How My Latent Biases Led to Being Scammed

When my husband and I decided to leave California behind and move to Germany in 2015, we figured it would be an adventure, to say the least. 

I took a break from my career in communications and marketing to manage the household, learn some German, and focus on writing a blog and short stories. He was coming off a work hiatus and eager to get back in the game. 

You learn a lot about yourself when you jump into another culture to live. You learn even more when you give up some sense of newfound stability to start over yet again.

After 18 months in Hamburg, my husband was caught in a company layoff--the second round in just six months. He knew it was coming, and had been looking for a new job. But the initial move had depleted our funds, and with a single income we were only slowly building back our nest egg. Could we afford another relocation in less than two years? 

Amid the hand-wringing of where to look, related financial implications, and the whirlwind of global interviews, our 16-year-old cat succumbed to kidney disease. For a no-kids two-cat couple, it was devastating. 

Our cat's response to yet another move.

Then came the stress of the move. From the ultra-competitive Munich housing market where listing agents didn’t even call back, to our first relocation agent who decided she didn’t need the work, to the moving company who decided that two guys would be enough to pack and load us when it had taken four guys to get us here. 

In our final 24 hours in Hamburg, there were last-minute doctor appointments, a late-night/early-morning cleaning and touch-up painting of the apartment, and the beginning of a 6-hour train ride to Bavaria with our resentful remaining cat.

All of this background is to show where my head was at when The Incident happened. The stress, the fatigue, and the reluctance to leave a place I’d come to love may be valid reasons to be off my game. But they could also just be excuses. 

The fact is, I got scammed. 

I cringe as I type it, because this would not have happened to the old me. I was too world-wise and cynical, sure of how things worked (and how they didn’t) to ever be snared by something so stupid. But the new me, the living-abroad me, could be said to be overly accepting about the new world around me. 

That stems, in part, from this inflated idea that I am setting an example as an American: “Hey, we’re not all self-centered isolationists. I’m learning some of the language and culture, I’m trying to be a decent world citizen.” (Especially these days, when everyone wants to understand the whole Trump thing.) 

No robbery, no Nigerian bank scheme.
This was the simple object of deception

So what happened? Long story short: Our new apartment didn't have a refrigerator. A week of negotiaing features led to Amazon.de, where I found a too-good-to-be-true model that fit all of our requirements, including price. After contacting the seller as requested in the listing, and following the instructions for a third-party transaction in the official-looking Amazon email I received, I sent the money, and we waited another several days in vain for our new frig.

Yes, I ignored clear warning signs. You can call it the tragedy of hope or optimism—when you want something so badly you make yourself see the stars aligning in your favor, and squelch any tinges of skepticism.

It's that hubris I mentioned above, taken to extreme, that led to my downfall. I got conned because of my unconscious bias about my own country--that we Americans have cornered the market on greed and opportunism, so surely I could let my guard down in my new life. 

In trying to focus so much on equality of thought, I forgot to consider all aspects of that equality. That it's okay to be cautious. Not because something is different, but because when something in you says this feels wrong, you need to learn more about it.

As I forgive myself for that part of my error, I have to come to grips with the other half. I truly believe it's an incomparable privilege to be an American, and to be able to criticize and praise my home equally. So where did this bias come from? 

Is it my reaction to our uneasy political climate and increased tolerance of bigotry? Is it born of the influence of the people around me? (I have been flabbergasted by some of the ideas locals and expats from other countries have about life in America.) 

It's something I need to explore further, but I think recognizing it is my first step forward. In the meantime, what do I do? Do I tell myself, “I told you so,” and go back to looking at the unfamiliar through skeptical eyes? Do I turn complex shades of different behaviors and customs into black-and-white comparisons of good v. bad or better v. worse? 

Even if I wanted to,  I don’t think I can. Not anymore. I think you are who you are at your core, but the layers you wear to protect that inner you can shrink, wear out, or just not feel flattering anymore. I’ve kept the pieces I want to keep from my old life, and shed the ones that were holding me back. 

It’s good to move forward with my eyes more open, but it needs to be matched by my ears and my mouth and my heart. I should think of the example I want to set as a human being, and not always think I have to pick up the mantle of my country or my race or whatever affiliation might have some stake in a particular situation.

There’s much more for me to learn about myself and the world around me, and I want to spend the rest of my life traveling down that path. 

I guess now I just have to be a bit more mindful of the ruts in the road.