Valleywag
scams
Posts Tagged “
Scams
”
scams
scams
You don't call, you don't write ... unless you're a telemarketer
Is it any surprise that direct marketers are easily circumventing the Feds' Do Not Call registry, as the Wall Street Journal reports? Lead generators are exploiting a loophole which allows direct calls to individuals on the list if written consent is provided. So marketers have turned to the tried-and-true method of direct mail. "Reply cards," the favored tool, are standard fare. They typically target the elderly, the most susceptible market, with purportedly useful retirement information or the claim of an affiliation with AARP. And it's perfectly legal. More »
scams
False San Diego charities appear on eBay
Proving you people are as sick as we thought, there's news that scammers are already exploiting southern California's wildfires for profit. Security firm Websense spotted an eBay auction titled "Children Lost." Fortunately, the intricacies of English grammar once again foiled the scam artists' attempt at ill-gotten gains. The fake eBay auction asked shoppers to "put the item you want to buy aside and take in consideration of helping."
scams
Marry your daughter off online
Meet Kyra A. She's 14-and-1/2, lives in the Southeast, and her hand in marriage can be won for the low, low price of $27,995. Psych! The giant-killer New York Times reporter Brad Stone, best known for unmasking Fake Steve Jobs, has discovered that Marryourdaughter.com is a hoax, designed to provoke discussion of the inconsistency of laws on underage marriage and sex in our great country. And to think that I nearly listed my 6-year-old there ...
music video
BurnLounge employee says "Take this job and shove it"
Boy meets startup, startup gets sued by the FTC for being a pyramid scheme, startup lays off boy, boy tapes himself playing poker on his last day and dubs in "Take This Job and Shove It." Wikipedia has the short history of this possibly criminal music store. More »
scams
Make easy money the social-networking way
MySpace, the News Corp.-owned social network for the unwashed masses, heroically sued spammer Sanford Wallace to stop him from abusing the site. Wallace allegedly created 11,000 fake profiles and spoofed MySpace login pages to gain access to legitimate users' accounts. MySpace also claims that he used an automated program to control the fake and hijacked profiles to send out links to adult-oriented websites in comments and messages, bringing him enough traffic to collect about $1 million in revenue from his websites. A federal court injunction prohibits Wallace from having a MySpace profile or sending emails implying that he is affiliated with the Fox Interactive Media property. Pity, that. For a while, Wallace made it look like exploiting emo teenagers with unfortunate hair was an even easier way to riches than writing a Facebook app.
scams
An open letter to our pals at Paltalk
We recently received a solicitation from video chat site Paltalk to see if we'd like to join in an interview with Amanda Congdon. Talk about a short memory. A few months back, Paltalk got in touch with Gawker for a chat with Congdon and Arianna Huffington. We cooperated, on the condition that we'd get to run a highlight clip on Gawker. Unfortunately (for us), things did not go as planned. More »
scams
Wikileaks continues to reek
Why is anyone still paying attention to Wikileaks? A month after John Young aka Cryptome published the prelaunch email list for the proposed confidential document clearinghouse, Reuters runs yet another story prompted by an anonymous informant. According to the Reuters source, this was all part of the master plan, and the interest in Wikileaks' credibility void only proves the necessity of its existence. (Figure that one out.) Given the Wikileakers' brazen hype and relentless pursuit of millions of dollars to fund the site, questions naturally arise about their supposed activist street cred, not to mention an increasing fishy scam-stench. How do you spend millions on a wiki, anyway?
apple
Loose wires: Patent then bought by Golden Palace
- A stay-at-home-dad with no time to himself wastes what precious sleep he has debunking some theory about outhouses, TiVo, and how Google CEO Eric Schmidt relates to any of the aforementioned.[Passing Notes]
- Face of the Flying Spaghetti Monster discovered in patent diagram! [ZD Net Blog]
- We hope this tech writer is actually black, because that makes it okay, right? Right? [Nigga Know Technology]
- When an article starts out, "I worked in a lot of crappy factories as a youth, so I'm very sympathetic to the workers at Apple's iPod factories in China," it's safe to assume it's sprinkled with patronizing hyperbole, not unlike those stories of an oppressed Brad Pitt dressing up as a chicken, standing out in the LA heat, working for El Pollo as a struggling actor. [Wired]
- We're upping the August Capital ante. Whoever gets onstage at John Battelle and O'Reilly Media's Web 2.0 event with a fake startup wins a free year of Valleyschwag. [John Battelle's Searchblog]
