Scam: Look What They Did To Poor Virtus!
Hairbags. Scum. Thieves. Con artists. Swindlers. Grifters.
I’m running out of nouns.
No, I’m not talking about politicians. I’m talking about the con artists who spend their time trying to fleece hard-working Americans.
Who knows if they operate from Internet cafes in Nigeria, Myanmar or Short Pump. All we know is that their relentless campaigns to separate law-abiding folks from their dough take on a different form daily.
This, for instance.
It arrived by text on Monday, March 16. Chances are you got one too. When I posted it on X I was swamped with messages from folks who’d gotten similar “official notices,” allegedly from General District Court in Richmond Virginia.
I knew it was a scam, but for one moment - no longer - I wondered if it could be real. Had I been in Richmond lately? Might I have run a red light in the capitol? Sped through a work zone?
A close look and there was on dead giveaway: the Seal of Virginia is a mungled up mess.
There’s Virtus, the Roman goddess of virtue, missing her nipple. (Did she have top surgery?) Her face is blurry and the tyrant under her foot appears to have a severed leg.
Oh, and the order, telling me I’d better appear in court the next morning or pay by QR code, was signed by Clerk of the Court “John Smith”.
Coincidentally, the judge issuing the order shared the same name.
There is no Judge John Smith in the Richmond General District Court. I checked. And I don’t know of any judge who acts as his own clerk.
By now everyone should know that neither the courts nor the DMV, Social Security nor any other agency of the state will ever text or email you about fines or court costs.
Yet the scams keep coming. And law-abiding, naive folks, who pay their bills on time and try to stay on the right side of the law, fall for them.
For years, grandparents have been fooled by the impersonation scheme where a voice on the phone, sounding like a grandchild, will call in a panic asking for bail money or other urgent funds. Others fall for tech-support scams where alarming messages pop up asking for money to clean out malware. Lottery-winning scams where bank account information is sought also pull in unsuspecting folks.
Most of us believe we’re too smart to fall for them, yet these devious schemes must work on a certain percentage of the population or the scumbags would stop.
The best advice: Be suspicious. Never give out your credit card or bank information to anyone who appears in your inbox or text messages. Warn elderly relatives or friends who might panic and comply with a request.
And if you ever get any communication from the Commonwealth of Virginia and Virtus is missing a nipple, rest assured, it’s a fake.
