Mark Lane: In a scammier-than-ever world, even smart folks can be conned

One of Volusia County's better charter schools was roiled last week with news that its principal, a woman who had been pivotal in building the school and its reputation, had fallen for what would seem to the casual reader to be a garden-variety internet scam.

At one point, after a back-and-forth with a person she thought was Elon Musk, she wrote a check for $100,000 made out to an individual identified to her as Musk's assistant.

Yes, the planet's second-richest man needed up-front money in the form of a check made out to his assistant. At least he wasn't asking for funds in the form of Walmart gift cards.

Fortunately, the school's business manager canceled the check before it could be cashed. Ah, thank goodness for the inconveniences of good old-fashioned paper checks, which, unlike many instantaneous electronic transfers, can often be yanked back.

And here, it should be noted that charter schools are private-public partnerships that work through the public school system and receive public money. So yes, tax dollars could have been involved here. The incident made national news. Another crazy-stuff-in-Florida story.

The principal, Janet McGee, resigned. "I am a very smart lady, well-educated. I fell for a scam," McGee admitted to school parents.

Which goes to show how even a sophisticated person might, under the right circumstances, after hearing a pitch perfectly attuned to her frequency, jump in with both feet regardless of advice to the contrary.

And often it is the more self-assured among us who buy the goods most completely and resent it the most should someone point out a smell in the room. I once covered what seems in retrospect to have been the cheesiest of penny-stock cons. After the story ran, I was naively shocked that some investors who had been hornswoggled were furious at me for ruining what they still considered an outstanding investment opportunity. Fake news!

When people fall for a con, they fall hard. These are called confidence schemes for a reason.

No longer do we live in those dark days of boiler-room stock-pumping operations. Social media, the internet and smartphones allow scam artists a reach they never before dreamed of.

Every week like clockwork, I get a text message telling me to please forward my credit card number so my Netflix account won't be canceled. (I don't subscribe.) Fake invoices for anti-virus software and expensive laptops fill my inbox. And look! A text from the IRS. Settle up or else. (Unsurprisingly, the IRS doesn't initiate prosecutions by text message.)

I have a phone app that blocks the most prolific phone scammers, but many still get through. I recently got a call with a computer-synthesized voice warning me that my "social security number is about to be suspended." (No, numbers don't get suspended, and no government agency is looking to be paid in big-box store gift cards, either.) Last week, I got a live caller telling me I won airline tickets out of the Ormond Beach airport. (There is no regular airline service out of that airport.) I had a friend who recently got the old grandchild-in-distress-needs-money scam call. (She has no grandchildren and played with the caller for a while, asking him his name. "John?" he guessed.)

The volume of scam calls, phishing texts, and email scams makes me, as an older person, feel kind of targeted. People believe that on your 60^th birthday, the con-detection area of your brain checks out. And sadly, that sometimes happens. The FBI reports that 46% of call-center fraud complaints they got last year were from people over 60. And Florida ranks second among the states in fraud losses and complaints.

Because my email address runs with this column and is easily found online, I get dozens and dozens of old-fashioned advance-fee scam emails. (Actual text: "My Name is Mr. Mohamed Ebrahim Ahmed. I am a banker by profession. I hail from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, West Africa. My reason for contacting you is to transfer an abandoned $13,500,000.00 to your account.”)

Unlike the call-center come-ons, I enjoy these because they make me feel like a citizen of the world. A sophisticated kind of guy. The kind of guy that Ahmed (whom I imagine has a voice like Peter Lorre's) might sidle up to with a mutually advantageous business proposition in a sweaty tropical bar while I nurse a palmetto (two parts rum, one part vermouth). "A cool $13 million, and surely a man of your financial standing, can manage an insignificant $10,000 in fees, retainers, customs taxes and the bank manager's, uh, customary gratuity," he coos.

Despite the daily dump of email come-ons, text message cons and robocalls, I've yet to hear from Musk. Bill Gates, sure, but not Musk.

I'll be looking for him in future batches. Just because this time the con was unsuccessful doesn't mean it won't inspire imitators. Just ask Ahmed.

Mark Lane is a News-Journal columnist. His email is mlanewrites@gmail.com, but don't try to sell him anything.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Mark Lane: Elon Musk scam of school proves smart folks can be conned