Learning the Hard Way

The email sounded promising:

Save & Record Calls

screen shot from the scam

Record all of your text messages, audio, video and conference conversations, quickly and easily. Cherish all of your important moments, and relive them over and over again.

I'd been thinking about a way to record my Skype audio, video and chat, so when this ad came along, I opened it. It turned out to be spam AND a scam, but I learned that--and I'm embarrassed to admit it--after I paid for the 'product.'

The 'product' was not what was promised. Instead of a way to record Skype audio, video and more, what I got was a collection of freeware. About the only advantage to my purchase is that I got the freeware links in one place without having to collect them myself.

I was going to write about this sooner, while the scam was live, but I waited too long and now it's been taken down after just a couple weeks. The web site is now nothing but a parking lot.

I initially acted too quickly--I should have investigated the offer and the owners more carefully before charging $50 for a three-year license to my credit card.

Ouch. Another lesson learned the hard way.

First potential Red Flag: they found me--I wasn't looking for them.

When it started to dawn on me that there was a problem with the offer (I couldn't seem to locate the download for the audio/video recording software--Red Flag only after I had already paid), I became aware of clues I had overlooked. The small print at the bottom of the page stated pretty clearly all the software was freeware. Why would anyone pay for freeware? Red Flag

There were links to more information but nothing got me closer to the tools I wanted. There were plenty of other things to distract me: software I could download that works as a Skype answering machine (but again, that's free).

I decided to see who the site owner is. That information was blocked in a whois search. (Another Red Flag).

At this point I was pretty confident that someone had built a nice looking site that promised way more than it delivered and they were not taking calls. An online help line was provided, but there were so many information fields to fill (and a warning to fill them in exactly) in that I was pretty certain this was going to be a dead end. (Red Flag).

There were more than a few Red Flags but my guard was down.  At the time I couldn't find any warnings about this site. There could be some now. For the record, here are the names from the bottom of the spam:


Media Internet Consultants - Edif. Neptuno, Planta Baja, Ave. Ricardo J. Alfaro, Tumba Muerto, n/a, Panama  

(try that in a Google search!)

And while I'm at it, here's the description of the 'merchant': MB-SALE.COM (a processing house for Internet vendors).

The Lesson: Does it matter if you don't investigate before you buy? You can bet you'll lose money if you don't.

April Fool's Hoaxes

April 1 is a good source of evaluation challenges.

Actually, doing an evaluation of an unlikely online story that appears on April Fool's Day is a bit unfair--the date itself is a clue that raises suspicious.  But it's possible to run across April Fool's pranks anytime online, and not paying close attention to the date may cause some credibility confusion.

Yesterday, Google announced that it changed its name to Topeka in response to the Kansas city changing its name to Google.  Part of the story is true, but not all of it.

BBC has a long history of running prank news reports on April 1. Samples include the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest (1957) and the Flying Penguins (2008).  Plenty of people were fooled by the accounts.

The Museum of Hoaxes has a page covering the top 100 April Fools pranks. Scanning the descriptions its sobering that people were tricked into believing (and incensed) that Taco Bell purchased the Liberty Bell (1996). That's why April Fool's persists--people are more willing to believe than to be skeptical.

I like using lesser known April Fools examples in workshops, particularly when it's not April first. Not many people evaluate the date. It's a good exercise to raise awareness of the date of publication.

Even without looking at the date, it's possible to poke holes in pranks using simple fact checking.  For example, Google's Blog, makes the following claim:

Early last month the mayor of Topeka, Kansas stunned the world by announcing that his city was changing its name to Google.

Browsing the link in the quote above, it becomes apparent that Google has stretched the truth. Here's what the mayor said:

"It's just fun. We're having a good time of it," he said of the unofficial name change, which will last through the end of March. "There's a lot of good things that are going on in our city."

Most online pranks can be investigated and diffused by checking facts--and date of publication. Still, plenty of people are willing to get worked up over nothing. God bless 'em.

Have a favorite online prank? It could make a good search challenge.