Last year I ordered some acid-free paper for printing my thesis, and I provided my delivery and e-mail addresses at work for convenience. But today I received a rather mysterious e-mail from the same company, saying, ‘Dear Mr. Kong, Your order has been confirmed as follows …’ How did this e-mail come about? I haven’t ordered anything from them of late, and when I read through the e-mail in more detail, the order was intended for delivery and billing to the animal house of my research institute. That’s clearly none of my business! The secretary at my department kindly followed up the matter for me. She then found out that the animal house did place that order, but the confirmation was sent to me out of convenience since the company had already got my e-mail address at work and/or thought that I was in charge. How clever …
Other people have recently received another bizarre bill, albeit a lot more malicious. Television and radio broadcasts do not come free in Germany, and an authority is in charge of collecting transmission fees. There was an e-mail circulating last week, purportedly from the authority with this year’s bill in the attachment. In fact, the attachment was a Trojan software. That would be quite an expensive bill if the computer became infected! The secretary was quite alert when I told her of my mysterious bill today and also suspected that it was one of those Trojans.
There’s a colloquial Chinese expression describing how people ‘open their eyes when they see money’. I guess the real meaning is, when you see anything involving money, open your eyes and check really carefully!
去年因印論文而要在網上訂購一批無酸性紙，為方便派遞及聯絡，我便填了研究所的所在地址及電腦地址。今天我竟然收到該公司的電郵，寫道：「江先生：茲確認閣下之訂單如下……」咦，我沒訂購甚麼，怎會無端端收到如此的電郵？細看之下，訂單寫明的派遞和記賬地址，乃研究所的動物房，跟我何干？後來秘書小姐幫我跟進，才發現原來動物房的確有訂購賬單的物品，但文具公司貪方便／自以為聰明，以為我負責處置全研究所的訂單，才令我收到這筆糊塗賬！
最近其他人也收到另一份離奇賬。在德國接收電視或電台廣播得付廣播費，近日流傳一封所謂廣播費賬單的電郵，附件竟載有特洛伊木馬程式，如不慎下載，後果可嚴重了！秘書小姐得知我的糊塗賬，起初也以為是如出一轍。
俗語有謂「見錢開眼」，其實是叫大家一見到與錢財有關的事，務必睜開眼看清楚！
Other people have recently received another bizarre bill, albeit a lot more malicious. Television and radio broadcasts do not come free in Germany, and an authority is in charge of collecting transmission fees. There was an e-mail circulating last week, purportedly from the authority with this year’s bill in the attachment. In fact, the attachment was a Trojan software. That would be quite an expensive bill if the computer became infected! The secretary was quite alert when I told her of my mysterious bill today and also suspected that it was one of those Trojans.
There’s a colloquial Chinese expression describing how people ‘open their eyes when they see money’. I guess the real meaning is, when you see anything involving money, open your eyes and check really carefully!
去年因印論文而要在網上訂購一批無酸性紙，為方便派遞及聯絡，我便填了研究所的所在地址及電腦地址。今天我竟然收到該公司的電郵，寫道：「江先生：茲確認閣下之訂單如下……」咦，我沒訂購甚麼，怎會無端端收到如此的電郵？細看之下，訂單寫明的派遞和記賬地址，乃研究所的動物房，跟我何干？後來秘書小姐幫我跟進，才發現原來動物房的確有訂購賬單的物品，但文具公司貪方便／自以為聰明，以為我負責處置全研究所的訂單，才令我收到這筆糊塗賬！
最近其他人也收到另一份離奇賬。在德國接收電視或電台廣播得付廣播費，近日流傳一封所謂廣播費賬單的電郵，附件竟載有特洛伊木馬程式，如不慎下載，後果可嚴重了！秘書小姐得知我的糊塗賬，起初也以為是如出一轍。
俗語有謂「見錢開眼」，其實是叫大家一見到與錢財有關的事，務必睜開眼看清楚！
Comments