New Twist On An Old Scam Virtually anyone with an email account eventually receives a message running one of the oldest scams in the book. Often referred to as the "Nigerian Letter," this scam involves getting a message from someone in a foreign country claiming to need a way to get 21.5 million dollars out of the country (the first country used in this scam was Nigeria, hence the scam's name). He knows that you "are a trustworthy individual" and if you'll just send him your bank account information he will deposit the money in your account and give you 15% of the deposit. Of course, after you give up your banking information the scammer empties YOUR account. Well a new scam has spawned to take advantage of one of the web's most successful and widespread activities - online auctions. The scammer sends you an email offering to purchase an item you're selling through an online auction or in the classified section of your local paper. They tell you a relative living in the area will pick up the goods, however, when the check arrives, it's made out for more than the agreed price (often thousands more). The bidder asks you to refund the difference and keep a percentage for your "trouble." Of course the check is forged and, if you refund the difference, you can kiss your money goodbye. Moral of the story: free money is only free for the person who steals it from you! ~ The Coming Storm Over DVDs ~ If you thought Napster caused a stir over trading music and the illegal CD-ROMs people made on their computers, wait until everybody gets a DVD burner! The average price for an excellent DVD burner has dropped well below $400 and medium to low priced computers now include DVD burners as standard equipment. The only thing holding back the avalanche of DVD copying seems to be the rather hefty cost of buying blank DVDs. With an average price of $1.50-2.00 each, blank DVDs cost far more than blank CDs, which run around 20 cents each. But, if you look back about 6 years, blank CDs used to cost a dollar apiece, so it won't take long for the price of blank DVDs to drop. When that price drop does come and every home with a computer can also duplicate full-length movies on DVD, watch for one of the biggest upheavals in the history of Hollywood. It will make the music industry's crackdown on illegal music sharing look as mild as a 5 minute "time out" in the local pre-school class. ~ Yahoo! - Still King! ~ In a bid to capture even more of the world's search engine traffic, search giant Yahoo! recently purchased the web's largest pay-per-click search engine, Overture.com. In the process (and more importantly), since the commissions from pay-per-click advertising with Overture represent a major source of revenue for most of the other major search engines, Yahoo! definitely holds the upper hand. |
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