Friday, June 10, 2005
Hi-Pass Cable Filter Scam
You've probably seen lots of ads for these little suckers. They're usually silver in color and look like the front head of a regular coaxial cable (the same wire that your cable guy plugs into your TV). These worthless pieces of garbage were sold for massive profits primarily over eBay from 2001-2003, and scammers are still selling them!
Here's the crackdown on the cable filters...
They DON'T work and leave you with a MASSIVE Pay-Per-View bill! However, this is great news for the cable companies themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if the cable companies are the ones putting these devices on the market themselves... They have to make up for all those years of being ripped of by customers stealing free cable from the notorious "black descrambler box". LOL!
Anyway, I've seen this junk pieces being sold upwards of $300.00! And the guys who buy it save nothing on their cable bill, yet incur an even larger one!
The scammers sell these filters as guaranteed signal blockers... This part their being HONEST with, believe it or not. The hi-pass filters DO, in fact, BLOCK communication between your digital cable box and the you cable company "one-way", while the box continues to receive digital signals the "other way".
Put simply, when the filter is put on the cable box (and the cable wire attached to the other end of the filter) it "filters out" all outbound signals - i.e., the "purchased events history" which stored somewhere within the box (I've never seen a hard drive so it's probably stored on a security flash card or some sort) does not get transmitted back to the cable company. So basically you can order porn on pay-per-view all day long and never be charged... At least that's what the scammers tell you.
What happens after a random period of time of your box not communicating with the cable company is that the company puts a "lock" on your box at which point you cannot view digital channels anymore. (Remember, the "one way communication" enabled by the filter allows for INBOUND RECEPTION only... I.e., the cable company can "do stuff" to the box even though it is not receiving data back from the box.)
This is where the would-be cable thief runs into troubles. He's now sitting home with a stubborn box that won't unlock. So he goes and emails the seller, and if the seller (scammer) is nice enough to reply he'll just email back a bullsh*t document which teaches you "various methods of unlocking your digital cable box"... Of which none work. I've read one guy decided to spill some water into the box... All he got was a buncha smoke and a $300 box which had to replaced.
So what happens next? The would-be cable thief might get some annoying inquiry calls from the cable company regarding the blocked communication. Eventually, he'll have to remove the filter and come clean and call up the cable company to have the box unlocked. And I bet you anything these cable guys KNEW what was going on all along, but they just sit there till you've made enough purchases before locking up your box through a local area "freeze signal".
So now the guy has three things on his mind: $300 in lost money for buying a sh*t filter, a huge cable bill, and the desire to pound the bastard who conned him into buying the filter. Of course, the guy can never admit it to his cable company or else...
LOL. Either way the consumer loses. So steer clear of the "digital cable filters"!!!"
Thursday, June 09, 2005
The Paid Survey Scam
You’ve probably seen those unbelievable ads on popular search engines like Google and Yahoo which claim to make you rich working from home filling out online surveys. Hopefully you’re just thinking of paying the “one time” fee, and haven’t actually done it because here’s the inside scoop on that – SCAM! If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
Here’s how the “work from home completing online surveys” scam is designed…
Scam artists setup several different websites for a few hundred dollars to rent bandwidth space from companies like Yahoo! Then they get listed in the three popular engines (Google, Yahoo!, and MSN) search listings and even dish out some cash to advertise on the engines. (It doesn’t cost a lot of money to advertise on Google these days… Especially for scam artists who have more than enough money to spare after thieving from people for years.)
Anyway, when some poor guy is desperately looking for work he searches keywords on the engines and voila! To the top and right-side of the results popup numerous “work from home” opportunities. The guy thinks to himself, “nah, I don’t want to work from home… And I probably won’t even get the job”. So he clicks on an online job bank, like Monster.com, instead. And what’s the first thing he sees (again)??? Almost identical ads to those he saw a few seconds ago on Google.
So now the guy is really thinking, “wait a minute. Google is such a huge and reputable company, and Monster.com is a multi-billion-dollar enterprise too so if these ads are appearing here it MUST be true! Maybe I can get the job!”
Those search engines ARE GINORMOUS and reputable, but you have to understand that they (especially Google) make a large sales through online ads. But it's always "buy beware". You can send them complaints at most, but if the advertisers keep paying, you'll likely keep seeing their ads on the net.
So the guy goes ahead with clicking on that little tempting link… “Fire Your Boss! $5,000 - $10,000 from you home PC! Choose your own hours! Apply immediately, LIMITED openings!” Though the poor guy gets one step closer to being ripped off. The scammer has such a vast network of bullsh*t spread around the internet (and even print media… Check the classifieds in your local newspapers) that its almost impossible for the desperate people to avoid them.
Anyway, so the guy is in the website now… A REALLY LONG website with LOTS of “TRUE TESTIMONIALS” on it, and pictures of real people smiling to a degree which would make most people’s faces hurt! After the target (the guy) gets hooked onto the first paragraph he gets impatient and skips all the way to the bottom because this is “really THE opportunity” and NO ONE else knows about it!
At the very bottom there’s this nice little message telling you that you can have all this for a “small” fee (which you’ll “make back in droves”), and your EMAIL ADDRESS which they “promise” NEVER to share with any third party (even if the third-party offer’s them $300,000 for the millions of email address they’ve suckered from people - as has been perpetrated by a few ex-AOL employees).
...Oh wait, and there’s MORE! You get a NEVER BEFORE SEEN 40% DISCOUNT if you do it in the next 20 minutes! The guy sees that little timer at the bottom of the screen ticking fast! He eventually gives in telling himself that “its ONLY $49.95 + tax… I just wont go out to the movies for a few weeks, that’s all.”
And BOOM! Another sucker in the glued to the web!
Don’t let it happen to you!
Think about it… WHY would a company looking for employees ask the applicants for MONEY? It because they’re NOT really looking for employees… They’re looking for suckers … Oops, I mean “customers”. I KNOW this is happening as I type this very blog.
Don't forget the old saying, “when a man with experience meets a man with money, the man with the experience is going to end up with the money and the man with the money is going to end up with the experience.”
Here’s how the “work from home completing online surveys” scam is designed…
Scam artists setup several different websites for a few hundred dollars to rent bandwidth space from companies like Yahoo! Then they get listed in the three popular engines (Google, Yahoo!, and MSN) search listings and even dish out some cash to advertise on the engines. (It doesn’t cost a lot of money to advertise on Google these days… Especially for scam artists who have more than enough money to spare after thieving from people for years.)
Anyway, when some poor guy is desperately looking for work he searches keywords on the engines and voila! To the top and right-side of the results popup numerous “work from home” opportunities. The guy thinks to himself, “nah, I don’t want to work from home… And I probably won’t even get the job”. So he clicks on an online job bank, like Monster.com, instead. And what’s the first thing he sees (again)??? Almost identical ads to those he saw a few seconds ago on Google.
So now the guy is really thinking, “wait a minute. Google is such a huge and reputable company, and Monster.com is a multi-billion-dollar enterprise too so if these ads are appearing here it MUST be true! Maybe I can get the job!”
Those search engines ARE GINORMOUS and reputable, but you have to understand that they (especially Google) make a large sales through online ads. But it's always "buy beware". You can send them complaints at most, but if the advertisers keep paying, you'll likely keep seeing their ads on the net.
So the guy goes ahead with clicking on that little tempting link… “Fire Your Boss! $5,000 - $10,000 from you home PC! Choose your own hours! Apply immediately, LIMITED openings!” Though the poor guy gets one step closer to being ripped off. The scammer has such a vast network of bullsh*t spread around the internet (and even print media… Check the classifieds in your local newspapers) that its almost impossible for the desperate people to avoid them.
Anyway, so the guy is in the website now… A REALLY LONG website with LOTS of “TRUE TESTIMONIALS” on it, and pictures of real people smiling to a degree which would make most people’s faces hurt! After the target (the guy) gets hooked onto the first paragraph he gets impatient and skips all the way to the bottom because this is “really THE opportunity” and NO ONE else knows about it!
At the very bottom there’s this nice little message telling you that you can have all this for a “small” fee (which you’ll “make back in droves”), and your EMAIL ADDRESS which they “promise” NEVER to share with any third party (even if the third-party offer’s them $300,000 for the millions of email address they’ve suckered from people - as has been perpetrated by a few ex-AOL employees).
...Oh wait, and there’s MORE! You get a NEVER BEFORE SEEN 40% DISCOUNT if you do it in the next 20 minutes! The guy sees that little timer at the bottom of the screen ticking fast! He eventually gives in telling himself that “its ONLY $49.95 + tax… I just wont go out to the movies for a few weeks, that’s all.”
And BOOM! Another sucker in the glued to the web!
Don’t let it happen to you!
Think about it… WHY would a company looking for employees ask the applicants for MONEY? It because they’re NOT really looking for employees… They’re looking for suckers … Oops, I mean “customers”. I KNOW this is happening as I type this very blog.
Don't forget the old saying, “when a man with experience meets a man with money, the man with the experience is going to end up with the money and the man with the money is going to end up with the experience.”
Why I Started This Blog
These days a lot of people are being suckered into scams. Hmm... Okay, the "old days" weren't much better either, LOL! Except for the prime difference that such things are now happening to the max over the internet rather than in "traditional ways". However, though the game has shifted online, the rules remain the same... Find, fu*k, forget. Okay, maybe that didn't come out sounding exactly on topic, but that's basically what it is. Scammers lure unsuspecting consumers into their traps and run with the cash.
The reason I know this is because I’ve been looking for ways to make money on the internet for about 4 years now (since I was 17) that I have grown skeptical of such “opportunities” (and for good reason) to the degree where I spend some leisure time digging up dirt on such offers each week =]
And fortunately I have never fallen prey to such offers because I never had the money to “enroll and reap residual benefits for life”. Also, I wouldn’t really consider all that wasted time to be a complete loss because each time I’ve learned something useful which saved me many problems.
Actually, I've really benefited from all those scammers trying to get me because I now truly believe that you only stand the best odds of success (in anything) if you work hard, persist, and keep learning after the numerous failures that will inevitably come.
There is another thing I've learned from all this (and fairly quickly I might add)... 99% of such offers are outright scams!
Hopefully someone will find answers in this blog and safeguard themselves too! Good luck! P.S. – There is no “joining fee” here. LOL!
The reason I know this is because I’ve been looking for ways to make money on the internet for about 4 years now (since I was 17) that I have grown skeptical of such “opportunities” (and for good reason) to the degree where I spend some leisure time digging up dirt on such offers each week =]
And fortunately I have never fallen prey to such offers because I never had the money to “enroll and reap residual benefits for life”. Also, I wouldn’t really consider all that wasted time to be a complete loss because each time I’ve learned something useful which saved me many problems.
Actually, I've really benefited from all those scammers trying to get me because I now truly believe that you only stand the best odds of success (in anything) if you work hard, persist, and keep learning after the numerous failures that will inevitably come.
There is another thing I've learned from all this (and fairly quickly I might add)... 99% of such offers are outright scams!
Hopefully someone will find answers in this blog and safeguard themselves too! Good luck! P.S. – There is no “joining fee” here. LOL!
