Read and tread carefully

I received some fantastic news last week! I received an email that read:

“Hello Lou Marzeles.” (Okay, there should have been a comma after hello, but I’m a professional editor highly trained to notice such details in a world that drops punctuation and whole sentence errors by the dozen every second. I was willing to let that go. I figured they were just in such a hurry to share the good news.)

“This is Mazie Reddit.” (Hm. Okay, another pause. Really? Mazie Reddit? Reddit is a website. And I’ve never heard of anyone with the name Mazie, though I’m the first to admit I’m no expert on names. Oh, well. Let’s see…)

“I’m from the Student Loan Debt Department.” (Wow! Okay. But wait a minute—what Student Loan Debt Department? From what agency or bank or whatever? Should I be concerned there isn’t more information about that?)

“We tried to contact you at your home at 117 W. Main Street in Goldendale.” (Well, wasn’t that thoughtful. But… that address is for The Sentinel. Even though with the hours I work it could feel like that’s where I live, it’s actually not. And if they tried to contact me there, how come I didn’t get a call or mail or a visit in person from Mazie? Hm.)

“Your student loans have been marked as possibly eligible for forgiveness under the new 2024 guidelines.” (Get out! How cool is that? But… what new 2024 guidelines? From what agency or organization or governmental department? Shouldn’t that information be included? Hm again.)

“Your case number is #12514, and your file will remain open in my system for only one more day.” (Oh my gosh, she went and gave me a case number! She’s serious. And clearly I need to act quickly!)

“Please give your dedicated eligibility line a call on Friday at 877-607-0895. Our office hours are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. EST Monday through Friday.” (Golly. She even set up a dedicated phone line just for me! Talk about going the extra mile! Those hours seem a little strange. Maybe she’s accommodating us folks on the west coast for whom 11 a.m. Eastern time is only 8 a.m. Yeah. That’s got to be it.)

Well, you can imagine my hand was reaching for the phone to jump on this opportunity—when it suddenly hit me.

I don’t have any student loans. Never did. I was so brilliant, they paid me to go to college.

Okay, fine, I admit that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Okay, it’s a wholesale fabrication. But it was funny. I rest my case.

Mazie must have gotten the wrong name. Maybe it was another Lou Marzeles who lives at the newspaper address on Main Street.

But just maybe—and you must understand I am able to reach this conclusion because I have had military intelligence training—this was a scam!

Mazie—if that is your real name—you and your kind feed off the gullibility of a trusting, and too often not fully observant, public. This ploy was not even very creative. At least stories of Nigerian princes trying to salvage their fortune with the help of kindly Americans have a certain imaginative flair. Some cons try to spin a little whimsy behind their larceny. But come on, Mazie. This is just dumb and too easily seen through.

The moral of the story: if some offer out of the blue seems for the best, it could very well be for the worst. Read and tread carefully.

— Lou Marzeles is editor and publisher of The Goldendale Sentinel. You can reach him at: [email protected].