My parents was telling me about this old $2 bill that was given to my brother a long time ago and how it is suppose to be worth about $500 or so now. That brought up a discussion about saving old money currency as a form of investment.

I’ve never really been into this type of investing/collecting as I guess during the time where the currency in question is in abundance you tend to not think too much of it. Just the thought of say a very old penny being worth say $10 seems kind of strange. Something like that one million dollar coin I heard about before seems more like an investment to me.

Then again, I guess like any type of collecting the dollar value of the items are subjective and some people would be willing to pay big amounts for it.

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Speaking of sorting your true supporters in life, I was just reading the front page of the Vancouver Sun newspaper today and there was this story about a court case involving a lottery winner and how he was defrauded out of millions of dollars from a couple that became very close friends with him after he won the jackpot.

In a nutshell, from what I read the person was a carpet cleaner who occasionally preformed services on the couple’s house. The carpet cleaner bumped into the husband one day and since the carpet cleaner looked up to the couple in some ways they began chatting with each other more frequently. As evident, he then won about $24,000,000 in a lottery and as a result he was congratulated by them and they became very close friends afterwards.

I guess we all know what happens next when people suddenly become like your best friend once they know you have money huh? I thought this incident was so conniving from a business and personal stance. The carpet cleaner was defrauded by the husband into investing millions of dollars into a company with a promise of some sort that he could sell it for like $20,000,000 afterwards and would give him a fifty percent share in it.

Not only was the value of the company well below what was claimed, but he did not share financial records of the company that was being purchased despite requests. Even though the lottery winner was weary over this, the person convinced him to trust him based on their apparent very close friendship and as a result millions of dollars were transferred over to him.

Shortly after, it was discovered that the money was mostly used for things such as paying off a mortgage for a house as well as buying a new car. To add to the sophistication about $100,000 was spent on lawyers to try and “cover up” the situation I guess you can say. Although, the person did learn the truth afterwards and took the couple to court. It was also mentioned that they would get jail time as well as a result of some of their conduct to continually mislead about the situation in various ways.

While I guess for one thing there is a business lesson in this on how you should rightfully be weary if someone uses friendship as a reason to simply trust their word for a business transaction, I was just thinking how it is so crazy on the lengths that some people will go to in an effort to try and defraud people that they have some kind of close relationship with for some kind of financial gain.

It’s stories like these that make certain precautions that people take, such as in my previous post, sound like the sensible thing to do. Even as a kid I’ve always heard the examples on how you should sit down and think where if you took away all of your items or belongings that make you popular how many “friends” would you truly have afterwards still?

As we get older we expect people to naturally value other people better as oppose to being like a child that always just wants more things without thinking about the welfare of others. Make no mistake about it, a lot of people are simply just out there to leach from you until there is nothing left to take and are willing to put on any type of mask to do so. To them, they haven’t realized yet that money isn’t everything in life.

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I just took this silly online test for fun which was suppose to find out how much money someone would have to pay you to say do something you would normally be against. I was looking at the scoreboard and it seems like people had price tags such as $250,000 or even one billion dollars. I guess in general the concept was the higher the amount the harder it is to get the person to do something.

So I did the test and I thought it was broken at first as the test said “No Price”. Then I read the result and then it all made sense as you can see here:

While this was all fun and games, I was thinking how this is an important scenario that people face everyday where we get enticed with money and materialistic gains to do things that would not exactly be considered admirable. Especially in a business environment, it can really create anarchy.

From my personal experience, everyone I have known who has ever allowed money to take over their judgment has ended up losing more in the long run whether it be from a financial point of view or a social one. Another way I think about it is that some people say success is always about the journey and so you could be cutting yourself short in the long run by doing irrational things solely because of money.

In the end, money is just an object that you control and not the other way around.

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A person asked me recently where once myself and a few other people are successful in holding a specific individual accountable for lying and cheating people financially on whether or not the person can ever buy back my trust by financially compensating back more than the original amount. For example, it would be like someone stealing candy from a store and then having to pay for it while offering to pay more as well in an attempt to have a good standing record with them again.

My personal answer was definitely no to that. The one time so far where I can specifically remember where someone offered to financially compensate me to earn my trust again was actually for a job when I was younger. It was a pretty typical example too where I’m sure a lot of people have experienced as a person tells you how great you are and all that when it comes to work yet you find out that they are undercutting you in every way possible with some shady tactics.

Maybe it’s just me, but whenever people try to buy back trust with money especially after the fact that the damage has already been done that it usually feels like they are doing it to save their own face as oppose to genuinely changing.

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A person was talking to me about a segment that appeared on the Oprah show that talked about how there was a lady that kept borrowing money from her family members to live on and as a result everyone was then suffering financially. I did go to the website to read a recap of it and it was definitely a precarious situation. The lady who was borrowing money decided to do things such as buying a new TV instead of using the money to pay for her rent.

I actually knew a person who did something similar as he constantly complained he was suffering financially with no money to live. Sure enough, when he was given thousands of dollars from friends and family members he decides to blow it on high tech electronic gizmos and other unnecessary things just to go back to others again to say he needed more.

From what I read in the recap, it was kind of interesting as the way they were trying to get through to the person was to make herself realize and admit that every time she didn’t pay people back or say her bills that she was simply lying her way through life. Seems like it was to a point where it was implied that how one handles money is a reflection of their character in general. Unfair assessment? Fair assessment?

One thing that I read from the recap was how some people would look at your FICO scores for more than just money loaning issues. It mentioned that it could also play a factor in a person’s employment chances. That was kind of interesting I thought as I have never personally seen an employer request for such information. I personally have a score of 800+ for the longest time, but that would still be kind of weird I think to use that information for purposes other than credit issues and such.

At the end the family members decided to stop supporting the person financially and to let her fend for herself. That’s the only way to do it based on the people I have met who consistently rely on others financially. When you think about it, there is a difference between helping a situation and encouraging it to continue.

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