent jobs as she lives in a tiny village in rural Siberia. Yet she can't leave her village because she has to take care of her elderly sick parents, so she willingly goes work for a scam ring because it is the most lucrative work she can get working from home and she desperately needs the money. Sure, there are people like Natalia out there but not many for a simple reason: what Natalia is doing is completely illegal. She is a criminal, if she had a legal way to make a living, then she wouldn't be doing this - Natalia is a highly intelligent person stuck in a rural location unable to find any other way to make a living. But in order to carry out more scams which are a lot more sophisticated and can con people out of a lot more money, you need to hire scammers who are a lot more intelligent and know how to manipulate people - that's why they would try to lure someone like Ms Red who to a scam centre and imprison her there, where she would be forced to work. She would make an ideal scammer, she is well educated, she is articulate and eloquent, she doesn't come across as a criminal so if she called up someone like my mother and my mother would instantly trust Ms Red and hand over anything she requested. But since Ms Red would never agreed to commit crimes like that, these crime syndicates are forced to try to lure her there by tricking her with this bogus job offer. Remember that story I told you earlier about the Indian scam centre who called up that American police officer trying to scam her? Well, they clearly are scrapping the bottom of the barrel in terms of recruiting staff - like seriously, the scammer's English was so bad and his Indian accent was so strong it was hilarious. Yeah, that's a lousy scammer who failed miserably. I'm not suggesting for a moment that Ms Red would ever commit a crime, but if she was to pose as a scammer, she would actually be quite successful as she doesn't come across as a typical scammer and that's the very reason why she was targeted in the first place. The only way Ms Red would commit crimes like would be if she was imprisoned by the criminal gangs in somewhere like Myanmar and forced to do so against her will. It may sound far fetched but that's a familiar story with so many victims of human trafficking, they are just happy to finally be able to escape and go home, but there is often no way to bring these criminal gangs to justice for what they have done. 

10. Why were the efforts to recruit Ms Red so clumsy and crude, why was it so obviously a scam? 

It is not easy to run a big criminal syndicate, you need the brightest brains to pull off scams on a large scale successfully but how do you recruit the smartest people to join your criminal enterprise? In a recent post, I talked about some of the dumbest questions that I have been asked as someone who works in finance. One question that stands out is whether I launder money for drugs dealers and the mafia, since I have worked for South American companies. The simple answer to that is no, because money laundry is illegal and if caught, I could face a lengthy jail sentence thus I would stick to legal ways to make money within finance (and I'm very good at what I do, I don't need to break the law to make a quick buck). Intelligent, business-savvy individuals like me would never break the law because we can make good money through completely legal means: need I state the obvious? Life is just so much easier when you're not a criminal always looking over your shoulder, worried about when the police are going to arrest you for your many crimes! Which means that these criminal organizations are not accessing the brightest and best brains for their teams, that's why they end up with dumb people who come up with painfully simplistic strategies that can only fool the most gullible idiots. Most of us would get suspicious the moment we were offered an unrealistically high salary for a relatively simple job. Quite simply, most of us realize we can't get something for nothing - there's always a catch. We want to know if there is a logical explanation for the pay offer and how this compares to the industry standard - Ms Red did come to my blog and ask those questions, which is exactly what she should have done. Upon reflection, she agreed with me that this was a scam and to have no further contact with those people. But there are so many sorry takes of people who have fallen prey to human trafficking and sold into some form of forced labour, it is evident that this kind of simple scams is enough to fool some people; if you're just looking to scam people of small amounts of money, that method works. But if you are trying to lure intelligent people to come and work for you at your scam centre, then it is simply not credible enough to convince someone like Ms Red that she should take this seriously. So what you have here is an organization that is run by people who are not that intelligent, recruiting people who are equally simple and gullible to do their dirty work. This is a very sad situation indeed. 

11. Why do people fall for such scams? 

I don't want to make fun of people who fall for such scams, but I think it is a lot to do with this desire to be 'lucky'. Allow me to talk about myself to illustrate my point: I made a lot of money in June, I managed to pull off two deals which I had been working on for a while. I won't talk about those deals in particular as I won't bore you with my work stuff (and I can't divulge details of my clients), but it suffices to say, I made a lot of money and even had a super fun holiday as well at the end of the month. Can I claim all the credit for having been so successful because I am either super hardworking or very smart? No, not really - there were two key factors that led to my very lucrative June. Luck played a huge part in how the two (unrelated) projects just came to fruition at the same time, either (or both) could have easily fallen apart at any time but I got lucky. Secondly, I managed to get some help along the way - for the first deal, it was an old friend James who went out of his way to make sure that I would be a part of that transaction and play a role where I could add value to the project; without him doing me a favour like that, I wouldn't have been given the chance to earn that money. As for the other project, it was my husband who helped me complete the project successfully - at that point I was very stressed out and tired, but he stepped in and gave me the right answers to the challenge I was facing; I was stunned at just how quickly he figured it all out, it was like someone whispering all the correct answers in my ear during the exam. So in summary, I got very lucky and I received a lot of help, that's why I managed to make a lot of money in June. Thus let me be the first to admit that any idiot can make a lot of money if they are both lucky and can receive as much help as I did in June. I'm sure many of you reading this would wish you could be just as lucky - thus when that scammer contacts you and offers you the deal of a lifetime, there will be a part of you that may be tempted to think, "other people have gotten rich because they were lucky or gotten a lot of help, maybe this is my turn to finally get lucky. I'm a good person, why shouldn't I enjoy some good luck? I'm long overdue for some good luck." We all want to believe that we deserve to be lucky - after all, luck is something that is so hard to define. Why are some people luckier than others? When we factor luck into the equation, everything becomes a lot more unpredictable and random. That is why some people are willing to listen to anything the scammers tell them, because they are hoping that this may be their chance to finally get lucky. I got lucky in June and it is awesome when luck goes your way. Luck comes in many forms but it is very important to be wary of scammers trying to exploit our natural desire to want to be luck as they will convince you that to deserve to be 'lucky'. 

12. What should we do to prevent falling prey to such scams then? 

Ms Red has done the right thing by speaking to others to get an unbiased third party perspective but I would like to point out that her friend wasn't particularly helpful. I'm sorry to be judgmental but the two theories that her good friend had come up with (the Chinese company having immense respect for all Singaporean civil servants and them paying a 'eye candy' premium for Ms Red as she was so beautiful) are quite frankly, both complete rubbish. Rather than trying to analyse the situation, her friend was far more interested in paying Ms Red nice compliments like, "people in China really respect the kind of work you do and will pay you a lot!" And "you're so incredibly beautiful of course your incredible good looks would naturally warrant that extra money." Yeah we all like friends who pay us compliments to make us feel good about ourselves, but in this case, her friend's compliments were not useful as they are not evidence based - there is zero evidence to support her friend's theories and there is only the desire on her part to say something nice to Ms Red. If her friend wants to make Ms Red feeling good about herself by paying her loads of compliments, that is a nice gesture of course but within this context, a good friend needs to give Ms Red a reality check about this situation which is obviously a scam. But credit to Ms Red, she asked more than one person for their opinion - that was not something that my father's friend did, let's call him Goh (not his real name). Goh fell for a scam that was so obviously a scam, even my father berated him for being so gullible. Like my father, Goh was also a retired teacher so my father had expected Goh to have a bit more common sense than that, but Goh confessed that he has had some bad luck recently whilst he witnessed his brother have a streak of good luck - for no apparent reason, things just kept going wrong for Goh whilst good things kept happening to his brother and Goh said to my father, "my brother is the kind of guy who would find $50 on the ground walking down the street whilst I am the one who will step on dog shit." Needless to say, Goh's brother was richer and more successful than Goh. So when some random stranger called up Goh and offered him an investment deal that was too good to be true, Goh should have just hung up the phone right there and then, but there was this desire to be lucky like his brother. He couldn't resist, even though there was a voice in his head saying, "don't do it", the other voice that was louder was, "this is now your chance to be lucky like your brother and show your brother just how capable you can be." If only he went to talk to his brother about it, the irony! Goh was so ashamed of what happened, I feel sorry for him. 

So that's it from me on this issue, what do you think? I want to make it clear that I am not attacking Ms Red in anyway, the only person I have criticized is her friend who has given Ms Red unhelpful and misleading advice. It reminds me of the time I spoke to two of my sisters regarding a complicated issue I was facing at work. My eldest sister said something totally ridiculous in response to that and that was when I realized, oh dear, clearly she didn't understand me at all, she has no idea what the hell I was talking about. I had approached the wrong person to discuss the topic, hence I really should have chosen to talk to someone who would have had more knowledge and understanding of the topic to have a meaningful conversation about the situation I was in. Just because my sister cares about me doesn't mean that she was the right person to have this discussion with and I admit that was totally my fault: I barked up the wrong tree. Thus Ms Red found herself in a similar situation. The moral of the story is to not just speak to others when you find yourself in this situation, but please do be careful whose advice you take. Please leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.