Clueless

If you were persistent enough to make it to the end of the last post, you were probably dizzy from the hammering and shut down your computer to turn off the noise. So here, I have toned it down and expanded at leisure upon a single point from the list, and will continue to do so until I have exhausted myself with the shame of my absurdity.

Today’s topic shall be the deafening roar of naivete in purchasing a vehicle on the internet. Let’s look for a moment at the characters and circumstances which led to the collapse of common sense. Our protagonist is a continent-hopping travel and hospitality professional whose lifestyle has been made possible by technology, and who thinks (thought) she is (was) savvy enough to make technology work for her. She is accompanied in this story by an Argentine, who, if likened to a famous figure, is best described by a MacGuyver-Shrek composite, and thus henceforth will be referred to as McShruyver. Our handy hero has a sixth sense in all that is manual and physical, as well as a fierce standard of ethics, but is (was) less acquainted with technology than our protagonist.

He needed a truck for work. She thought she needed a truck too, for the puppy. Ah yes, the puppy. The puppy had been introduced to his inter-cultural parents only two weeks before and as such was enjoying his reign as the boy king (reference borrowed from the protagonist’s older brother who had a habit for a time of addressing himself that way, not that long ago). They were keen on delivering the world to this puppy, though he wasn't keen on anything much other than biting our protagonist's arm until it turned black (addressed in previous blog).

Back to the facts. In Argentina, Autofoco is the premier used-car/truck forum, a print magazine which comes out twice weekly, plump with ads for outlandishly expensive used cars that in the States would collectively be valued at less than a lawnmower. Nonetheless, that’s the way it goes here. Each week, McShruyver would scour the ads for respectable prices and reliable wording, a difficult task when the average ad reads something like: “FORD RANGER, 1996, XLT, c/cup tron, access var, a/a d/h equipada, esc of ID 312’586 zona oeste 02202-44111” -- barely decipherable, and hardly revealing of malicious intentions, even if Spanish is your first language.

Phone calls and multiple-bus-line-journeys ensued to far-off chicken farms and mechanic shops to see just what all those abbreviations were really about. They were about nothing. Our McShruyver could often be found in these months on the couch at night staring into space (if down, at the nail clippings and bread-crumbs on the unswept floor / if up, at the ceiling fan blades whose edges were painted with dust), with a sour brow and a sagging frown.

With featherweight guidance from our protagonist and a discipline nearing monastic, McShruyver learned to use the internet and searched the online portal of Autofoco methodically, every night after work. And then one day, Eureka! A fine-looking Ranger, photographed like a stallion standing proud in well-kept emerald fields, in seemingly perfect condition for a remarkable price. Joyous at the thought of the world being just and delivering a gift when a gift was needed, our protagonist was bubbly and encouraging. And in less than 24 hours, McShruyver received a detailed response from the seller, Mario Alfredo Román Ortiz (from now on Mario Alfredo Román Ortiz), explaining that the Argentine couple had moved to England because the wife received a promotion (she was the assistant to the CEO of a shipping company). Mario Alfredo Román Ortiz went on to describe his situation in detail, dotting the t’s and crossing the i’s of his story of import taxes and registration difficulties associated with having taken the truck with them. In short, they wanted it gone and since it was registered in Argentina, back to Argentina it must go!

Well, it sounded plausible to our American protagonist, who once tried to buy a really, really used car in Ireland but failed for reasons we shall lump into the category “bureaucracy” (i.e. no money for insurance). And considering this, we stumble upon our first real clue as to how the disappearing-truck disaster could’ve happened (the shockingly low price (CLUE) and remote location of the goods (CLUE) were seen as factors of good fortune, not evidence of a scam): our protagonist used a totally irrelevant anecdote from her own life to conclude in favor of the viability of the Mario Alfredo Román Ortiz’s story. And she did this because she wanted the truck. And she wanted the truck search to be over, and to see McShruyver's sagging frown turn upside down. McShruyver, for his part, was skeptical but deferred to our protagonist’s worldly experience, he being a kind and reasonable person.

Then came the part about the payment process. Mario Alfredo Romån Ortiz wanted to ensure than there were safeguards for the transfer of the money, so he suggested using MercadoPago, a third-party which facilitates remote transactions. The buyer deposits money into a holding account, which is not released to the seller until the transaction is completed, and the buyer is approves of the purchase. A cursory peek at the MercadoPago website confirmed for our protagonist that this was a kosher deal, proposed in good faith and executed in good form.

The instruction stating that the payment had to be deposited in cash via Western Union to a MercadoPago agent (CLUE) did catch on the batting lashes of our protagonist, but having weathered stranger financial restrictions since living in Argentina, she took it as one more example of systematic dysfunction and brushed it off.

They would be depositing the funds to a certain Fernando Marcelo Gonzalez (CLUE), one of the Good People at MercadoPago, his “office” located at 32 Great Bridgewater M1 5LE in Manchester, UK, and said gentleman would be placing it in the MercadoPago holding account. The truck would then be shipped, expenses conveniently covered by the wife’s shipping company (perk of the business (CLUE)) and it would be greeted upon its arrival at the port by McShruyver who would run his fingers over the stallion and approve it as “the real deal.” Mario Alfredo Román Ortiz’s money would be released and all parties would write 5-star positive reviews about the other on the web.

It was a Friday morning when our protagonist and McShruyver sent in their savings, and they skipped straight to an internet cafe to scan in the receipts, because the sooner they did that, the sooner the truck would be put on the boat. And the sooner their boy king could go for a ride to the countryside, and go the bathroom under a real tree, his favorite thing to of all things in the world.

After that, they kept skipping and went home and celebrated their new life, each dreaming of all of the things they could carry in that flatbed.

An eerie email silence from M.A.R.O overtook the mood (CLUE), given his prior habit of immediate response, but McShruyver assured our protagonist that it was the weekend and not to worry. Our protagonist however did just that. She urged McShruyver to call Mario Alfredo Román Ortiz, so he did and they had a nice chat. Yes, Mario Alfredo Román Ortiz received the email with the receipts, and he himself would put the truck on the boat first thing Monday morning.

Despite the good news, our protagonist was feeling increasingly unsure, and on Saturday, walking home from class, she threw up in a trashcan hanging from a light post.

Deciding to sit in a park for a little bit to cool off, she choose poorly and selected a bench next to a homeless couple who had a domestic spat which evolved into violence and the police were called.

Our protagonist, now duly dismayed, ran the few blocks home and went straight to the computer, feverishly searching “internet fraud.” She found the page on MercadoPago’s site, which she had NOT read before surrendering over their joint savings, that had guidelines for identifying false emails and scams using their company’s name.

Scanning the list, her eyes popped like a fly’s when she saw “MercadoPago always refers to you by first name. Fraudulent emails will often address the recipient generally or using a last name.” And of course, further down was the point enumerating the methods of payment acceptable, indicating that if the email says that payment in cash, via Western Union, is the only option, it...is...FRAUD.

A sensation so ugly and overwhelming overtook our protagonist that her neighbors next door might as well have assumed that locked in the apartment was a pet rhinoceros with the stomach flu. Tortured cries and repeated mutterings of “oh my god, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no” saturated the sound waves of the apartment until it seemed that all of the oxygen previously floating nearby had been sucked in to her body through her sobs and everything else around her crumbled into powder.

She called and called and called McShruyver but he was out.

“Oh my god, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.”

An hour later when he finally returned back to work, she spat out in broken breaths. There is no boat (INHALE, SOB). There is no truck (SOB, SOB, INHALE). There is no Mario (INHALE) Alfredo (SOB) Román (HEAVE) Ortiz...

"What do you mean?"

"We’ve been had."

And he said calmly and kind, “Don’t worry, baby. We’ll figure something out. I’m coming home.”

But as he was hanging up she heard him say to nobody in particular, “Son of a bitch, what do we do now?”

THE END

(of part 1 -- there is a post script to this story)