One thing is for sure: there’s never a dull moment in cyberspace. Something is always happening, and often, it’s something big. Today, I want to share two very relevant stories that were published in the Washington Post. The first item is a warning about a new scam that has been bilking people out of money across the country. The second is a piece of good news, for a change, that is sure to make anyone who uses email a bit more content.
First, the Post reported yesterday that people who are using online brokers for help finding moving companies are often being duped out of hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. The article describes two cases in which individuals, searching for the best deals with moving companies, have been scammed by their online brokers and the actual moving companies themselves. In one instance, the victim paid for moving services ahead of time, but the company never showed up. In addition, the moving company and the online broker would only answer the victim’s phone calls again when the victim called from another number and used a fake name. In another instance, moving companies had given victims price estimates that were very low, but once all the victim’s items were loaded onto a truck, the company ignored the estimate and jacked up the price exponentially. Tim Walker, the founder of http://MovingScam.com, was quoted in the Post article as saying, “I advise people to avoid household-goods moving brokers completely. The price you pay in the end won’t be much different, and the likelihood of problems occurring is much higher with a broker.”
But now the good news, dear readers. Yesterday, the Washington Post also reported that one of the world’s largest alleged email spammers has finally been caught and arrested. A 27-year-old man from Seattle has been accused of hijacking thousands of “zombie” computers in order to send out millions of spam emails over the past few years, and is being charged with fraud. Supposedly, his spamming operation was so massive that everyone who uses email on a regular basis has received some of his spam emails. But now that he has been caught, some experts believe that there will be a noticeable decrease in spam emails, at least for a while.
That’s a refreshing thought. But in the meantime, spam emails continue to flood my inbox. For some tips on how to reduce the amount of spam emails you receive, visit the FTC website.
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