The Bombay Hustle - God, What They Sell, and All

I am back to Bombay (scamland) and back to hustling. Not me. The others. Afterall, it is the season for scams. And, death. A man I knew, who lived in the neighbourhood died. Two people, relations of relations died when I was in Kerala.

I don't know how they - the hustlers - came to know I am back. There are these endless calls that make me want to bash my mobile device against the nearest wall. Since I work in the marketing department there are advertising agencies looking for a client, publication looking for advertisements, outdoor advertising contractors looking for new business. I think they all have dedicated call centres to disturb me throughout the day. I swear. I receive so many calls that I don't have time to work. I get behind on my schedule. Bosses get mad at me.

Business is done this way, my friend Dhansukhbhai Jethalal Shah assures me. They need to promote aggressively to survive, otherwise they will fail. Either grow or die. Every new business fails in the first five years of operation.

The New Kind of Ad-hoc-ism

I see a peculiar kind of ad-hoc-ism here. Businesses these days don't have the patience to document like they used to. Nobody files papers. The idea of these hotshot-management-types-who-quit-at-the-drop-of-a-hat is to quit before records are asked for from people who care about documentation. They are aggressive in pursuing marketing and sales targets and depart leaving a mess in their wake. The whole organisation suffers and a whole lot of effort goes down the drain. This is the new kind of ad-hoc-ism.

EMAIL HUSTLING

There are endless hustling on email too. They fall into the following categories (I like to categorise things, you know).

The Nigerian Scam

These scams operate from close by (mostly by Nigerian illegal immigrants), though they claim to have accounts in Nigeria. The emails are badly written (which is your cue to ignore them), badly punctuated, giving off whiffs of scams. But some people fall for the millions offered if you just send your address and your bank account number. They just need a few thousand dollars as a processing fee before they transfer the millions to your account. If you agree, you can say goodbye to this processing fee. Your processing fee is their revenue. Like a dog that has been kicked, you sit and nurse your wounds and are reluctant to tell anyone about the trauma you went through.

The Beautiful Young Girl Scam

This scam could have been effective when I was a youth and still unmarried. What can it do when I am getting on in age and experience? So how do I respond to a girl who is beautiful, simple, god-fearing, fun-loving, etc. She sends her picture also. But everything is so suspect that you wonder how people fall for these scams. Soon as they know your bank balance and financial position, they go after your money. Don't believe the siren who sends pictures and say they love your wrinkled mug shots. Hm.

The Au Pair Scam

 Of this scam I have written before here.

The Multi-level Marketing Scam

I have expounded, waffled about this here. (Same link as above.)

Just mentioning it here so that you are aware.