The time I made up an accent for a scammer

I try not to typecast but this one time, I did this thing in my head that I'm not very proud of and here's the story. I was selling something on FB marketplace earlier this year and I specifically said C.O.D. in my post. This guy said he wanted to buy it but when it came time to arrange where to meet, he said he is from Singapore. He insisted he really wanted the item and he would pay me first and then arrange pickup. His profile had a Chinese name but the way he wrote his messages was a little weird. It wasn't perfect English but it was also not Singlish. There was something weird about his English but I couldn't put my finger on it. I was already thinking this guy is not who he says he is, so I should bail at the first sign of trouble. But we continued the process, and of course when it was time to pay, his "payment" didn't come through. So he wrote something like "No problem. I show you how to get back your money..." and immediately, I read that message, along with all his previous messages, with a Nigerian accent and it was a perfect fit! I'm not saying all Nigerians are scammers or all scammers are Nigerians, but at that moment, that was that was the prejudice that came out of me and everything clicked together perfectly, at least in my head. Needless to say, the deal was off and I kept the item. Story over. You may judge me now.

Edit: I originally posted this on Facebook but one friend asked what was my purpose in writing it? I said it was for myself to process my reaction at that time. She said that is good but social media is not a good place for it as it reinforced many negative stereotypes and I agreed to take it off Facebook and put it here, on my blog that nobody reads. In any case, I just want to mention that this story was me exploring all the prejudices we didn't even realise are in our heads.

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