Samuel's Blog

Clinton Maynard on New Day Australia

As previously reported, 2UE news reporter Clinton Maynard will be filling in for John Kerr from midnight, and again on Sunday morning.

Samuel

August 18th, 2006 at 06:04pm

Amusing Internet Scams

Last week one of the Google ads on this site led to another website, which was offering a $1000+per day work at home data entry job. On this website some woman claims to work a couple hours a day doing data entry for major Internet companies such as Ebay, Yahoo, Verizon etc, and earning astranomical amounts of money in the process. According to this “Computer Learning Centre” website, these companies don’t publicise these jobs very much.

This easily fits into the “too good to be true category” for any number of reasons including the facts that data entry jobs don’t pay thousands of dollars for a couple hours work (half my job is data entry…I get about $20/hour), the companies mentioned are dealing with sensitive information which would not be delegated to unchecked third parties, and major Internet companies who need external data entry staff have got some efficiency and automation problems. So in order to counter this problem, “Computer Learning Centre” show screenshots of bank statement “proving” that they really do get all of this money, and they even go and announce that they are approved by the “Consumer Advocacy Group of America“.

The consumer advocacy website details a few scams and non-scams, and has this to say about the Computer Learning Centre:

Name: Computer Learning Center Data Training Course
Rating: 97
Average Investment: $179
Average Yearly Return: $85,000
Summary: This company offers a short course in how to earn a comfortable living doing data entry from your home computer. Obviously, this is not the kind of data entry many people are used to. But using the power of the internet, and in connection with a number of well known companies, participants are taught how to type simple data in online forms which net more money than we thought was possible. We were suspicious of this opportunity and thought it was too good to be true until we spoke with a number of people participating in the program. Those involved were more than satisfied with their earnings. We followed up with a Business Bureau check and found no complaints whatsoever in the last three years.

Starting to sound plausible isn’t it? Well it does until you start to look into the technical side of the websites…one was registered on the 20th of June, the other on the 21st, they are both hosted by GoDaddy, they were previously both on the same server, one has since been moved, they both host their secure pages on the same server, the registration details for each site has been modified every week or so since registration, and the discount offer for the data entry course has been marked as expiring on progressively later dates since the sites went online.

Currently the discount is set to expire today (Friday 18th August)…should be interesting to watch that move. Even more odd, the discount keeps being extended despite the website stating “even though the data entry work is unlimited, the Computer Learning Center staff is starting to get overloaded. And they don’t want to take on so many students that they can’t give everyone personal attention. So unfortunately, they may have to discontinue taking on new students for this program in the near future.”

Moving onto another scam now, and Clayton Northcutt has been keeping one email scammer busy recently, and managed to attain the title of “Executive Officer of Outlet EDF23” and identification tag number “EDF/015 /Clayton Northcutt” for the Matsushita Semiconductor Company Ltd. For the full amusing details, see these posts in order:
Saturday August 5
Sunday August 6
Monday August 7
Friday August 11 and
Sunday August 13

Samuel

1 comment August 18th, 2006 at 03:27pm

The Hole And The Whole

I had a very odd dream the other night. A man was standing in my lounge room when they suddenly realised they had to be upstairs with their hole (apparently they owned the word “hole”), so they ran upstairs (which just happened to be a park) and announced that they had a hole. The other people in the park were annoyed that this person was late with their hole, and after a few moments of noisy commotion, another man called out “Well I have a whole with an E” (I think he meant that he had a whole with a W), and then there was an argument about the spelling of hole/whole.

Thankfully the madness ended there…I woke up in a rather confused state.

Samuel

August 18th, 2006 at 12:30pm

A Love Story

This week’s Friday funny comes to us courtesy of Melanie in Sydney

A man and a woman who had never met before, but were both married to other people, found themselves assigned to the same sleeping room on a transcontinental train.

Though initially embarrassed and uneasy over sharing a room, they were both very tired and fell asleep quickly…he in the upper bunk and she in the lower.

At 1:00 AM, the man leaned over and gently woke the woman saying, “Ma’am, I’m sorry to bother you, but would you be willing to reach into the closet to get me a second blanket? I’m awfully cold.”

“I have a better idea,” she replied. “Just for tonight, let’s pretend that we’re married.”

Wow! That’s a great idea!” he exclaimed.

“Good,” she replied. “Get your own blanket!”

Do you have something you would like to contribute to Friday Funnies? If so, email it to smoothwallsamuel@gmail.com. All contributions welcome!

Samuel

2 comments August 18th, 2006 at 09:29am

Samuel’s Footy Tips

Another weekend, another series of Footy Tips.

NRL Round 24
Sea Eagles V Rabbitohs
Sharks V Panthers
Cowboys V Knights
Bulldogs V Broncos
Dragons V Tigers
Roosters V Eels
Storm V Warriors

AFL Round 20
Power V Magpies
Cats v Sydney
Bulldogs V Crows
Bombers V Hawks
Dockers V Saints
Lions V Eagles
Blues V Tigers
Kangaroos V Demons

Samuel

1 comment August 18th, 2006 at 06:12am