Congrajulashins! Your cellnumber was picked in the Vodacom millionairs competishin and Yuo have wun R130 000 0 00. To clam your winings call Dr Joseph on 082 596 3698

Who hasn't received an sms like the one above?? Shame on you! You have yet to feel the confusion between excitement and anger when you win a fake competition that is in fact trying to steal from you.

With reference to my previous blog "I like to win competitions", you must understand that,by now, I like to win competitions. Therefore you can imagine my disappointment when I received this sms to call back Dr Joseph to claim my "winings" of millions. I was in a moral dilemma. I was torn between criticizing the millions of spelling and grammar mistakes which existed in but a single sms (surely its not possible to be THAT crap at English?) And making excuses for the composer of the sms because I so badly wanted to win those millions. And why should I have to phone them? I am a peasant and can't afford to phone people.

But I did. I phoned Dr Joseph just to check if I had, in fact, won my millions. He acted surprised when I called back, I imagined his face to look like a deer caught in the headlights, which I'm sure wasn't far off. He didn't sound like he was English, or even remotely literate. In fact, he sounded suspiciously like the man who had tried to steal my bike right from between my legs a couple weeks earlier using nothing but a walking stick and an off-looking wig.....He told me to call back in 5 minutes, so, instead of smelling a rat, I called back in 5 minutes. Then Dr Joseph confirmed with me that I had won the millions and asked me for my I'd number and my banking details. Then I told him I would call him back. You know, play hard to get.

So maybe I called my mom and several other friends before being advised to actually call Vodacom to verify my winnings. They confirmed that Dr Joseph was running a scam and I was a gullible lunatic for believing the SMS that was sent around to just about every Vodacom user to heighten their chances of selecting some poor, desperado tosser who couldn't distinguish between illiterate con artists and road signs. Enter: myself. How embarassing.

I was furious that it had all been a scam and it had played on my emotions of being a winner!

Most people would have left it there, feeling deflated and a bit silly. But no, not I. Instead I did call back Dr Joseph and told him that I knew that he was running a scam and that I had alerted Vodacom, the local police force, as well as tipped off the "HAWKS" that he was running an illegal scam and murdering neighbourhood cats..... Extreme? I think not. (I just threw in the cat story to spice it up a little. Needless to say the SAPS did not appreciate my sincerity)

All to which Dr Joseph replied "very well" and hung up on me. I couldn't believe that he didn't even fight for his cause?! Although I'm kind of glad because I did walk around looking over my shoulder for a couple months worrying that I had threatened the wrong prankster. I doubt it though, for someone who spelled "claim" as "clam", I think I need not worry.