...if anyone's still reading (can't blame you if you aren't, 'cause I've been way too busy with regular ol' life to update this blog), you should probably update your bookmarks. I'm not going to renew my domain name when it expires because, hey, that's effort - and I can spend the ten bucks on cigarettes.
Hit up this blog at http://likeiknowwhatimdoing.blogspot.com in the future, if you would.
You know what I really hate about MS Word? Besides the obvious answer that the '07 version was designed by a team of crack-addicted monkeys?
Clippy. I despise that insolent little paper clip and his smarmy, "May I help you, moron?" attitude. Like I REALLY need an animated office supply's assistance to draft a letter. And it's NOT like I asked for his help in the first place - but there he is, waiting to pounce on my Word document until I turn off his "helpfulness."
However, there's hope. A contributor over at Cracked.com gives Clippy what he really deserves.
Yesterday was not a good day for Americans who play poker on the Internet. I'm unhappy, to say the very least, about this whole "Let's take their money - without a warrant, no less! Because we're the feds!" crap.
The Poker Players Alliance has released a statement explaining what in the world is going on:
[NY] PPA Statement on Southern District of NY Action Against Online Poker Players - PPA (06/09/09)
I’m officially pissed off at keyboards in general right now, because it’s occurred to me that I’ve had to replace mine every 1.5 to 2 years. Writing, school, and work keep me typing for a few hours every day, if not longer. Around my house, I’m notorious for wearing out, breaking, and replacing keyboards, because the modern designs are not nearly as good as the ones that companies like IBM used to crank out.
Let’s see: I’ve been doing lots of typing since about age thirteen or fourteen. With only a few breaks (like when I joined the Army and, obviously, left home) I’ve been mostly responsible for several keyboards’ sad, sad deaths.
There were two early-generation Microsoft Ergo Boards that died. There were at least three cheap, ten-dollar keyboards somewhere in there that I flat wore out. I’ve gone through two of my own, ergonomic keyboards, including a fairly-rugged Belkin that actually held up for a little more than two years despite heavy usage.
Silk-screened letters wear off. Spacebars crap out. Whole sections of the keyboards just stop responding. Even when I routinely clean out these things, and even when I’m very careful to keep crap out of them – liquids, food crumbs, that sort of thing – they still wear out and break long before I think they should.
Right now, I’m using a Microsoft ergonomic model that I’ve had for several months. This thing is starting to piss me off, because the keys aren’t responding like they did when this first came out of the box. These stupid tactile-mat, “dome” ‘boards get that “mushy” feel after awhile, because they’re foreign-made, cheap pieces of garbage. The really-sad part is that I’ll pay ten, sixty, seventy dollars for these pieces of crap.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the IBM “M” model keyboard that I got with an old IBM 286 PC when I was in my mid teens. Even back then, all of this was outdated equipment, but the computer got online and ran Microsoft Word just fine, which were my two main concerns. And the keyboard…oh, my goodness, the keyboard! It weighed several pounds because there was a solid-metal base to it, and the removable key caps were etched: IBM didn’t use silk screening, or stickers, to put the characters on the keys. Even when I pulled off the caps and dumped them in a bucket of soap and warm water, the letters stayed because they were etched.
I could take apart the ‘board, too, and give the plastic top a good scrubbing. Putting the thing back together didn’t take long, and I was good to go for another several months, if not longer, without any work on my part.
Oh…and mine had a coiled cable, much like old telephone cords. Sweet? You bet.
So, I’m on the lookout for another one, and hope that I find an old, dusty one for a few bucks. Otherwise, I’ll have to cough up sixty, eighty bucks at this site for a refurbished model. As much as I appreciate the fact that these people have done all the work for me…I’d really rather save my money and clean up the ‘board myself.
By the way: if I ruled the world, I’d have the rare, ergonomic version. Yes, they did exist. They’re very difficult to find, though, which is sad because that would be absolutely perfect as far as I’m concerned. If you just happen to have one lying around, wasting space in your garage or attic or something, I would LOVE to talk with you about possibly acquiring it. Just saying.
I am all for buying music, or at least legally obtaining used CDs. However, I'm not going to complain when an artist- and industry-approved source of legally-free downloads pops up - not unless there's some sort of major problem with the service, anyway.
Lately, I've been grabbing music from SpiralFrog: a service that's completely free because it's ad supported. There are pros and cons to this site, so you'll want to know a little about that before you go sign up, I'm sure.
The Pros:
Legally-free music. SpiralFrog has a huge catalog. They're constantly adding new and old releases alike, giving me plenty of choices. Not every artist is represented, of course. Metallica is, naturally, absent, because they're a bunch of silly men who don't understand that they could be MAKING MONEY off this service. The Beatles aren't represented, either, and you're going to have a bit of a tough time finding independent artists here.
The advertisements are embedded on the Web site. You don't have to interact with them at all unless you choose to do so. They don't pop up (if you use FireFox, anyway - I've never visited this site with another browser, so I could be wrong here), and you don't have to click on them to start your downloads.
The search function is actually pretty decent. It's not too difficult to find what I want, if the site has it available at least.
The Cons:
The audio quality is not as good as what you would get on CD. If you're particular about your music, this might not work for you. But if you really don't care, it's worth it.
You can download only one song at a time. This stinks if you have a super-mega-fast Internet connection. I for one would love to be able to grab three or four songs at a time.
The files are copy protected. This lockdown prevents Microsoft's Zune and Apple's iPod from recognizing, much less playing, your files. This is stupid. This is pointless, because you fulfilled your end of the bargain (having the ads on the Web site while you browse and download) and, therefore, have paid up. This is also easily fixed for less than twenty bucks courtesy of a wonderful little program called TuneBite. It's well worth the investment. Trust me.
You have to log in at least once every thirty days and download a song file. Otherwise, your already-downloaded files expire. You can reclaim them, without downloading again, by logging in later. This isn't a big deal, because I imagine that most of us will show up once a month to download a song or two. However, the licensing agreements that require this are just, well, stupid. This goes back to that whole "dude, I paid up, so to speak" argument.
You do have to download a small piece of software to make SpiralFrog work on your PC. There is not, the last time I checked, a Mac version, meaning that you Apple-kissing, self-righteous snobs will just have to keep using the iTunes store at .99 a pop, plus tax, to satisfy your elitist cravings. Boo-hoo.
Overall, SpiralFrog is well worth the time. Free downloads that the artists and RIAA support? Sweet.
Also: there are other, similar sites out there, that attempt to do the same thing. One site - and I can't remember which one, sorry - embeds ads either before or after the song. So, every time you play the song that you've legally downloaded, you get to listen to an ad. Yeah, that sounds like fun, doesn't it? SpiralFrog's idea is way better.
So, um, you remember how it was back in the day, when Brody and the rest of The Distillers were tearin' up the punk scene and all that good stuff? And, uh, do you still get all excited when your media player of choice is in shuffle mode, and suddenly picks up "Beat Your Heart Out" or, well, pretty much any other track from Coral Fang? Yeah, me too.
If you missed Brody tons and tons, you're going to want to go to Spinnerette's Web site and download their new EP, Ghetto Love. This is Brody's new band, and they've finally produced something that we can buy and enjoy!
It's only five bucks. Really, folks, that's a fair price to pay for four awesome tracks, plus digital copies of the EP's artwork and some videos.
Edit: I just found the EP at SpiralFrog. This is a legal, free download site. I don't know why I didn't check there first, seeing as I've been a SpiralFrog user for a few months or so now. Oh, well. The purchased downloads are higher quality than the SpiralFrog downloads, so I did get something good for my money.
However, this is not "The Distillers, Part 2: The Reunion." Spinnerette has a pop-tinted rock sound that The Distillers never quite achieved, even when they cranked out their last album. Spinnerette shows us a Brody who's still angry, and who can still bash out hardcore lyrics...but she's more controlled, and the backing music isn't quite what you would expect. As long as you're down with an artist growing and changing, without losing any of the talent and uniqueness that made her so awesome, you'll probably dig the new work.
This is good stuff - really good. I thoroughly enjoy the new EP. It's solid, both musically and lyrically. Brody's officially back, and she's as talented and entertaining as ever.
Go. Download. Enjoy.
And if you, for some bizarre reason, do not own any Distillers albums, you can check out eMusic or Amazon to get your fix. Just saying.
Huge thanks to Tam for sending some Dear Readers my way. Okay. It's not "some" so much as "Holy cow - more than, like, four people have seen my blog now!"
MTV’s “Daria” originally aired when I was a teenager. Being just the right age, at just the right time, I really enjoyed the TV series. This was my favorite show at the time, and I’m still a bit sad that it’s no longer airing on The N, as it was a few years ago in syndication.
Being slightly nostalgic, I’ve been looking around to see if the animated series is available on DVD. Sadly, there is no such thing as a “Daria” box set. MTV/Viacom has not, despite many requests from loyal Daria Morgendorffer fans, released anything but the full-length feature films (“Is It College Yet?” being the later one) and the occasional VHS tape, which one can buy through Amazon’s Marketplace if one is so inclined.
The problem is that there are Web sites claiming to have the entire series for sale. For as little as thirty dollars, you can buy every season, with pilot episodes, in a box set that even includes artwork.
Guess what? They’re pirated copies. Somebody recorded the show from his or her TV, more likely than not, and has packaged every episode for illegal redistribution. If you buy one of these box sets, you can reasonably expect to receive a piece of crap.
Picture and audio quality might not be great, because the bootlegs are likely nothing more than TV recordings. If the pirates in question snagged the feed from The N, that network’s logo will appear on the bottom of the screen. You might also see some poorly-timed starts and stops, because “Daria” always aired with commercial breaks, whether it was on MTV or The N.
Then there are the actual DVDs. They’ll be plain old DVD-Rs, which means that they’re more sensitive to scratches than the commercially manufactured versions. If the DVDs are labeled, which is not a guarantee, then it’s likely to be a poor print job.
Overall, pirated copies of anything – movies, records, TV shows – are crap. They aren’t commercially dubbed or packaged, so you aren’t going to get the best that an entire team of designers and other employees can offer. Instead, you’re paying for some thief in a dank, stinking basement to run as many files through his DVD burner as he can, as quickly as he can.
So, I wrote to MTV, asking them to please consider releasing this show on DVD. I would gladly pay for it, which I don’t say about many TV shows. The studio will make money, I’ll get my “Daria” fix, and the bootleggers won’t have the market cornered anymore. Everybody wins in this case, as far as I can see at least.
I know that some of you are accessing the Internet from shared connections: university and/or work. That being the case, you might not be allowed to download Firefox and use that instead of Internet Explorer.
Good news: Firefox has a portable version. You can run the browser, with many of your favorite add-ons, from your USB (flash) drive. This eliminates the need to install anything on the PC in question. This might be useful information for those of you who use Firefox at home, but can't at school/work because of those systems' programming.
That way, you aren't stuck with cruddy IE, which is a giant, steaming turd of a Web browser. Inferior security, not nearly as customizable as Firefox, and, oh yeah, a Microsoft program. (Yep. I knock Bill Gates' offerings even though I'm a die-hard Windows lover.)
It looks like a mega-buttload of people are trying to find a video clip of Stewie ("Family Guy") singing the "Establishment" song.
Look. I don't have it, okay? It's copyrighted material, and FOX is fairly adept at enforcing its legal holdings. Even if I had that season on DVD, I wouldn't rip that clip to my hard drive to share with y'all. I have better things to do than square off with a mega-network over a video clip. Really. Like...clip my toenails, or pick cat hair off my favorite baseball cap.
You can, however, go buy season four of "Family Guy" on DVD and enjoy that clip to your heart's content.
Episode number fifteen: ""Brian Goes Back to College (And Stewie Goes With Him for Obvious Comedic Reasons)" - that's the one you want.
You can pick up the set at pretty much any discount-department/entertainment store, as well as Amazon, online-auction sites, et cetera. A lot of retailers will probably even have this sort of thing on sale soon, it being the holiday-shopping season and all.
P.S. Learn the rules!
Let me say, first, that I'm not into software piracy. I'm a happy capitalist, folks: if PhotoShop's owners want a few hundred bucks for the full-tilt, happy-crazy-good version of their work, then they have every right to charge that. Their product, their prerogative.
I don't, however, always buy software. This is because I'm a big fan of the open-source alternatives that are slowly filling up my huge hard drive.
Open source, for anybody who does not know, is legally-free software. Programmers work, individually or as teams, to produce programs that they hope people will like.
If you're a non-programmer like me, you can enjoy the fact that somebody is willing to give away a valuable product. And if you're actually into programming? Well, you get open-source code to tweak, improve, or otherwise alter.
Either way, you get something for free, without worrying about paying huge fines or violating whatever moral code you might have.
Here are some of the best open-source programs I've used so far. You can also visit SourceForge to look for other software that you might need or want.
The GIMP - a wonderful alternative to PhotoShop that works quite well for the average computer users. Unless you're, say, a professional graphic artist, you probably won't need anything more flexible or powerful than this for your photos and other images.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/?from=getfirefox - a fairly-secure, highly-customizable Web browser. Be sure to check out the add-ons. Most of them are tiny (measured in kb, in fact) and can do everything from block advertisements to tell you the time all over the world.
EditPad Lite - a kick-ass alternative to Windows Notepad. I like the fact that I can have multiple tabs in this program, among other things.
OpenOffice - not currently on my system because Microsoft Office 2007 came bundled with this thing. However, I've used OpenOffice before, and was very pleased with the results. If you need the various Office components, but can't afford that high-priced bloatware, give this a try.
AVG AntiVirus Free Edition - a non-bloated, auto-updating, user-friendly alternative to the commercial anti-virus programs out there. I loathe Norton and, after discovering this alternative, dumped that piece of garbage. That was three years ago and I haven't had any virus on any system that's running AVG. (My computer, my siblings' computers, Mom's computer...all of them have stayed clean.)
Trillian Basic - a small IM application that lets you add Yahoo!, MSN, AIM and ICQ accounts. No more begging my buddies to get on Yahoo! IM...or having multiple IM applications running.
Those are just my personal favorites. There are tons of other options out there, that do all sorts of neat things.
Dear Professors:
I am not in any Political Science classes this semester. In fact: I am taking only English classes. We are not, at this point in the term, reading or writing anything even remotely related to politics.
Therefore, kindly shut up about the conventions, the upcoming election, the evil Democrats/Republicans/other parties, and everything else that you really don't have the privilege of inflicting on us during the block of time that is allotted for your lecture.
We don't want to waste ten minutes of the class period listening to your trifling rants. Surely you have a more appropriate outlet for your frustrated whining? Don't you have friends? Fellow professors? The ability to figure out how to post to the Craigslist "Rants and Raves" section? A brick wall?
You don't want to hear our drivel during class time. We're expected to discuss relevant topics and material, ask questions, answer your questions, take our exams, turn in our finals, et cetera. We don't have the privilege of twisting your ears with our personal thoughts, stories or opinions.
We expect the same from you. A brief "Hey, how was everybody's weekend?" discussion is fine, especially when we're in class a few minutes before the official start time. But don't waste our actual class time. We're here to learn about the subjects listed in the course descriptions, not indulge your delusions of importance.
Get a frickin' blog. They're free. You can anonymously post all of your thoughts, rants, whining, whatever. Or are you afraid that, because you can't hold bloggers captive (unlike students), nobody will pay any attention?
Dear Article Thieves:
Thank you very much for stealing my writing. I'm flattered that you chose my Web content to steal from the Web site that makes it available for purchase. Heaven forbid you actually pay for the articles that draw visitors to your sites. I would hate for you to actually invest something so that you could legitimately earn those Google AdSense profits.
You testicle-slurping, mouth-breathing pieces of fecal matter.
You may all locate the nearest axe handles, insert them in your rectums, and run backward into the nearest brick walls.
Then, you should use rusting, dull kitchen knives to remove your testicles. Be sure to cauterize the wounds with plenty of rubbing alcohol. I would hate for any of you to be capable of reproducing, as the last thing that we need on this planet is another generation of spineless, scum-chewing, infectious waste.
Please also douse yourselves in hi-test gasoline, strike Zippos, and run down the street until your faces melt off and you collapse in oozing, flaming puddles.
While you're accomplishing all of those directives, you should also gouge out your navels with corkscrews.
Every one of you should fall down, be eaten by worms and die - in that order.
My university uses Listserv to communicate within the various departments. This, for anybody who does not know, is an e-mail database that allows students, faculty and staff to send and receive mass e-mails. We English majors are automatically subscribed to the English Listserv, which allows us to communicate with everybody else in this department.
Every student on this Listserv is an English major. We have all chosen to specialize in the English language - mostly written, but oral as well - for at least four years of our lives. We are allegedly intelligent, and we are supposedly mastering the English language.
These assumptions, however, dissipate when I read some of the e-mails that fellow English majors send to everybody else on the list. Though I do understand that our society places little, if any, emphasis on proper e-mail etiquette, we are English majors. We should be capable of nearly-flawless grammar and spelling - especially if we are upperclassmen.
Though I do not care what a fellow English student does, or does not do, when e-mailing friends and relatives, I do care about the unsightly errors that Silly Student and his buddy, Clueless Girl, make when they compose e-mails to everybody in the English department. We are among fellow scholars. We should act appropriately when we write these messages. Advisors, faculty and staff all read these messages. What are these professionals going to think of us if we do not put any effort into our written communications? Do we not realize that we will, at some point in the future, ask these men and women for letters of recommendation for graduate school and/or employment? Why should any of them recommend us for anything if we do not take e-mail seriously?
In the last two weeks, I have seen multiple errors. Many of these mistakes were basic flaws in the authors' messages. I will not publish the actual quotes here, but here are different examples with identical errors.
"I found my best friend's e-mail address and sent them a message."
"Theres nothing wrong with my understanding of the apostrophe."
"Get out of my way!!!"
"Stop jumping all over my case All i want is respect"
We are English majors. As such, we are supposed to love the language enough to treat it with care and respect. Our goal is to communicate clearly. If our e-mails to department heads and faculty members are full of grammar and spelling errors, we are obviously not doing our jobs. We are being lazy, which is not excusable if we have chosen to devote at least four years of our lives to studying, and mastering, this wonderful language.
Some will say, "Who cares? You're just writing an e-mail." And to them, I say, "If somebody cannot be bothered to take a simple e-mail seriously, then how can anybody trust that person to take larger tasks seriously?"
Late last year, I bought Mom a new PC.
PC: Hey…somebody tell Printer that I’m not speaking to it.
Printer: Hello? HELLO? I heard that, PC! I know what you’re doing. You’d better recognize me.
PC: Did you hear something, Sarah’s Laptop? What? You’ve made a new friend? Oh, well, I’m not going to speak to YOU anymore, either.
Sarah’s Laptop: Don’t be such a bonehead, PC. Just let the Printer come in and do its job already.
PC: Yeah? Well, I don’t have to listen to you anyway. You’re running XP. You’re OLD. OLD FART!
Printer: Dude, let’s just go already. PC’s never going to get it.
Sarah’s Laptop: You’re right. Now, how would you like to print Sarah’s thirty-page short story?
Printer: I’d LOVE that! Let’s take five seconds to spool the job and get to it!
Me: Huh?
Mom: LOOK!
Mom: IT’S RUNNING XP.
Me: Really? Oh, hey, it’s only 500 bucks. I bet I can get it for about 550 at Best Buy.
Mom: IT’S RUNNING XP.
Me: Yeah, I know. Hey, look – it has two gigs of memory and comes with a decent monitor. Sweet.
Mom: IT’S RUNNING XP.
Me: Yes, I know. Had I been able to find an XP-loaded PC last year, I would have brought you one. Honest.
Mom: I know. But this sucks.
Me: I know.
Mom: I have to find a full version of XP so that I can downgrade.
Me: Yep.
Whenever an Advance Fee Fraud victim comes forward with his or her story, I have to get pissed off at some of the responses. It seems that, no matter what the circumstances behind that victim's loss - no matter what con the scammer ran, or how much the victim lost - some people believe that it was the victim's fault.
As if those who say these things have never believed any lie in their entire lives. Yeah. Right. They were born with a perfect sense of discernment, I'm sure, and have always, 100 percent of the time, been wise to every possible lie, trick and scam out there.
Anybody who believed in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy lacks the perfect discernment that is required to believe that he's superior to AFF victims. A person is capable of believing lies if he's ever caught a significant other cheating - because, for a period of time, he believed that his sweet, wonderful lover was honest with him.
A person's discernment is flawed if he's ever worked on a construction site and wandered around, looking for the board stretcher,
Oh, sure, there's rarely, if ever, any money lost in those situations. Unless, of course, the cheating spouse took half in the divorce. But the point remains that we've all been lied to before. And we've all believed a lie before.
So why are some people blaming the victims? Because it makes them feel better about their intelligence. If they can look down on somebody who's lost his life savings to a scammer, they can say, "Yeah, I spent half an hour looking for that board stretcher, and everybody on the job site laughed at me for two weeks, but at least I'm not as stupid as that idiot."
Blaming the victim is unfair and rather cruel. If a woman is asleep when a rapist breaks into her house, is she to blame? Should she have stayed awake all night with a shotgun, just in case somebody broke in to commit a crime? Is it her fault that a criminal chose to target her when she was not prepared to deal with him? Of course not. She's a victim. And not many people in their right minds would even think of claiming that she's at fault for daring to go to sleep in her own bedroom at night like the rest of us do.
If you're stopped at a red light and a carjacker sticks a gun in your face, are you to blame? Of course not. You weren't prepared to deal with a criminal. He found you, and targeted you because you looked like a good victim. Only insane people would try to blame you for daring to follow traffic laws by stopping at that red light.
The criminals, not their victims, are the bad guys here. They tell all sorts of stories - some of which take months, if not years, to develop with one victim - in order to steal. They're liars. Some are kidnappers. A few are murderers. They're filthy, diseased vermin who deserve to rot in prison for their crimes.
Their victims already feel rotten enough for believing the lies. Heaping abuse on them - talking about the victim in one's hometown, or polluting the Internet with commentary about a victim's gullibility - does not help the situation.
If you want to help one of your favorite causes just by sitting on your butt - much like I'm doing right now, in fact - you can use a search engine to that organization's advantage.
Just direct your browser to Good Search and look toward the middle of what's visible on your screen. Search for the organization that you'd like to help. Now use this search engine just like you would use Google or Yahoo!, Ask.com or whatever it is that you've been using to find your gun porn.
And just for the record: you fellow gun nuts can help the National Rifle Association every time you search for, well, anything, really. I've set Good Search to share the cash with the NRA's Civil Rights Defense Fund. You can choose other NRA funds, but this one seems like a good one for me to support.
Oh, and you should go through Good Search to hit Amazon.com, Target, and other shopping sites. The participating sites donate a percentage of the sale to the organization you've chosen.
You're probably thinking, "Okay, so the search engine sucks, right?"
Actually, Good Search is good - so far, anyway. I get real search results instead of a bunch of garbage. And in my not-scientific-at-all, totally-random search comparisons, Good Search does as well as Google where search results go.
That might not be saying much to you, but I was a Google freak until I found Good Search.
Oh, and if you use Firefox (which you should be doing, unless you're using Opera - because these are the only two Web browsers that deserve to be on any good guy or gal's PC), you can add Good Search to Firefox's search bar. This whole searching-for-the-greater-good thing could get better only if mind-reading hamsters typed for me.
Give it a try. If you don't like it, you can always, you know, go back to what you were doing before.
Lately, I've been answering questions about e-mail lottery scams. So I thought that I would just compile a nice, comprehensive bit of information about them and put it here for future reference.
A lottery scam is basically a scam e-mail that reads, "Hey! You've won the lottery! Write back to us for instructions on how to claim your prize!" That's not the exact wording, but that's the gist of the message. You somehow managed to win a lottery...and now you get to claim your winnings.
The sad reality is that this is a scam. It's part of the 419 Advance Fee Fraud family of scams that are designed to separate you, the victim, from your money. The odds of recovering your money are very slim, by the way, because there is so much fraud of this type in the world - and because local law enforcement probably does not have the ability or resources to deal with your case. It's best to not even cough up money in the first place, seeing as there is no lottery prize AND you aren't likely to see your money ever again.
Basically, the scam works like this:
The scammer gets his hands on a scam e-mail and sends it to as many victims as possible. He grabs your e-mail address from online guestbooks or from other scammers. He might also be a lower-level scammer who works for an organization full of scammers. In that case, they might have received your information from a mailing list that they bought. Whatever the case: they grab your e-mail address and send you the exact same e-mail that they send to hundreds, if not thousands, of other victims.
So now you, thinking that you've won the lottery, reply to the message. You provide the relevant details, such as your name and mailing address. You might be asked to provide your bank-account information, too. You should definitely NOT give this information to anybody you don't know. Most scammers don't want to pull identity theft on you, but you can't be sure of that. It's best to protect this information no matter what type of stranger you're dealing with, really.
The scammer probably provides you with documents to "certify" your winnings. These are all fake. Look at them carefully. Anybody with one-fourth of a brain and access to MS Paint could do a better job than many of the scammers are doing with their faked documents.
You might also receive a scanned copy of somebody's ID. This is either fake or stolen. The scammer is not going to use his real name or ID. So even though you have something on your computer screen (the documents and ID) that you really want to believe in...it's all fake. It's part of the scam.
Soon, the scammer informs you that you must pay fees to release the winnings. Maybe there is a courier fee to have the check shipped to your front door. Perhaps there is some sort of tax that must be paid. Scammers will come up with different fees: no matter what they're called, the idea is to make you believe that, if you wire these fees, you'll get a huge check in just a few days.
Most scammers prefer Western Union or Money Gram because these transactions are very difficult to trace. I'll be sure to explain that one in detail in an upcoming post. Believe me, this is interesting stuff, to me at least. You might find it interesting too.
Anyway.
You wire the fees to the "banker," or "lottery commissioner," or "barrister," or whatever the scammer is calling himself. You think that this will release the check, but, no such luck. The scammer comes back to you with a claim that you must pay another fee. So once again, you go to WU or MG and send off more money.
Soon, the scammer comes back with yet another request for money. You send off even more cash and hope that, this time, you'll get the check.
Eventually, you either run out of money or realize that you've been scammed. Either way, you're out however much you sent to the scammer - and he's quite happy to have your money. He didn't have to work to earn the cash, so he gets to continue sitting on his butt in an Internet cafe, sending out more scam e-mails and trapping more victims. Meanwhile, you're broke and have no recourse, more likely than not.
Here are a few things that you need to check out if you aren't convinced that the e-mail you received is a scam.
One: When did you buy the lottery ticket? If you don't pay, how can you play? And if you don't play, how can you win?
Two: When did Microsoft, Yahoo!, Toyota, et cetera begin holding sweepstakes/lotteries? They didn't. Go to a fresh browser window and type in the official Web site for whichever company the e-mail claims to be from. If that company really did sponsor some sort of cash giveaway or lottery, there would be lots of information on that Web site. Don't simply follow a link that might be in the e-mail: the scammer can create fake, but realistic-looking, Web sites to trick people into believing his line of crap.
Three: At what point did lottery commissions or businesses begin using free, Web-based e-mail accounts? No reputable company is going to e-mail you from a GMail or Yahoo! Mail account. They have their own domains, and will typically e-mail you from them.
Four: Since when have lottery winners been notified via e-mail? That's typically done via certified mail (or, in some cases, telephone). And in the case of state or national lotteries, the commissioner typically does not know which person holds the winning ticket. Until you go to the claim center, or mail in a claim form, the commission doesn't know that you're the winner. How can they notify a winner if they can't identify him or her?
Five: What does a company gain by sponsoring a lottery drawing...without publicizing this huge event? Why would Yahoo!, for example, sponsor a lottery without making a big deal about it? They want something in return for the money that they're investing in this "Free lottery" or "Random drawing" or whatever the scammer is claiming that this is all about, right? Of course.
Winning the lottery would be awesome, sure. But if you've received a scam e-mail, you'll lose whatever you fork over while trying to chase down the winnings. The prize does not really exist, I'm sorry to say.
The best thing to do when you get one of these scam e-mails is to delete it and move on with life. Some people report the scammer's e-mail account to the provider to have the box closed. Do not do this. Period. Some scammers are being investigated. If you have their boxes closed, the investigators lose the trail. Don't interfere with them: that's not fair to the people they're trying to help.
And if you've already given a lottery scammer your personal information? Well, don't worry too much. If you've given him just your contact information, there isn't too much that he can do to you. He's not going to get on a plane and track you down just because you refuse to give him money. He's far too lazy to be bothered with all that. So cease all communication, delete any e-mails that the scammer might send you in the future, and consider this to be a very inexpensive lesson.
But if you've given the scammer your bank account information, you should contact your bank for instructions. Even though most scammers don't care about your personal information (they just want you to send it to them so that they can gauge how gullbile you really are), it's still a good idea to be as safe as possible.
And tell all of your friends, family and other people you know about these scams. The more people who know about the fake lottery e-mails, the fewer victims the scammers will have. That's the best way to fight these scum-sucking thieves, after all.
Folks:
If you don't personally know the person who mailed you that check, you might want to make sure that you aren't holding a fake.
Check scams are very popular online, but they can be offline problems as well. Here's everything that you really need to know about them so that you can avoid being stuck for the cash that you thought you'd received, but really didn't.
All check scams are similar in one way: the suckers are fake. They're forged or stolen. Either way, you won't get to keep the money. The bank might actually let you deposit the check, and it might appear to have cleared the bank, but don't count on that. The check still goes through processing even after the money appears in your account. At the end of the line, one of the bean counters will realize that the check is not legit. Then your bank gets that sad news. At that point, usually two or three weeks later, your bank calls or writes you and says, "Hi. That check you deposited? Well, it's fake. We're sorry, but we want all of that money back. Oh, and we've added the usual bounced-check fee, too."
No matter what you say, or what you do, this is considered your fault because you were the one who presented the check. Even if you did not have any way of knowing that you were being scammed, you're still held responsible for the funds.
But there are a few different ways to get fake checks into a victim's hands. Make sure that you're aware of them so that you can spot the bad guys before they make out with your money.
One popular method is the Overpayment Scam. Let's say that you own a nice mountain bike. You decide to get rid of the thing for whatever reason. So you put up a listing at eBay, or maybe Craigslist. The person who contacts you offers a check - and an explanation for the value being a lot higher than your asking price.
Maybe there was a mistake in the check amount when the buyer wrote it. Perhaps this is a check that was given to him as payment for something that he or she sold. Whatever the reason for the overpayment, the buyer requests that you cash the check and wire the difference back - usually via Western Union, as it is extremely difficult to trace these transactions.
So you get your check in the mail and go to the bank. You get cash and use part of it to package your mountain bike for shipping. (Or wait for the guy to pick it up. Whatever.) You wire the buyer the difference.
Then, a few weeks later, you're stuck for the entire check. The buyer is long gone, as is your merchandise. You end up owing a ton of money on the deal, along with losing your stuff.
Another popular check scam is the Employment Scam. Check your e-mail account's spam folder. You'll likely see one of these letters in there at one point or another.
Basically: the scammer offers you a job that you can do from home. For whatever reason, the scammer needs a payment processor. Your job is to receive checks at your home address, cash them, and wire back all but your percentage. You agree to this suspiciously-easy job, so the scammer mails you some checks. You do your job and, a few weeks later, find out that your "boss" is actually a scammer. And again: you're stuck for the entire amount of every check.
There is also something called a Mystery Shopper Scam. Sometimes a check will show up in your mailbox without any warning. The enclosed letter explains that you've been chosen to spend up to x dollars of the check on mystery shopping. Send a report back to the scammer along with the majority of the check's value. Oh, and you get to keep whatever you buy from the store. But as always, you don't actually get any cash. The bank wants everything back, so you're cheated on the deal.
Then there's the Romance Scam. So you've been chatting with somebody who's madly in love with you. Not long into your relationship, he (or sometimes she) wants to send you a check. Naturally, you're supposed to wire back some of the cash. Be wary here: love, or what appears to be love, can cloud judgment and make you believe things that just aren't true.
Quick review:
* If you have to wire back any part of the money, you're being scammed.
* If you didn't apply for the job, you're being scammed.
(Be careful anyway, though. Some scammers target legitimate employment sites - Monster, HotJobs, that sort of thing - for their check scams.)
* If the offer sounds like it's too good to be true, then you're probably being scammed. Yes, there are some wonderful, legitimate opportunities out there, but the majority of the "too good to be true" offers are scams.
You should also note that this can take other forms. Money Orders can be stolen or forged too. So can the Western Union or MoneyGram checks (they're usually cashed right there at the agent's office when the receiver claims the transaction - but scammers will of course fake or steal them for their own benefit).
What should you do if you receive a fake check?
If you're in the United States, you should contact the Secret Service. They're responsible for investigating check fraud and other forms of 419 fraud.
Be sure that you save everything related to the scam: e-mails, the envelope or package that the scammer used to send you the check, the actual check, et cetera.
But whatever you do: DON'T try to cash the check. If you know that you're holding a fake, just leave it alone. It's not worth what you'll likely have to pay in the end.
I'm a freelance writer - been doing it for a few years now, actually. I love writing and the super-flexible schedule works well because I'm in college. When I need extra study time, I just take it - no big deal because I set my own hours.
Most of my writing goes online. In fact, I write the overwhelming majority of my pieces specifically for the Internet. I go through a middleman of sorts - a Web site that lets me upload and sell my work for a percentage of the selling price. They handle the money, the marketing and all that other non-writing stuff that I don't really care about.
The biggest problem with online writing is theft. The site that handles my writing tries, but the editors and administrators can't prevent every problem.
Over the last few months, there have been problems with stolen credit cards. Little twits in Asia will rip off credit-card numbers, then "test" them by going to this Web site and purchasing articles. If the purchase goes through, then they know that they can rack up huge bills buying things that they actually want, like stereo systems and MP3 players and such. If I had my way, thieves would have to work on farms and in laundry facilities until they repaid the rightful owners. That's just me, though.
But anyway.
So I receive e-mails stating that I've sold a few articles, which makes me happy. I can get paid for them at the beginning of the month. And I need the cash. I really do. I have to put gas in the vehicle so that I can go to and from school. I have to pay my dentist to finish doing the work that I've needed for years. And every now and then, I really like helping my family with the household bills. (I'm 25 and live at home. It's cheaper than paying rent to live on campus. I've done that, so I know exactly how much money I'm saving. It's enough to make sharing one shower with six people well worth it. Trust me.)
But then the payments never materialize because, oops, some jerk bought my articles to test stolen credit cards. So I never see the money for what I've done. Oh, sure, the site re-lists my articles so that I can earn legitimate sales, but it's really disappointing - and infuriating - to go through the whole "Oh wow, somebody ripped me off AGAIN!" process once every month or so.
The site worked out a way to stop that problem. Everything went well for the next month and a half or so. I was content because article sales went back to their normal averages.
So then I received a notice stating that I needed to send Google a takedown request. There's a new problem. Now people who actually WANT my articles are buying them. But then they claim that there's a problem with them. The middleman site lets buyers return the articles for a full refund within a few days of the purchase.
You see where this is going, right?
Of course you do.
So people have been buying my articles and returning them to get the full refunds. But they still have the pieces, which they got for free. And I don't get the money from the sale because it was refunded to the buyers.
And then the jerks turn around and use the pieces.
So I send Google a takedown request. If Google finds that I'm really the victim (which they will, of course), then the guilty parties lose all Google search indexing. They don't get to use AdSense anymore, either.
So the thieves will eventually get what they deserve. But that doesn't make me any less ticked off about the whole situation.
That's why I haven't been motivated to work too much in the last week or so. When this new problem blows over, I'll get right back to writing. But right now, I just can't be bothered to post more articles for people to rip off.
