Online Money Making Scams

Previously I took to debunking the "nuclear acid rain" hoax which was just a terrible irresponsible thing circulating the net as an aftermath of the Japan Earthquake.

This morning a friend of mine discussed the validity of a website. Which turned out to be SCAM site. Which if one is greedy (and lazy) and could only think of easy ways to make money, then one would fall for this. Me however, am forever doubtful of anything on the internet, so I decided to look at it closer and point out all the "I'm a fake site" signs.

By the way, I don't really advocate this, so I am not going to put up the link. Besides, most probably you've seen  it, or stumbled across something similar, or could figure out what this is from my screenshots.

Magnifying glasses ready? Let's begin, Nancy Drews and Hardy Boys!

The first thing that caught my eye were actually these (click on pictures to enlarge):

If this is really a news site, they wouldn't put SO MANY repetitive links as if promoting the scheme. There are a few more further down the page. That already made this whole 'article' dodgy.

Next, note the 'expiry date:

The date is "correct" where I am in, however since this claims to be a U.S. site, it is still Cinco de Mayo at the moment thus "tomorrow" would be the 6th of May.

I pointed out the Google picture because the scam claims that it's from Google and stuff, but in the other scam site (which I will tell you about later), the bottom of the page has a disclaimer and it says "This site and the products and services offered on this site are not associated, affiliated, endorsed, or sponsored by Google...".

Also, if you click on ANY links on the site, it leads you straight to the Scam Site. No homepage, no other news, no sports, health, etc. The little red arrow pointing to the line below "Consumer Career Trends" says "Last updated Friday, May 6, 2011" which brings us back to the 'expiry date' point, and current date in the U.S. point. I bet the date changes in accordance to the date set in your computer.

This is the Scam Site which you are led to by clicking on ANY links.

Last but not least, right at the top of the site, there is a "Sign In/Sign Up" thing. I've just realised that printscreen doesn't show your mouse cursors. But when I was at the site, placing the mouse cursor there doesn't change it into a 'link' cursor (like how it usually does with any email accounts etc.). It's just part of the site's design to make it look "legitimate".

Great work sleuths! Bet you can find more clues that this thing is a hoax, but for the mean time, I think I've said enough. Remember, it's always better to be sceptical than to be cheated. Don't get scammed!

Have a great weekend :)