Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Scam Alert


This isn't a one of the funny, sarcastic stories I often post - don't worry, I'll be posting another one of those in a little while - but I think it's important that everyone knows about what could be a dangerous new scam.

A little bit about Internet scams and unethical placement on the Internet: It's a common practice for scammers and those that want to make money without actually having to pull-in an Internet audience to secure domain names that resemble those of popular sites. The rationale - a correct, but unfortunate one - is that people will often mistype the domain name they're actually looking for and land on the scam page, or be redirected to it. Recently, I mistyped google.com and went to google.cm, which redirects to a place called blockbuster.valuableoffers.net (screenshot above). Needless to say, this is most likely not a real offer. No ethical company (in its right mind, anyway) would ever redirect you from a false domain and I'm betting Blockbuster has no affiliation with "valuableoffers.net". If they do, it's a very dubious, unethical operation. I'm more than willing to make the logical assumption that, should you be foolish enough to fill in the information on the landing page, then you will have your credit ruined and your identity stolen. I'm writing to the Blockbuster corporation right now to ask if this is legitimate or not and, if it is for real, advice that they stop this very seemingly shady practice immediately.

Beware people! As I often tell my parents so they can avoid Internet scams: if something about it doesn't make sense, it's a scam. Now back to your regularly scheduled hilarity!

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