Reflections on Escaping the Ditch - Essay Example

Every time I received or sent an email, I would be excited. It is understandable as it was a new thing for me…for everybody.

One day, as I was checking my emails, I saw an email titled “Congratulations! You won the Lottery Competition”. I quickly tried to think which lottery had I applied to that I might have won, but nothing came to my mind. I opened the email, and it said that I had been randomly chosen by a company through my email address for a lottery with a prize worth $10,00,000 a few months ago and that in the latest lucky draw, my email was the one that was picked for the first prize from among hundreds of thousands of email addresses. My adrenaline level increased and I could feel sparks flash down my spine. Just by the mere thought of becoming a million-dollar richer overnight, I was having goosebumps. My stomach was lurching with excitement and I almost screamed. My sister playing at a distance of a few yards came running towards me and asked what had happened. I said, “Anna, I won the lottery!” She asked me to show her the email and I did. She also got very excited but I’m sure a bit jealous too.

The next thing I did was read the email in detail to know how to get to the money. The email showed the complete procedure. It required me to give them my name, my identity card number, my bank account number, my citizenship, my country, and other details. I wondered why somebody might need so many details to transfer the money to my bank account. Principally, the bank account number should have sufficed. I kept reading further to find that the company also required a down payment of $100 from me first as a processing fee.

I thought about what to do. The opportunity was too big to forget but depositing $100 was not easy either as I didn’t have any money as I did not do any job at that time. I replied to the email asking them to deduct $100 from my prize money and send me the balance, but the next day I got their response saying that the company’s law did not allow that. I decided to consult my parents and friends. When I did, they told me to beware and never be befooled by such fraudulent companies. This is a net they had laid to capture $100 from me. I realized that sending them the money is a total loss as one of my friends had already lost $100 in the same situation before. I used the letter of the law style of decision-making to decide that I would not send the company any money. My core values of wisdom, lack of greed, and informed decision-making were preserved.