[Richard157]

I assume that all of us are seeing the flashing offers in the margins. As I sit here i am seeing one that appears at both the top and side of this page. There is a big pink smiley and the words say "This is not a joke, you are the 100,000th visitor! CLICK HERE." I suggest that you NOT click on any of these. I am betting that all of us are seeing these flashing demons. Am I right? Am I the only one? Is it all in my head, a mirage?

There is another one that pops up sometimes saying I am the one millionith visitor and I can click and receive a free Apple ipod. Do you get that one too?

I will admit my curosity got the best of me and I participated on one of them. I knew it was a scam, but I had to know what was involved.

At the start I was told that I had to finish my participation in a particular amount of time. Why would that be necessary? It ISN"T, that is part of the scam!!! I was asked to choose one of three or four possible offers. One was a free Dell laptop, another was a free $1000 gift certificate for Walmart, etc. I chose the Walmart offer and continued. I had to give my address, phone number, email, and many other personal items. Then there were pages of questions about my likes and dislikes, etc. I could not advance to the next page unless I answered all the questions. When I finished I was told that my time had run out and I could start over again. I did not do that, but if I did, I am guessing the next round would ask different questions than were asked during the first round. My curosity was satisfied, I did not think for a moment I would get a prize.

I was not surprised when I started receiving an increased amount of junk mail the next day. They were coming through in bunches. My email and information resulted in all this junk mail. I delete them all but it is a pain in the neck. I know, it is my fault!!! Today there is more junk mail than ever before. I may have to change my email address.

The flashing scam is on several sites that I visit, but not all of them. I wonder why. I belong to a dozen D sites and I only browse on most of them, but post on about half of them. I see the flashing demons on only 4 or 5 of those sites. The flashing really gets to me. It bothers my eyes a lot!!! I hate it!!! I wonder if there is any way to get rid of the demons? If I enter a discussion and I see the flashing there, I immediately leave the thread and pick another. I am not participating on several threads because of this. I now prefer the D sites where this is NOT happening!!!

Any comments?

 

[meurtelken]

that's a real pain in the b*t Richard. I see no flashing over here, but thanks for the warning. Nobody is looking forward to spam.

 

[fgummett]

I don't see those particular ads Richard but I am using Firefox with Adblock Plus.

As a general rule I never give out e-mail or any other personal information on the internet unless it is a trusted site.

You may from time to time see folks posting on forums with what I call "phishing" trips... they'll ask for feedback about a particular proprietary product -- sometimes without even providing a link -- in hopes that you'll go search the interweb and if you do click on any links (free diabetic cookbooks is a common one) they will start by asking for personal details... do not bite! I understand that such people (and I use the term loosely) get paid pennies per click that they generate :boxing:

 

[breezeonby]

I haven't really paid that much attention to the ads on the margins. But, I have participated in such surveys and they asked for very personal information. I never finished any of the surveys because I was told that you had to answer all of the questions before you could advance to the next question or another part to the survey. When you get involved with these scams, they pick up your email address even if you do not finish the survey or questions. I made the mistake of entering my cell phone number and I am now getting stupid text messages. I wish I would have never entered my cell number. I will be watching for these flashing images. Not sure how to get rid of them.

 

[Shanny]

I guess my Firefox Adblock is doing its job, because I'm not seeing any flashing ads here - scams or otherwise. The ones I do see are for drugstore.com and since they are premium sponsors of this site, I even click on them now & again.

But I'm with you, Richard - I try to avoid sites with lots of flashing notices - it's very distracting.

 

[breezeonby]

Richard, I have left the forum and come back and I do not get any flashing scams in the margins. All that I see is the premium sponsor ads.

 

[Guest]

False Information

NO.. not yours Richard.

Sometimes I too am curious to see what some of these freebie offerings are.. and what's involved in getting them, so I just give them "false" information about myself.

Name: Answer Man

Address: 1 Click Place (because they're a "click-through" ad).

City: Igotcha (I Got Cha).

State: Iowa (I Owe Ah big "Got Cha" for trying to fool me).

Zip: 50074 (zip code for Beaconsfield, IA.. population 11).

Phone: 641-446-8242 (641 correct area code for above).

e-mail: [email protected] (.com close to the word ".conned".


The phone number I've checked and is "Out-Of-Service". The numbers 446-8282 are the following letters. "I Got Cha".. so I thought it was appropriate. Y'all can use the above if ya want to. After all.. all is fair in clicks or not!

Breeze 2 User :evil: :biggrin1:

 

[Richard157]

Breeze 2 User, that is clever. I might try that. Thanks!

 

[galh.42bn]

Re:

I think this may be a problem with your computer, as we haven't gotten any other complaints. You may have some adware or spyware that made its way onto your computer. If you have an anti-virus program, you should perhaps run a scan and see if that will take care of it.

 

[Richard157]

Thanks galh, I have run several spyware programs and none of them worked this time. I had to switch to another browser and that is working very well now. No pop-ups and no flashing ads. I chose "opera.com" as my new browser.