Oct. 12, 2005

Hi, All!
This Week: A frustrated spouse!!
This week Edie, my wife, did something on the Internet that she regrets, and she offered to write this week's column to warn all our readers.

I did something I consider incredibly stupid now because I thought I was better informed and more scam-savvy than I turned out to be! I received, via email, an offer to become a panel member of an opinion/survey gathering organization. Now, let me reveal that in my "previous life" I worked for such an organization, and it performed a much-needed service to manufacturers of various products and to the providers of various services by gathering honest data regarding public response and opinion to these same products and services. So I know there are legitimate organizations in a legitimate industry out there.

What I should have been wary of, however, was the offer of a "free" gift card in the amount of $500! What made me think that someone would actually give me something of that value for joining anything? I clicked on the requested buttons, filled out information regarding my email address, home address, and phone number, then clicked on "submit."

It was then that I figured out how this scam works. I had pages of offers from various companies to scan through and to choose three to accept"everything from magazine subscriptions to car insurance! So my "free" gift card was dependent on my commitment to spend money with three different entities, a fact not revealed in the original offer.

Of course, I immediately closed the web site, but they already had the information they wanted" the confirmation that mine was a working email address, which was then sold to many different companies, and I've been inundated with email "junk" ever since! I can't describe the deluge of unwanted email filling my in box! So, take heed: No matter how good it sounds, it isn't "free!"

'Til next week,

(ComputerFAQ#263)

Robert

Please send your questions to

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Sept. 21, 2005 Instant Messaging Phrase Abbreviations

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Feb. 16, 2005 User ID's Stored in Cookies by Passport

Feb. 9, 2005 Installing System Monitor

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Jan. 19, 2005 Where Does MS Messenger Store Passwords?

Jan. 12, 2005 Clean PCI Board Contacts Easily

Jan. 5, 2005 Don't Defrag Too Often, It Can Cause Trouble

Dec. 22, 2004 Try Different Free Anti-Virus Programs to Clean Your Computer

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Sept. 15, 2004 Who are the ISP's in East County?

Sept. 8, 2004 Screen in Windows XP doesn't refresh

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Aug. 18, 2004 Reminder- Terrorist Computer Attacks Like During Republican Convention

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Aug. 4, 2004 Three Old Viruses WORM_BAGLE.AF, WORM_BAGLE.AM, WORM_MYDOOM.M

July 28, 2004 Celebrating the 200th ComputerFAQ

July 21, 2004 Sleep, Standby & Hibernation

July 14, 2004 Parts of Windows Screens, such as Status Bar

July 7, 2004 Parts of Windows Screens, such as Desktop

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June 23, 2004 Spyware and How to Remove It

June 16, 2004 Suggestions for the iMac writer of June 9

June 9, 2004 MacIntosh User Finds Trick to Display Emailed Photos

June 2, 2004 Internet Options "Cookies" Configuration

May 26, 2004 Internet Options Box #2

May 12&19, 2004 Worm_Sasser.B and Clearing Old URL Addresses from IE

May 5, 2004 The F5 Refresh key and other Function keys

Apr. 28, 2004 First Purchase on Ebay and More on Recycling Computer Eqpt.

Apr. 21, 2004 Repairing a Laser Printer and More about Disposing Used Computer Equipment

Apr. 14, 2004 How to get rid of an old PC

Apr. 7, 2004 Another Virus Alert

Mar. 31, 2004 Keeping Both Home and Ebay Pages Open At the Same Time

Mar. 24, 2004 A Complex Alert about a Very Complex Virus

Mar. 17, 2004 A Hoax Virus Can Cause You To Damage Your Computer

Mar. 10, 2004 Should I Reload Windows?

Mar. 3, 2004 HTML Email Viruses: Disable Preview and Receive Only Text Email

Feb. 25, 2004 Spoofing and Zombies

Feb. 18, 2004 Using Spyware

Feb. 11, 2004 Spyware

Feb. 4, 2004 Phishing and the MyDoom virus

Jan. 28, 2004 Microsoft Extends Support for Windows '98 and ME

Jan. 21, 2004 More Keyboard Shortcuts

Jan. 14, 2004 The Lifesaver "Undo" and Other Keyboard Shortcuts

Jan. 7, 2004 Microsoft quitting support for Windows 95 & 98 plus minimum computer requirements for Windows XP

Dec. 24, 2003 The Trouble with Mice

Dec. 17, 2003 System Restore & Windows Safe Mode

Dec. 10, 2003 Backing Up using an external USB Hard Drive

Dec. 3, 2003 SpamSubtract, a good way to reduce spam, also other ways

Nov. 26, 2003 Disgusted about Spam

Nov. 19, 2003 How Vulnerable is Your Computer to Data Theft?

Nov. 12, 2003 Safely Deleting Thousands of tmp Files

Nov. 5, 2003 Finding the Windows Search Button & Misc Program Problems

Oct. 29, 2003 How to Print a List of Files

Oct. 22, 2003 Fall Cleanup Part 3

Oct. 15, 2003 Fall Cleanup Part 2

Oct. 8, 2003 Fall Cleaning of Your PC

Oct. 1, 2003 Explanation of DSL

Sept. 24, 2003 Installing DSL at the Shopper

Sept. 17, 2003 What New Computer Should I Buy? Part 2

Sept. 10, 2003 What New Computer Should I Buy?

Sept. 3, 2003 Protecting from Viruses and Worms

Aug. 27, 2003 Current Viruses "Bast Worm" and "Sobig"

Aug. 20, 2003 Does Microsoft Password Make Changing Passwords Easier?

Aug. 13, 2003 Passwords and Passport Part 2

Aug. 6, 2003 More About PassPort and Passwords

July 23 & 30, 2003 Where Are Microsoft Passport Passwords Stored? and More About Passport and Passwords

July 16, 2003 Internet Explorer Helpful Hint Part 2

July 9, 2003 Internet Explorer Helpful Hint Part 1

July 2, 2003 Some More Icons Explained

June 25, 2003 Online Ordering

June 18, 2003 Followup on Refilled Ink Cartridges

 

July 05, 2000 Introduction to ComputerFAQ

July 12, 2000 Computer Definitions

July 26, 2000 More Computer Definitions

August 02, 2000 Defining Bits, Bytes and Hex

August 09, 2000 Internet Service Providers (ISP)

August 16, 2000 Backup up your PC

August 23, 2000 Backup Devices.

August 30, 2000 What is the slowest PC for Internet Access

September 06, 2000 PC Nomenclature

September 13, 2000What to do with Mail Attachements.

September 20, 2000What Happens at boot up

October 04, 2000Desktop Areas

October 18, 2000Start Button

October 25, 2000Display Made Bigger

November 01, 2000 More Monitor Controls

November 15, 2000 Right Click Display Menu

November 22, 2000 More on Desktop Menus

November 29, 2000 More on Desktop Menus

December 06, 2000 Desktop Properties Menu - part 1

December 13, 2000 Desktop Properties Menu - part 2

December 20, 2000 Desktop Properties Menu - part 3