Well here we are, it's Monday, the start of a new week. I've said it before, I'll say it again. These day's just keep coming faster. Zip, Zip, they go. The dog's and myself are up early again, as usual. When I wake up at four it seems such a waste to stay in bed. They are always ready to go out, especially "I". When my feet hit the floor she is ready. She leaps in the air, spinning around, so excited. The last words I say to her as she races out the door,"Don't bark." Yeah, right. I'm sure she's wondering just what trash I am talking.
I had written about a week ago that I was thinking about writing about my FBI episode. So I just figured today would be as good as any. I know I mentioned in August 2003 I left my job as a on site motel manager and got an apartment. My eyes were getting really bad and being an on site manager is tough. Because you are living where you are working, you never get away from it. I would go off the desk but I was never really off. Whoever was on the desk would put any calls through that had to do with questions to me. So you were always working. Up at all hours of the night. So I would get on the computer when I was off the desk and join places and sites to pass the time. I joined a worldwide pen pal club. Now that is where my problem began.
I started talking to a fifteen year old Spanish girl from Spain who was going to help me learn Spanish. Also a young Nigerian man who had just finished school and was trying to start a computer shop. The word Nigeria was actually the start of my problems.
About two months after I moved into my apartment. Which was three rooms and a bath , upstairs over the man and woman who owned the house. They were in their seventies and lived a very quiet life. At least intil that fateful day.. A knock came on my door, which was in the kitchen, the only door to the apartment. When I opened the door there was three of the tallest, broad shouldered young men standing there together. The house was older and the doors smaller. They enveloped the door. One asked if I was Billye Swift, I nodded. "Can we talk to you a minute"? one asked. I nodded again. Then just like out of the movies, one man turned and made a motion towards the stairway. Three more of the big guys swarmed into my apartment with the original three. Swarmed is the descriptive word here. Plus a Joplin detective. Who thank goodness wasn't so big.
It all happened so fast then it was like everything was on fast forward . "We're from the FBI," one said again. I think it was the tall blond one, or maybe the other tall blond one who had been a line backer in his previous life. Heck, except for the detective they all I am positive played football in college. They started looking everywhere, in the bathroom, in the closets, under the beds, in the shower. I had received a box of wholesale items from UPS that week and they started throwing those out of the box. It was surreal. The only words that I could get to come out of my throat as I envisioned moving closer to my sister who lives in Leavenworth. Moving to the Federal prison at Leavenworth in fact with big Bertha as my cell mate, "I need to call my daughter."
Now if most people were being completely invaded by the FBI, oh excuse me , five FBI, one secret service. Plus the Joplin detective they would probably ask for a lawyer. Not me, I asked for my daughter. When I am over whelmed, that is what comes out of my mouth. In 1998 at Border town Bingo I won 14,000 on a Rocket machine. Other people when they win big scream. and yell. I started saying, "I need to call my daughter, I need to call my daughter." I have always believed she was suppose to be the Mother but pushy loud me shoved in line ahead of her. And bang I become the Mother. Billie is calm, she is steadfast, if you need someone in your corner, she's the one. So when the big guys hit that's who I wanted. My Billie.
The one big guy said no. That I didn't need anyone. As things began to settle down, they painted me a picture of what had just happened and what was happening across the states at the same time. It seems this Nigerian boy, who was not a boy but a whole crew of Nigerians who were conning the American people. They would find people to write to, ask for help in getting supplies they could not get shipped to them, so they said. They would send a cashiers check for you to pay to have them shipped. A check I might add that was bogus too. And the items sent to you by these companies was paid for by , yep you got it right, a bogus credit card. The FBI had been investigating. And my name had been turned in by a credit card company when thousands of dollars of new computers had been purchased by this bogus person and was to be sent to me.
They sat down at my computer and in a couple of minutes everything on my hard drive had been sent to the FBI office in Kansas City, all of these emails from this poor young boy had been deleted. The man named Ron said, fleecing Americans had become a very big business for the Nigerians. They zeroed in on people who were naive, and I think what he was trying to say and was also trying not be too rude, DUMB!
Two days later a unsuspecting Federal Express driver came to my door with a package, prepaid from a computer ink company. I opened the door, he handed me the package. I saw what it was. "No," I screamed. "Get that out of here its bogus, its for the Nigerians," He turned and almost ran down the stairs. I was right behind him. "Don't," I yelled after him, "Don't ever bring me a package again." I sincerely doubt you could have paid him triple time to ever bring a package to my door again.
So the moral to this story folks. Don't be getting Penpals. Especially if they are from Nigeria. Or you might just get a Monday morning visit from some really big guys. And believe me, their not there to party.
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