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You are NOT a winner!!!!!!!


CKnapp3
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Perhaps you have been to various websites where a banner proclaims "YOU HAVE WON!!!!!!" or "YOU ARE A WINNER!!!" The prizes can vary from Amazon.com gift certificates to a new DVD player. DO NOT BELIEVE IT!!!!!! If you click on the link where it tells you to claim your prize, you are led to a whole slew of offers that you have to pick. If you continue to turn down offers, you will be given addtional offers. After picking a few, which mainly could be opt-in matters which have no charges attached, they often will tell you "This is the final step", which is almost always something you have to buy or remit a certain amount of money. However, when you agree to an pay for offer, it turns out that the final step clause was really false, because now you are sent to another series of link telling you to click on an offer. At some point, people will just say the hell with it and give up, but after they may have signed up for something they may have not really have wanted. While these may be legitimate businesses per se, the conditions in which you signed up may not be. One in particular is the Video Professor http://www.videoprofessor.com The offer was a free course in exchage for the S&H charges. So I figured, ok ill take that if it means a $50.00 gift certificate from Amazon.com. (remember, I was told I WON this mind you). Well, instead of a page that says "thank you, you will recieve your gift certificate in the mail", it sent me to a whole new slew of offers. Well, I didn't mind the S&H charge, but I found out today that The Video Professor charged $69.95 to my credit card, a charge I'm now contesting. I tried to called Video Professor at their 800 number only to find they don't have a service rep 24/7. That's when I called my bank and contested the charge. In short, I signed up for this course under what turned out to be a false pretense. I do know that via the U S Postal Service, the law states that if someone proclaims you've won something, then by law you have won, no strings attached, and they have to make good on it, else it's mail fraud if you have to pay any money as a condition to recieve your prize. I can't say what laws if any can regulate this kind of activity on the internet however. But I'd thought I'd share a little warning with you. I don't think that my account has been illegally compromised by a hacker since I did give credit card info through a secure website, and the creditor is legitimately identified, but rather I had just signed up for this program under a false pretense. I guess it could be worse. I encoruage you to e-mail video professor and complain about the advertising tactics that are being used and furthermore to boycott them.

Chuck icon_mad.gificon_mad.gificon_mad.gificon_mad.gificon_mad.gificon_mad.gif

[This message was edited by CKnapp3 on January 09, 2004 at 22:56.]

[This message was edited by CKnapp3 on January 09, 2004 at 23:06.]

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Well, it seems to me that a good, common sense practice is to NEVER respond to any pop-up, email advertisement, or anything else unsolicited.

I figure that if a company has to resort to what amounts to clandestine manuvers, it can't be completely above board. I might be wrong, but I can't get taken if that's the approach I maintain.

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Been there, done that. Didn't like it either! Not to mention, they placed a bunch of spybots and tracking cookies on my system that I didn't want either!

I use two programs to protect my system from these programs now. "AdSubtract" from Intermute - www.adsubtract.com - and "Spybot-Search and Destroy" which is available from - www.nonags.com ; or www.majorgeeks.com .

AdSubtract is a for sale program, but they do allow a 30 day trial. It's purpose is to eliminate the banner ads and pop-ups that you're talking about. It also allows you to remove any tracking type cookies, among others, left on your system by any site you visit.

Spybot-Search and Destroy is a shareware program designed to eliminate Robot (BOT) programs that run in the background and spy on your every move while on the internet, and when you're off-line they collect information and transmit that the next time you're on the internet. Bots also s l o w down your system while you're surfing the internet because of their constant reporting activities.

There are others out there such as AdAware, and Spyware Blaster, among others, but these are the two I use and they do a great job.

Now I'm not a lawyer, so I would strongly suggest checking this out with a lawyer, but unless there has been some kind of change in federal law in the past two months, there's no law against them doing this. There may be a law in your state that would prohibit this kind of advertisment deception. Check with your state Attorney General's office, or with a lawyer to find out.

You know, this sounds like something TWI could have cooked up, if they hadn't so disbelieved the internet. icon_smile.gif:)--> icon_biggrin.gif:D--> icon_smile.gif:)-->

Just a thought...

Steve.

Â¥

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You know, it's one thing to say something like "you could be eligible for a gift certificate, click here for details" Obviously there's probably a catch to something like that. It's another thing to say you actually won a prize and to click to claim it. But I vow not to answer anymore of those lies again.

Chuck

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The best alternative that I have found to selecting 'remove me' from spammers lists is downloading a utility called Mailwasher (www.mailwasher.net). Not only does it allow you to block spam, and it does lern as you direct it, but you are able to bounce the spam back to the source (in most cases). That way, they don't see that you are a 'valid email' addy that they can continue hassling. icon_smile.gif:)-->

My own secret sign-off ====v,

Rational logic cannot have blind faith as one of its foundations.

Prophet Emeritus of THE,

and Wandering CyberUU Hippie,

Garth P.

www.gapstudioweb.com

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LOL My mother-in-law has a neat way of dealing with junk mail. Not e-mail but stuff she gets in her mail that comes with a self addressed envelope. She tears thier message up and puts it in the envelope and sends it back to them.

Dovey....proud owner of two low riders...Dovey's Doxies...... ]

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quote:
Originally posted by wyteduv58:

LOL My mother-in-law has a neat way of dealing with junk mail. Not e-mail but stuff she gets in her mail that comes with a self addressed envelope. She tears thier message up and puts it in the envelope and sends it back to them.

Dovey....proud owner of two low riders...Dovey's Doxies...... ]

icon_biggrin.gif:D-->

BTW, touching up on banner ads, I find there are two kinds: pop-ups and web. It was a web banner that I had responded to. This may be something I have no control over (correct me if I'm wrong) since the banner is shown by permission of the webmaster of the visited page that features it. I'm familiar with such ads, you put an html code in your webpage and it displays those ads. Popups on the other hand are a direct invasion and are indeed aggrievating. I have no use for those kind of ads. The next time I see such an ad as I responded to, I'll complain to the webmaster.

BTW Garth, thanx for the link to mail-washer icon_smile.gif:)-->

Chuck

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quote:
Originally posted by Rocky:

Well, it seems to me that a good, common sense practice is to NEVER respond to any pop-up, email advertisement, or anything else unsolicited.

I figure that if a company has to resort to what amounts to clandestine manuvers, it can't be completely above board. I might be wrong, but I can't get taken if that's the approach I maintain.


Rocks, you are absolutely right on this. I will not do business with companies that act so deceptively.

Oh, and, BTW, someone wise (I think it was Eppie Lederer, a.k.a. Ann Landers) that said that if it sounds too good to be true, it is.

Hey, NO ONE is going to GIVE you ANYTHING.

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quote:
Originally posted by Steve!:

Hey, NO ONE is going to GIVE you ANYTHING.


Steve, I will say that is virtually true, but not absolutely. There are legitimate organizations that seem to shower gifts on people (Publisher's Clearing House - you know, Ed McMahon and Dick Clark). Are Ed and Dick really dishonest men on the inside? Are they using their names and identities and even their reputations to promote something entirely false? True, I guess that there are a few that do give you an honest free lunch, but I guess they are wrong in that they give tons of fodder to those who do so under false pretense. If it were an absolute truth then I find it hard for anyone to be taken by deception. Another case in point would be "work at home" schemes. Some are honest, but unfortunately most are scams. I think the honest should give up and let a scam be reputable as a scam.

Speaking of the Gift of The Holy Spirit, you have to realize now that God has got a major problem with his good intentions. His enemies have all concocted similar propositions, to which the objective is to trap unsuspecting targets. After all, ONE good God, TRILLIONS of evil ones. Ok, one supreme devil also, but how many cohorts? All of which are being a god! God may be omnipotent, but its of no use if his publicity is waned by trillions of false gods.

Ever play "Find Waldo"? God is Waldo while the evil gods are everyone else! And it's even a more difficult puzzle. Therefore I don't condemn anyone who doesn't believe in God or otherwise questions anything about him.

Ok, I guess I'm getting a little off of my own topic. icon_smile.gif:)-->

Chuck

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