This is What Happens When You Attempt to Scam a Reporter (ZeroPaid)

[Drew Wilson]

You end up having your fraud ring reported on the home page with information on (legally) stopping it tacked to it.

Click

Oh, and a note to scammers:



Get off my lawn!

(oh, and, as usual, feel free to pass this news story around too! )

[HelenaP]

Hah, hah! Great movie!

[Drew Wilson]

*sighs*

Well, that article didn't get the reception I was hoping for. :\

[moneoa]

See this is just from plain ignorance on the part of computer users. I personally wouldnt give my mother my PC codes or download half the crap she recommends because it is all usually virus ridden forwarded emails.

[Drew Wilson]

The thing is, as far as some are concerned, we eat, live and breathe this "computer tech stuff" all the time. We can sniff out a scam like this a mile away and be able to dance around in circles around these scammers as well as almost instantly determine what is legit and what is not. That is not the problem. The problem is that people who are substantially less knowledgeable (stereotypically, the baby boom generation and older) who fall for this and give people who pedal fraudulent stuff a reason to exist.

I'm willing to bet that there's plenty of stuff that older people could completely outsmart me in. When my grandma was still around, she could ask someone like me what I'd like to eat. If I said cake, she'd just think about it for a second, then make the thing without once looking at a recipe book. I could ask her if she knew what she was doing and she's just improvising the whole time. Then the end result is excellent. At that point, I can, without shame, say I'm the ignorant one here. It's just not something I necessarily grew up with to know like the backside of my hand.

Edit: I should probably point out that when I say it didn't get the reception I was hoping for, I meant I posted this to a couple of sites and it got rejected everywhere quickly. Not really any lag or anything as if people were thinking about it, I mean insta-rejected like it was spam or something.

[bcwar]

I'm surprised that your submissions of this article to other websites were rejected. I haven't seen this particular scam until i read your article this morning. I don't suppose you got any kind of reason for the rejection either.

I've found that most people just arent interested in how it works they just know that it does and when it doesn't god help anyone involved. Its a thankless task trying to education the unwilling. When playing tech support to the less tech savy family members i've found its just easier to make a nice clean install, ghost the drive and give em a fresh start every few months when they come calling. They never have much of anything saved on the drive of any real consequence so it makes it much easier.

[Drew Wilson]

I think the only comment I got on any of the submissions was that the scam wasn't new necessarily. I'm thinking, "Yeah, I spent a couple of paragraphs describing its origins and how it's moved to Canada and provided information on how to fight it which is something not really discussed that often."

Oh well. This isn't a first where I had high hopes for an article only to see it go down in flames elsewhere. While it was rejected on Slashdot, I see they did approve a news story about how important the number of 'o's in "lol" are. It's nothing to get worked up over though.