Asklemmy

My cousin is getting scammed, and I don't know what to do

[SERIOUS REPLIES ONLY]

(I recorded this on voice and it came out like this, apologies for any incoherence or so)

Here we go, this is a doozy… My cousin called me. Let’s call her May. She’s… Highly intelligent And I think she genuinely has two master’s degrees. One in geography and the other in, I don’t remember. She’s Polish. She grew up in Poland. And like, she was a fantastic girl. She is a fantastic girl. She studied in Sweden, she studied everywhere, and she ended up as a bank director, and then she quit her job because she got burnt out. And for the past three and a half years, she has been living with her mom and her stepdad in Poland in a little, like, in a house out in the countryside in Poland, okay? And here’s the thing.

Our family history is kind of complicated, and, you know, I live elsewhere so we meet very, very rarely. And we’re getting on in age, you know, And she’s always been a very sharp kid, and she reached out to me today. I haven’t spoken to her in at least a year and a half or something like that. That’s about the, that’s about as often as we contact each other or communicate. It used to be more, but she’s just grown more distant. And she works from home 100% of the time. She has two cats. She lives with her stepdad, who is an asshole, and her mom, who is very happy to have her there. Okay.

And so here is the story. Like, she’s seen normal and all, and we just chatted and reminisced. She talks about like she’s a sailor, she’s a captain (for real), she’s like the captain of, she sails regattas and shit. And she keeps fit, like really fit. And all is going good and well. And out of the blue, she said like, yeah, I remember that you told me you had Lyme disease, which I have had, and I have still, and have had many times, and it will never go away because you need like antibiotics or whatever the fuck. And she said, like, yeah, I did that too, and I felt like shit, and I had no energy. But then I met this, and get this, she met a natural, natural therapist. I think she’s, she calls him a natural therapist. Yeah? All right, you follow?

And she starts telling me that since she went to this natural homeopathy or whatever the fuck, it’s not homeopathy, he calls him a naturopath, I suppose, or something like that. I have a link actually. Some guy who claims he is a neurologist from Ukraine, but he can’t practice neurology (for some reason), so now he does this. And she has, she bought, she bought a machine from him that she sits with for an hour every day for a year and a half now. And I asked, how much, how much is this machine? And it’s like a thousand dollars.

Wow. Ok. And what does this machine do exactly? I ask. And she says, yeah, it emits electromagnetic waves or some shit. (ofcourse.jpg) And she had a little trouble explaining it, like how it works, how it actually works, there’s frequencies involved. every human has a frequency. And I asked, what frequency is Lyme disease? And she… moved on. And I asked her, maybe you can send me the manual for the machine. Can you send me, like, what is the model number and the number and the serial number? I’ll go online. I just wanna check it out because it maybe can help me, wink wink, you know what the fuck I mean. And I’m getting such fucking bad vibes from this, and it’s obvious from the second she mentioned it. It’s a fucking scam. It’s such a fucking massive scam. She’s just been, you know, and she says like she feels perfect and she’s so happy and has so much energy and she’s been doing this for a year and a half, for an hour every day. And like, it’s so fucking weird seeing it because this is a rational, intelligent woman who I know studied a lot and read a lot, been through a lot. And she knows me, she knows I’m from an academic, intellectual family, and we are also Polaks, so we question everything, literally everything.

And I laughed at her in the beginning. I just like, like a cordial, very friendly laugh. Like, are you fucking serious about this shit? Like, are you being serious right now? You must have an idea of what I’m going to say to this, right? seriously? But she kept, she was adamant, and she said I should book an appointment. And I said, sure! I will do that. I wanna book an appointment with this guy, cost me like 20 bucks or something, in Warsaw. And I said, yeah, okay, we’ll go there together, you and I together, and we’ll talk to the guy. I will gladly pay. I will take the flight over to Warsaw, no problem, and I will. I’ll get that done. And we’ll go talk to this guy together. Is that okay? And she’s like, oh yeah, sure, maybe, um, you just have to check his schedule. And she was so avoidant about the whole fucking thing. Everything I asked about, i mean if she was trying to sell me on this thing, I was telling her straight up I was buying it. You know what I mean? Like sure, let’s try this! I’m game! No notes! This woman has been a bank director for a major bank with many branches all over the world, like, she, she’s not a dumb chicken.

And fairly early on in the conversation, I started recording it, because I wanted to check out all of her claims so I could remember everything and keep receipts (only for personal use and transcription- yes that is technically immoral but in this case I seriously just act as a cop), learn exactly who this guy is, where he works, what is what. I can do some background check on this dude. And because it’s like, it’s such an obvious scam, and he has obviously got her on the hook, and he obviously is milking her for money. It’s like a textbook scam, and it is just insane to me how some people fall for that. But that has also happened with another cousin of mine, who got involved in a multi-level marketing scheme without knowing. Poland is still very much behind the times, and will always stay behind the times because of what they went through, you know, for many, many centuries or whatever.

So anyway, I like, I just played along. I just pretended to be super interested and just ask her as many questions as I could and just, you know, prodded and poked. And I am very, very worried. I’m seriously worried about her. Something is, like, this is nuts. This is nuts. What do you do? I don’t know what to do. What do I do if I have a family member who gets caught up in an MLM scheme? What would one do? What can one do? How do I approach this? I got the facts, I got the recordings, and I’m gonna, like, just check everything she says. I’m gonna check out who this guy is, how, I’m gonna fucking find out everything about this. And then I need, once I have the information to act upon, I need to know how to act. And I need to know what to do now. Right now, shit is like the way it is, I’m not gonna touch it. I’m gonna prepare very carefully, tactically, strategically, to reach her. Because I know, I could tell, she had that glazed over eyes like she joined a cult or something. And she believes in this shit, it helps her find, she said that she’s feeling great and she has lots of energy, she’s doing shit. Good, I’m not gonna mess with that. But she is being rused, bamboozled, fucking tricked and scammed. She is being conned, and it’s my responsibility and my duty as her family to do something about it.

And this is my conundrum. I need help. What the fuck do I do?

Has realizing that our time on earth is finite changed how you see life?

Lately I’ve been thinking about death: it happens to all of us, it’s something normal, it will happen to me, I could even die tomorrow. Even if I don’t want it, I will die, like everyone else. I’m not exceptional just for being me. No matter how many gods I invent, no matter how many opportunistic preachers I pay because they promise to save me.

I’m just a monkey among 8 billion monkeys, I’m insignificant. Nothing wrong with that. It is what it is.

My life so far: take the path of least resistance. I have a job I don’t like much but I do it good enough so I don’t get fired, I enjoy cooking, fishing, poetry and drawing, hobbies that are cheap. I don’t need to keep up with the joneses.

There seems to be a perception that somebody like me is a loser, lazy, somebody who fails to live up to his potential, maybe I should try to do something exceptional with my finite time on earth, leave a legacy…

But that doesn’t appeal to me. After I die I won’t feel nothing, nor will I care about a legacy, so what’s the point?

Did realizing your time on earth is finite change how you see life?

Feel free to point out if this is me being depressed or if I need to snap out of my misanthropy, as somebody put it. I don’t consider myself depressed but after seeing and reading what humans do to other humans I don’t trust the better angels of our nature can make the world a better place.

Are you gettin tired of these "experts"?

Always with the experts. Pretty soon you going to have me walkin like a duck and quckin like a chicken. I aM sIcK aNd TiReD 0f tHeSe ExPeRts!

Did you know a lot of Brazillians are fighting in nazii nato ukraine? To me I find that to be a intentional blind spot.

I would like to see more post on this matter. They got the same libturd turdherd in Brazil. What choo got lemmy?

Do you guys think the boycott against Playstation is gonna work?

For those who don’t know, there has been somewhat of an uproar due to Playstation’s announcement about stopping making disks.

Is nature the same thing as god?

Asking for a friend. Don’t show ass here

does music make you existential?

in particular, im talking about music unrelated to existential themes. sometimes i find myself listening to some pop music as every good practicing homosexual does, and the song’s lyrics will be “please dance it will be fun” (but more poetic) but what i will feel is like a mixture of melancholy and smallness within the universe. i understand music is supposed to drive emotion but i feel like maybe my emotion wires are crossed because the intended outcome (carefree, jovial, energetic) and the actual outcome (morose, calmness, emptiness) are rather incongruous. so i wanted to know if others had similar experiences, and also maybe why that is. i wanna stop being existential at the club, dammit, i wanna dance til skin falls off my bones and make out with men!

What is the best laptop you can get for under 650€?

cross-posted from: lemmy.asudox.dev/post/2687123

I am looking for a new laptop for my sister. Her budget is 650€. What laptop is the best overall? Macbooks are excluded, as she doesn’t like them. The OS is not important, I can install the OS myself. It shouldn’t be a gaming laptop and it also should have a long battery life. No ARM or RISC-V laptops please. Build quality should be decent.

Thanks in advance.

edit: specific requirements

• Display size: 13 to 15 inches
• Display resolution: +1920x1080px
• Aspect ratio: 16:9
• Thickness: Slim
• Screen color accuracy is not important
• Screen should be anti glare
• RAM: +8GB SODIMM DDR5
• Storage: +512GB SSD
• Touchscreen: preferred
• Foldable screen: preferred
• Upgradeability: RAM and the SSD should be upgradeable
• Keyboard: QWERTZ, DE-AT
• GPU performance does not matter, would be only useful for video hardware acceleration
• CPU performance does matter

What's an example of an advocacy group that doesn't really need to do anything because the thing they advocate for is basically already happening?

So everything is basically fine.

I’m starting to believe I’m a very strange person. Help?

On one side I enjoy solitude, walking alone, drawing, fishing and cooking. Most people bore me because I find them dull and superficial. I specially hate the talkative, needy ones who wont shut up and believe I care what they think. I dislike big groups of drunks or people that need to yell and listen to loud music to feel good.

On the other hand, I’ll die one day, possibly alone, because I don’t have the emotional bandwidth for a girlfriend, marriage or raising children, nor to go to a club or a similar social occasion where people find other humans and maybe a partner.

Suddenly, dying alone with no children feels depressing: Everything I save and don’t spend will be appropriated or sold, everything I learn, a whole life of experiences, will simply be forgotten, I know I won’t feel anything when I die, or after, and I shouldn’t care about it, but I still feel sad I’m going to die without nobody but the debt collectors noticing my death. Suggesting I marry out of desperation so I don’t die alone would be a terrible idea. So don’t. I’m too set on my ways and wouldn’t be fair to any child.

I like some human contact but feel the world offers me either loud, drunk jerks, immature idiots or the complete solitude I have now, a solitude I mostly enjoy but sometimes makes me feel alone.

Where are the quality subs here? All I'm seeing is politics and anger

Sure I’m pissed off too but Lemmy has to be more than everyone screaming at politics and billionaires. I need some balance of just topics that are not rage bait and propaganda. Are there no cat subs here?

When you signal a number to another person using your hands, do you face your palm or tge back of your hand to the ither person?

I noticed the difference between my friend and I when I replied to a friend with the number 2, while showing the back of my hand. Being British, he promptly did the same gesture back at me.

How would you go about getting your town to plant more trees?

I live in the suburbs (I know it sucks, but that’s just my current family situation.) and lately I’ve been trying to get outside more for my mental and physical health. The problem is, the suburbs are kind of shit for this. Obviously there’s all the car-centric infrastructure which makes walking more difficult and dangerous, but there’s not much I could conceivably do about that in any reasonable amount of time. However, the other big issue I’ve found, especially as it’s gotten so hot this summer, is there are barely any trees, and thus barely any shade anywhere along the sidewalks. Even the local park doesn’t have much shade aside from a small area in the corner. So it’s really unpleasant to walk anywhere. I get super sweaty even taking a leisurely walk on most days of the summer.

So I was thinking that maybe I could lobby the town to plant more trees such that most of the sidewalks are at least partially shady. I know there are some barriers to this like the tree roots cracking sidewalks and probably some NIMBYs who only view nature as being ornamental, and of course this would cost money to do. So it wouldn’t be a trivial thing, but I don’t think it’s entirely outside the realm of possibility either.

What do you think are some strategies I could use to make this happen? What sort of things do I need to do or account for? Obviously it’s going to be different depending on the town, but if there is any kind of general idea of how to go about this I would appreciate hearing it.

Are Glory Holes still a thing, and have you ever used one?

I’ve maybe seen 1 in my life (in my forties). I know they used to be somewhat a thing in the gay community. I’m guessing with AIDS, the broader acceptance of homosexuality, and Grindr it’s probably gone the way of the Dodo bird.

If you ever used one please share you experience, not looking for fap material more just mindset, how long ago, which side you were on, and how you felt about the experience. If you’re not gay or bi and you used one what made you use it and did you expect that it was a women on the other side or was it an ignorance is bliss situation?

What is something about another culture than your own that you like?

How often do your knees knock?

Mostly directed at you skinny lemmys. As a luxuriously sized north American, it struck me as odd that I could not recall my knees knocking together since childhood. True, I have enjoyed powerlifting since highschool, but still. I can press my knees together just fine seated or reclining. How often does the average Lemmy feel their knees knock together?

Is there a way to embed a gif into a comment on Lemmy?

I know how to add a picture but I was hoping there was a way to add a gif.

What do you think of Twin Peaks?

After several months, I finally finished watching the entire Twin Peaks series and the movie Fire Walk with Me. For me, there’s no doubt that it’s a masterpiece, in fact, I think the movie can only be understood after watching the third season. What do you think of Twin Peaks? Do you think you understood it? What’s your take on it?

[US] Should there be a Administradora de Fondos para el Retiro / Retirement Fund Administrator (AFORE / REFUAD)?

Given that the cost of social security is rising due to the aging population, we should switch to other systems before it’s too late. That’s why I feel they should look at Mexico’s retirement system called AFORE (Administradora de Fondos para el Retiro in Spanish). An AFORE is a private financial institution that manages, invests, and safeguards your retirement savings.

When you work, the contributions made by your employer, the government, and yourself accumulate throughout your working life. Therefore, whether you work in the public or private sector, you can save money to maintain an income when you retire.

Retirement savings accounts (AFORES) invest workers’ money through Sociedades de Inversión Especializada en Fondos para el Retiro (SIEFOREs), which aim to maximize returns for you through investments regulated and supervised by the Comisión Nacional del Sistema de Ahorro para el Retiro (CONSAR), thus growing workers’ money.

SIEFOREs are generational; you are assigned one according to your birth year, as the investment strategy of these funds is determined by the time you have left until retirement.

And they generate a lot of money, because from January to June 2026, the 10 Afores in Mexico obtained a combined net profit of 8,968 million pesos (517.2 million dollars), the highest amount in real terms since 2021, according to data from the Comisión Nacional del Sistema de Ahorro para el Retiro (Consar).

Do you think a pilot program should be implemented to see if this ends up being viable for the USA?

[US] How would you feel if the next administration (2029-2033) used some form of algocracy?

In this scenario, the 2028 elections have already passed, but the discussion isn’t about whether the Democrats, Republicans, or another party won.

Rather, the question is whether that administration is using AI to develop certain policies in the economic, scientific, technological, transportation, military, tax, health, or other sectors. Would you accept that administration using these tools, or would you prefer that humans make those policies?