This page exists as a way to alert visitors to scams taking place on the internet. Scams can come in a variety of forms, some are even legal; such as a company hides a clause in pages of small print which is near impossible to read but ends up costing you a monthly fee once you hit submit.

Companies have changed so much in the past 10 years. Rather than relying on providing a good product or service, many are now relying on ways to get money out of us without any consideration of future consequences for them or us. One of the mittigating factors which has lead to this is computers and the internet itself.

When companies first started to offer rebates decades ago, these rebates where after the fact of the price. Several years ago computer manufacturers became competitive by offering rebates for buying their equipment; as the potential for staying loyal to the company when it came time to upgrade was greater if we already had one of their computers. In an attempt to seem like they were underselling their competition, several stores began to advertise prices for computer products with the rebates already subtracted from the price; *with the conditions of purchase hidden in the small print.

Some stores even took this to an unethical level by advertising the product with a price which reflected every rebate available, even though they full well knew that not every company would honor the rebate if they did not have the original UPC from the package, and, being that there was only one UPC, the customer ended up getting screwed will the seller just counted their money. Although unethical, it is not illegal as the responsibility is on the buyer to know that they cannot get every rebate if they do not meet the requirements established by the rebater; they just simply advertised the product to reflect the theorectical price of the product if the customer was actually able to meet every requirement; their small print relinquishes them of responsibility.

Saying that it is legal for companies to get away with such practices as these does not mean that there are laws that say they can do it; it just means there are not laws saying they cannot do it. In an environment of a big business friendly Bush administration which is primarily interested in what rights it can take away from people, we do not need more laws to potentially protect the consumer, but the industry itself does need to be its own watchdog.

Ah, but don't we have something called 'word of mouth advertisng' which can hurt a company's reputation? With shopping more and more going online, word-of-mouth has become less of a tool which the consumer can use. When people shop, they either go to their favorite online store or do a Google search for the product. Who are they going to tell about a bad deal? People don't remember website names.

Walmart set the stage for poor customer sevice and the death of word-of-mouth by putting so many out of business in many communities. If you want a different choice...well...where the hell are you going to go to get it? We have been condition to accept what is handed to us and come to accept an occasional bad deal as just a consequence of convenience.

When we shop online, it is a convenience for us. When somebody gets a bad deal, it does not mean we are going to get screwed as well. It is too convenient to go online and put something on our credit cards or, good grief, use PayPal (if you use this service, you are really taking chances by using this online service which is not a financial institution). We have becomed conditioned to accept the convenience over caution.

Being that the internet started as, and is still, an online community driven by people, and people only, it makes sense to use it as a way to communicate with others about our experience, good and bad. Although we do this in forums, the percentage of internet users actually using forums is dropping. With a lack of communication between people on the internet, and an increase in online shopping, word-of-mouth has passed from death to a state of beating the corpse

If people are to be informed of unethical business practices and outright scams being perpetuated online, it then becomes the responsibility of those of us who occupy space on the internet to inform others; as it is our sites they will be visiting (or so we hope) as they surf the web. It is on this page where I will place alerts about online scams being perpetuated through e-mail and through websites. Check back often to see what is new. If you come across one and would like to inform me, please e-mail me with the information or make a post about it in the forum