Hello, random smart phone
user. Guess what. The cops are after you. Really?
What do you do, if you suddenly receive an ominous-sounding
text message, apparently informing you that you will soon be apprehended by the
police?
Wait. Let’s clarify
that.
What if you receive such a shocking message, and you have
not actually committed a crime?
This happened to me
recently.
At first, I did a double-take. I admit it. Then I plunked
the first line of the mysterious text message into an internet search bar and
found a long list of scam reports.
This rather prevalent sort of message usually goes something
like this:
“________ get expired after that you will be taken into custody by the local cops as there are ___ serious allegations pressed on your name at this moment we would request you to get back to us so that we can discuss about this case before taking any legal action against you the number to reach us is 555-555-5555 I repeat 555-555-5555 thank you.”
Whew! Can you say, “run-on sentence”? And has anyone ever
heard of punctuation or capitalization? And what about redundant phrasing? The
grammarian in me is dying over this one.
It’s not exactly delightful. In fact, it’s far from it. But
something is definitely amiss. And it’s not my legal record – or yours.
And at least in my town, the police are much more likely to come a-knocking than a-texting, if they have grounds for picking up a criminal.
.
