Scams R Us

So, my paychecks dried up last Christmas. That was when I started saying “no” to clients and friends in tones of increasing weepy desperation. The money wasn’t any great shakes to begin with, but the time involvement was getting worse and worse. “Can you just make a few tweaks to this” was turning into hours and hours of back and forth emails right when we had parties and commitments and the husband was out of town on business…ugh!

Well, so, I’m now back to looking for things to do that make money (because Lord knows, I can find plenty of ways to merely waste time). So I’m emailing people and surfing the job boards for telecommute-only jobs and trying to give quotes for projects I haven’t seen enough data on to really know what I’m in for and one thing leads to another and I’m looking at an ad for data entry jobs. Or, is it?

Blah blah blah, $300-600 a week (hey, that’s good money!), we pay via Paypal blah blah blah. Pay us $29.95 for the materials (hey, look – my red flag just ran all the way up to the top of the pole!) NO WAIT! $19.95, limited time only, expiring in a vague “few days”! (Hey! That red flag just set off fireworks and is singing “Be kind to your web-footed friends…”).

Scroll to the very bottom. Beneath all that gray space. Keep scrolling, keep scrolling, ah, what’s this? In the tiny little font, next to the Legal Notice?

Here. Let me help you see that. {copy, paste special, unformatted text}

“This concept is 100% legal, refer to US Postal and Lottery Laws, Title 18, Section 1302 and 1341, or Title 18, Section 3005 in the US code, also in the code of Federal Regulations, Volume 16, Sections 255 and 436. You are purchasing of your own volition, we do not accept any liability towards your purchase or their validity (unless not delivered). This is a non-refundable purchase, we are only re-selling you materials, (that is all we are providing) you may use the materials any way you like. Above is only one way for the use of these materials. We did not write these materials, but purchased them through another company, and are re-selling it with their consent.
***You are purchasing only an e-book and work is solely dependent on your efforts. Work is not guaranteed**”

Hel-LO. Soooooooo, they’re going to sell me a book telling me how to fill out applications? Is that it?

Riiiiiiiight.

By the way, that bridge of mine is still for sale. Plus, if you act now, I’ll throw in a cute little fort! Operators are standing by…