I Do This So You Don't Have To

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More Bullshit

Ah, a mailbox full of fresh, steaming spam! I have recently re-activated my on-line 'job-seeker' services and my Bullshit folder is already filling up almost as quickly as I can hit 'delete'.

Luckily for me, I have several nigh-invincible methods of detecting Interweb bullshit.(Obviously, routine emails from trusted sources are usually exempt from this scrutiny).

The first method primarily deals with emails that use the acronym FWD , which stands for Filled With Doubts,( or alternately, Facts Without Documentation) in the subject line.
Using my FWD method, I can quickly determine the veracity of an email's contents by assigning a truthiness value based on nothing more than the subject line.

Any email with FWD in the subject line has an automatic 10% chance of being utter bullshit and this likelihood increases exponentially with each further usage of FWD, i.e., an email beginning with 'FWD:FWD' = 10 times 10, or a 100% chance of being bullshit.

There are some egghead traditionalist-types who question my FWD formula, so I will give voice to the opposition:

Traditional FWD theory is much more cumulative and complex than my simple FWD formula; unlike classical theory, mine is exponential and designed for idiots.

Classicists maintain that the most accurate way to detect BS is to assign a base truthiness value of 10 for each accumulated usage of FWD, i.e., FWD:FWD = 10+10, or a 20% likelihood of BS. Some of the more realistically-minded classical FWD theorists also assign values based on the number of email addresses included in the chain, for example,adding an extra 1% chance of BS per addressee is standard...I will concede that the traditional approach probably yields a more accurate result when it comes to detecting inaccuracies, but I will also argue that my exponential formula is much easier to deal with- simply delete everything with two or more FWDs.

My third detection method deals with job offers.
It's very simple: All unsolicited job offers are scams. If you didn't apply for the job, they aren't hiring you. Period.

-No legitimate employer will initiate contact with you via email- if someone wants to hire you, they will call you. On the phone.

-No one starts the hiring process with "Cn U Wrk 4 me?"...in fact, if you see any permutation of the phrase "U CAN" anywhere in the correspondence, automatically assume that you would rather not and assign that particular email the highest BS value allowable (plus 10% for re-stocking).

-Also be aware that corporate recruiters do not, as a rule, end their email addresses with Yahoo dot com or use cell phone numbers as their main business line. Just sayin'.

I recently received an email with this subject: "[My Name and Job Service] resume:File Clerk."
I do have File Clerk on my search index, so I broke my own rule and opened the Damned Thing.
It, of course, was a scam.

Here are some excerpts,with my comments added:

Dear Employee,

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY (you don't have to tell me twice)

About Us
SpiderSEO is an SEO Firm helping small and medium companies with their Internet Marketing and Search engine optimization efforts.

We take a unique approach that allows companies to help themselves. Marketing your company or products on the web can be costly. The secret to keep the costs down is to be able to so some of the work yourself. We are able to handle all your Internet marketing needs or teach you how to do it your self and act as a seo consultant.

Wait... the secret to keeping costs down is to "be able to so some of the work yourself "? That is a terribly odd prelude to a job offer. The letter then goes on to contradict it's own statement by offering me money for doing something that almost anyone can do, which is to cash checks:

YOUR TASK
This application is for the position of a Data Entry Clerk in SpiderSEO and the job will require you receive payments on behalf of SpiderSEO from clients and customers with outstanding payment from services rendered. These payments will come in the form of Money Orders which you will be required to cash at the bank or a cashing point after which you'll send these funds to the company via western union or Money Gram as the case maybe using directives that'll be provided to you. The salary is a minimum of $500/Week or $2200/Month (Remember to state your pick while forwarding the requested details below). More than a transaction can be handled a week . All transactions entries will be done using the Quick Books Online Pro &/or the Excel Spreadsheets. Transactions handled are TAX FREE, Paid by SpiderSEO..

Man, is there anything that isn't wrong with this come-on? First, NEVER cash checks for strangers. Duh.
Second,why would the company want their clients to send Money Orders to a third party when the Company could, according to it's own credo, save money by doing some of the work themselves, i.e., maintaining their own bank account?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyway, I doubt if SpiderSeo could find qwerty on a keyboard, much less anything of significant value to anyone on-line, but I do know that this post will get hits from people Googling fragments of the spam excerpted above.

Here's a Free Secret To Boost Your Site Traffic:

Whenever I cut and paste from a spam email, my website traffic goes way up. True!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Next: Music Stuff.

How Stupid Do You Think I Am?

I recently received this email via the address associated with my blog:

Hi,
I'm Elmer and I work at pacificadvance.com,a company
interested in blog advertizing.I found your blog camelsback23.blogspot.com engaging and I'm contacting you to ask if you are interested in blog post sponsorship.If you are interested,kindly mail back and I'll send you pricing details, guidelines and processes.Looking forward to doing business with you.

Sincerely,
Elmer
Pacificadvance.com

Elmer. Dude. You don't need to pay me. I'll give you free publicity right now.

The first thing I did after reading your spam was to Google Pacificadvance.com. Hmmm...it's linked to PayDay Loans , Inc. Since you have read my blog, you probably realize that the only thing I hate more than stupid people are the con men who prey on them, and predatory "payday" loan sharks are amongst the worst of that sorry lot. Normally, I would be put off by any "professional" correspondence wherein the writer failed to provide a full name, but since you are allegedly affiliated with PayDay Loans, I am willing to cut you some slack- I understand that you-as any right-thinking person would be- are ashamed of your unsavory business ethics and would therefore be reluctant to use your real name.

I also found dozens of blogs on which you had left the exact message that you sent me on their comments section, changing only the blog URL in the text. There sure are a lot of "engaging" blogs out there, Elmer. Curiously, none of those blogs had a Pacificadvance dot com 'advertizement'. (sic)

Most of the blogs I saw either scoffed at ignored your offer but I wanted to learn more...being an impatient man, I eschewed the email reply and went directly to the PacificAdvance homepage, called the toll-free number and asked for you by name. Imagine my surprise when I was told that there was no "Elmer" there! I was even more shocked to find out that they had never heard of PacificAdvance:

Operator: "Hello, FastCash. Can I have your social please?"

Me: " No, you cannot. I'd like to speak to Elmer, please."

O:"I'm sorry, you must have the wrong number."

Me: "Is this PacificAdvance?"

O: "No, this is FastCash. Can I have your Social Security number, please?"

M: "Not until I talk to Elmer."

O: "Sir, we don't have an 'Elmer' here but I'd be happy to help you with a loan."

************************************************

Dude, you need to let your staff know who you are and where they are working.

If I was the skeptical sort, I'd guess that anyone who responds to your email will be presented with some enticing but fictional numbers ( get rich blogging), fanciful, vaporous sums that the lucky blogger can 'earn' merely by agreeing to let you place ads on their blog. Of course, in order to get paid, that blogger will be required to submit their tax ID info ( Social Security #, bank account # and home address)...I imagine that they may even be asked to 'temporarily' give your company administrative access to the blog itself in order to place the ad on the site. Just a guess.

I can't see this as being anything other than a scam. My blog gets almost no traffic and is extremely hostile towards scams, legal and otherwise. I have not-and never will- taken out a "PayDay" loan. There is no legitimate reason for PacificAdvance (or whoever you are) to contact me. Ever.

*******************************************

Have you received this come-on? Did you answer it?

Sign in as 'anonymous' if you did. I will make fun of you.

Fissure, Cut , Bait

Um, er...a while back I met this woman on the internet, right? We exchanged a few emails and very quickly she asked this question:

Do you believe?

I replied: Do you mean "in God" ? No. I am a secular humanist and a scientific rationalist.

I figured that would end our correspondence but it didn't. Instead , she wrote back with an invitation to frolic, saying that she didn't believe in God per se , but she had a "strong spiritual side"...was I OK with that?

I can grok. Sorta.

I think that most of us have moments where the Cosmos seem to open wide and say: "See? This is special and it's for you."
I have had a few of these, some good, some not; they have usually been triggered by life-or-death situations, but I digress...

The feeling that one gets during such an epiphanic episode can easily be described as spiritual; the insights gained can change the core of one's consciousness (or soul, or spirit, whichever term you prefer), which in turn leads to a profound change in the way one thinks, which, in turn leads to significant changes in behavior. This process is sometimes referred to as 'enlightenment'.

It's my opinion that this rush of 'spiritual' awareness is simply the by-product of chemicals released in the brain during moments of intense neural imprinting, that the mind is literally creating new pathways for the intra-cranial transmission of thoughts and that it is the chemicals released during these bouts of cerebral re-construction that are responsible for the transcendental feelings that one experiences at the time.
I could be wrong- any good scientist will readily admit that science can be mistaken- in any case it would be a difficult experiment to conduct.

To me, the cause is secondary to the effect. The feeling is real, powerful and not to be disregarded, no matter what the origin. Digressing again...

So, anyway, my penpal writes back and tells me about this woman, a self-professed "psychic medium", that her teacher at Massage School had introduced her to. This "medium" somehow knew a great deal of private information about my penpal... things about her dead father, her kids, that she was graduating from Rubdown College...wait, said the medium in mid-sentence...I can hear a voice...your father is here, he says he is proud of you...my penpal was very impressed and spooked.

I am not so gullible. I'd wager that the "medium" and the masseuse are in cahoots and that my e-pal was being set up for a fleecing.

This left me with two choices:
- I could play along and go for the easy lay.
- I could be honest and forget about the sex.

I chose the honest approach. I asked her if the "medium" knew anything about her that her teacher didn't know. I suggested the possibility that the "medium" had gleaned the information from the teacher who had introduced them to each other, i.e., the teacher knows you are graduating, therefore so does the "psychic"; with this pre-knowledge, it's no stretch to say "your father tells you he is proud."

I also ventured that I don't know how to identify a 'real' psychic, but I do know how to spot a fake one- if the 'professional' psychic/palmist/card-reader/witch-doctor/whatever has a storefront and/or a roadside sign, then they are a fraud; that the 'professionals' are merely very clever con artists.
I left out the part about them preying on needy people in desperate straits.

No reply.



Look carefully at the picture below. That is a simple three-ring binder with color inserts that look as if they were produced using Word and a Laserjet. That's because they were. It's an ebook. Inside the binder you will find a user-friendly guide to developing your clairvoyant and magickal skills.
It can be purchased used (?) on eBay or downloaded from the source. Use Visa if you dare.
Call me cynical, but I don't think the Secrets to the Universe are available as a commercial download.
I'd wager that they aren't for sale at all.

If the people selling these books truly possessed clairvoyant powers they wouldn't have to ask for your credit-card number. They could scry it.

If I possessed the ability to predict the future, talk to the dead, see distant places and/or read minds, I wouldn't lease a shabby storefront on the bad side of town, hang a sign out front and create a 'consultation parlor' decorated with colorful props such as these:
I'd go to Vegas. Or play the NYSE. Or find Blackbeard's Lost Treasure. I'd certainly keep my abilities to myself- in the past, the CIA has conducted experiments with remote viewing (clairvoyance) , using human test subjects...SRI, a research institute hired to help with this work, states on their website:

In the 1970s and 1980s SRI was contracted by a U.S. government agency to research some aspects of remote viewing. As this work was performed for clients, SRI no longer has the records relating to the research. All such records were returned to the clients.
SRI International is not currently involved in parapsychological research and has had no involvement in such research since 1990 when the last of staff working on the project retired or joined other organizations.

Your tax dollars at work.

Perhaps I read too many X-Men comics as a kid, but I can't help but think that the Government would do it's best to hunt down and exploit militarily useful mutants. I'd stay mum on the ESP for my own safety.




One needn't be a psychic to 'read minds'.

I spent the Nineties shilling VHS tapes at Sci-Fi conventions . My boss, Mario, could talk to an a geek about comics or cartoons for five minutes and intuitively deduce the nerd's entire life history...how many siblings they had, where they grew up, how old they were...he could establish all of that with amazing speed and accuracy.

Mario didn't have psychic powers, he had an encyclopedic knowledge of TV shows and newsstand distribution of magazines circa 1950's-1990's; he knew what shows aired in what market and when they aired (before cable, this was easy) ; he also knew that certain comics and magazines were distributed in certain regions and not in others... Mario's mind would take the geek's favorite TV shows and comics, cross-reference and combine them with other clues (accent, slang, clothes etc) and peg the person's background with startling detail... "you are from Detroit, right? Only child...late 1960's ... Dad is Canadian, eh?"

Bingo! Another sale!

Mario is currently selling cars in Atlanta. He's the best salesman that the dealership has.

Paranoid Fancy

I have an imaginary friend named Fancy. Fancy is a conspiracy theorist with a Cassandra complex and I think she likes to make stuff up just to torture me- she not only has my home phone number, she uses it to press all my buttons.

I was trying to watch the 5am replay of Battlestar Galactica when Fancy called. She had an idea regarding the TV commercial that was playing...I don't know how she knew that particular commercial was on. Perhaps she was watching BG as well? I know that she has cable but I'm not sure what time zone she lives in. No one is.

"Hello?"

"Hi! Whatcha doin"?

"Watching Battlestar. Make it quick- there's a commercial on now but I missed the show last night."

"Right! See...I had this idea on how to make some money. Huge money."

"Uh huh. Go ahead."

"First, I'd need some cash. Enough to pay for saturation advertising on late night cable TV. The kinds of shows that stoners and lonely insomniacs watch...then I'd start offering Free Credit reports...for a small fee, I'd even offer to protect the viewer's I.D., credit cards, bank accounts etc...offer comprehensive protection against ID theft, ya know?"

"Fancy, there's already- you'd need- I mean-"

"No, no...all I'd need to do is hire some scrubs to work the phones and run the caller's data through Equifax or some other legitimate agency that gives free credit reports.. most of it could be done by automation...then we give the 'client' a report and offer a 30-day free trial of our "Secure ID" service."

"Well, yeah. But like I was say.."

She interrupted me again. Fancy never lets me finish my thoughts.

"They'll have to give me all of their data", she went on, "every account, every card, social...the works. I'll have complete access to all of it. During the 30-day "trial" period, I'll:

a) drain their accounts, or...

b) wait 29 days and sell their data to other hackers.

Or some combination of the two. "

"Geez, Fancy. I'm fairly certain that's illegal . Aren't you afraid of getting caught?"

"That's where the Free Credit report comes in...those folks will be giving me the data I need. I'll have millions of aliases...I could change ID several times a day for the rest of my life if I wanted to."

"Fancy?"

"Yes?"

"I am really, really glad that you don't know where I live."

"Oh, I know where you live."

Craigslist: Skid Row or Leper Colony?

I called a faraway friend last night, hoping to have a stimulating intellectual discussion regarding some profound socioeconomic insights that occurred to me during a fit of philosophical mania.

*ring*

She didn't even say 'hello'! She just picked up the phone and immediately jumped in with:

"OK! Tell me who you are dating!"

Geez. Are all women so preoccupied with sex?
I sure hope so. My sanity depends on it.

Anyway...she was referring to an off-hand remark I made in a previous post regarding dating, but I didn't have a specific answer :

"Um, I meant I was dating in general. Asking women out, I mean... I'd given up for a while. I even got so desperate that..."

I was getting ready to tell her that I'd answered a few 'craigslist' ads recently and that from my perusal of the ads already posted, I had come to the conclusion that if you are looking for anything of importance on craigslist, it's a sign that your life has, in some significant manner, hit rock-bottom.

Craigslist, I have determined, is the modern equivalent of a medieval bazaar; teeming with pickpockets and vendors of exotic, counterfeit goods; rife with diseased courtesans and 'employers' ready to conscript the unwary into a career of indentured servitude- it's not a safe place to be naive.

Before I could impart this pearl of wisdom , my friend read me the text of her own personal ad that she had tried to post on craigslist. It appealed to me but I'm already fond of her so it's hard to be objective...anyway, she indicated that her experience with replies was not so good.

Nor was mine, I said. I recently had a brief , engaging flurry of correspondence with a clever young lady and it looked as if a meeting was inevitable- until she challenged me to a drinking contest!
I was obligated to reply that I was a recovering alcoholic and that I could drink her under the table even if it killed me, which it most certainly would.
That was the end of our correspondence.

I also answered an ad from a woman who said she just wanted to meet someone for intelligent conversation over coffee.
She just wanted someone to talk to.
I want that too, so I wrote and asked her if she'd like to have a cup of coffee with me. She didn't reply.

I must note that I'm looking in the 35-45 age group and I can't help but wonder why so many women expect to find a man in that demographic that "doesn't have baggage"...by the time you are 40, you are gonna have baggage. Period.
The best one can hope for, to paraphrase my friend Liz, is to: "find someone who has luggage that matches yours."
Additionally, why even bother to ask for 'honesty'? Is that stipulation going to deter liars? Sheesh...why not just ask Santa for a pony?

So I posted my own ad:

***************************

Three Things I Got Going For Me

1)My penis is larger than my thumb.

2)My brain is larger than a golfball.

3)I'm not married.

Anything else would be bragging.

*******************************


If this doesn't get me laid, nothing will. That is my deepest fear.
On the bright side, I'll save a small fortune in condoms...have you priced them lately? Geez.


Then there are the help-wanted ads. I scan them daily and I see an awful lot of ads that look like this one, pasted verbatim from craigslist:

$#$-Perfect positions for anyone with office and clerical experience. Will train, if needed. Earn while you learn.***Start today. Email resume and references.-

Location: FT/PT
Compensation: (*)-$22/hr.(*)

I have absolutely no idea what all the dollar signs, parenthetical asterisks and bizarre punctuation indicate, but the pay seems to be negative twenty-two dollars per hour, which makes more sense than an entry-level office job that pays positive $22/hr.

These are fake ads that are designed to extract personal information from your resume-and from your references.

If you don't believe me, create a 'fake' email account and answer one of these ads- send them a fake resume that details your criminal history; noting that, despite what your last employer and the judge said, you were innocent of the embezzling charges...include your new email account on the fake resume.
Within hours, you will start getting 'job offers' sent to that account.
Seriously.
This type of scam is so pervasive that permutations of the phrase " william morris job agency scam" have become one of my top blog traffic drivers.
Go ahead, type it into Google w/o quotes...you'll see that I'm #5 or 6 out of over a half-million.

But I'm going to be living in my car and showering at the station if I don't find a job soon, so I took a chance and posted an ad under the 'Barter' heading":

******************************************

TIME FOR MONEY

I would like to trade 40-45 hours of my personal time for a paycheck, a recurring weekly basis would be optimal but I'm not in a position to be picky.

During the agreed-upon hours, you can instruct me to do your paperwork; help your customers;set up your computers and/or home electronics; cook your meals; record your band's demo tape; wash your car; mow your lawn; ghostwrite your novel; wash your dishes; feed your pets etc...at this point there isn't much I wouldn't do. I'm educated, experienced and dependable.
Offers of room, board and a modest stipend will be considered.

****************************************************

Yesterday I got a FWD from someone who really should know better. It reads, in part ( my notes in italics):

THIS TOOK TWO PAGES OF THE TUESDAY USA TODAY - IT IS FOR REAL
(No, it didn't and no, it isn't- ed.)

I'm an attorney, And I know the law. This thing is for real.

(You aren't an attorney in America. American attorneys know English. And You don't.)

Bill Gates sharing his fortune. If you ignore this, You will repent la ter.

( Translation: This is a chain letter )

It goes on to say that Microsoft will pay you hundreds of dollars for every person you forward this to:
For every person that you forward t his e-mail to, Microsoft will pay you $245.00 For every person that you sent it to that forwards it on, Microsoft will pay you $243.00 and for every third person...yadda yadda yadda.

*********************************8

In other words, Bill Gates will buy you a pony just for FWDing email.

Uh. Huh.

In the real world, what happens is this: every single person you forward this spam to becomes a new target for spammers who grab your entire contact list as soon as you FWD it.
Thanks.


Next: Check out my engorged mailbox!

Scam du Jour

I saw a Chris Hansen TV show recently that dealt with the subject of Identity Theft. What they found was alarming- in one case, the Hansen team , (with a credit company's help) sold a handful of bogus 'stolen' credit card numbers to hackers in a secret chat room.
The activity on the 'bait' credit cards was being tracked in real-time; less than two minutes after their on-line 'sale', the cards had been maxed out with purchases from over a dozen foreign countries.

Under two minutes.

There were also a few stories that followed this sad outline:


A lonely person in the USA meets 'their perfect match' on-line and an electronic romance develops. The 'match' , who invariably lives in a foreign country, soon starts asking the lovestruck victim to accept packages for them and, in some instances, to forward those packages to a foreign PO...the packages, of course, contain goods purchased with stolen credit card numbers...eventually someone gets arrested and/or bankrupted. That person is usually the victim, not the perpetrator.

How do the crooks get your data? There are quite a few methods.
Some you can do very little to prevent-if a store that you used your VISA at gets hacked, there is not much you can do since it's unlikely that you'll even know it happened- but there is one thing that you can do.

Your best defense is this: Don't be a total idiot.

I didn't think that anyone could be dumb or desperate enough to fall for totally obvious scams such as the one presented below, but after watching the Hansen show, I realized that this country is lousy with stupid, lonely, emotionally desperate people who will believe almost anything, including thinking that a gorgeous 20-year old Brazilian co-ed with a 38D bustline can fall in love with a homely, uneducated middle-aged American man of the variety that wears sweat pants and baseball caps in public.
Please.



Today's featured scam claims to be from the Department of the Treasury with the subject line: "US Internal Revenue Service".
The mailer's address is: "director@USA.gov"...it might as well read: "thatman@behindthecurtain.oz"

The letter contains good news. I'm gonna get Free Money! Check this out:

After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined
that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $189.60.
Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 6-9 days in order to process it.
It will be stored in our secure database for maximum of 3 days
while we process the results of this nationwide survey.

A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons.
For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.

To access your tax refund online, please click on the link below

Give me a break. This year's tax deadline hasn't even passed yet, so what 'annual calculations' are they referring to?
An official IRS letter would arrive via the postal system, it would contain the specific tax YEAR at the very least and it probably wouldn't rely on incomplete sentences to convey important information ("For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.")...additionally, the IRS doesn't calculate your refund for you unless it's part of an audit- if you are being audited, you will know. I have been through that and it sucks...anyway, I didn't click the link that was included in the email, but I am positive that it leads to a form that will ask you to supply information (SSN, Employer ID#,income,bank routing info, etc) that the real IRS would already have...in other words, if the IRS already knows that it owes you $189.60, why are you getting an email? You should have a check.

It goes on to ask the victim to allow: " 6-9 days while we process the results of this nationwide survey."

Survey? What "survey"? This email is a notification, not a survey.

Furthermore, if it takes 6-9 days to process your 'survey', why do they tell you that the data will be held in their "secure database for a maximum of 3 days." ?
What if it takes 7 days to 'process'? The data, according to the sender, would be deleted and it would therefore be impossible to 'process'.

The true reason for the 'delay' period is simple. It gives the crooks a few days to empty out all of your accounts before you unwittingly report this scam to the real IRS via a "where is my refund?" request.

Beyond the mathematical and logical flaws there is an additional mistake made on the part of the sender: This scam appeals to people's inherent trust of the Federal Government in general and of the IRS specifically.

That's a loser's bet but it's paying off for somebody or they wouldn't keep rolling the dice.

I have discovered two ways to foil ID thieves:

1) By maintaining a credit score under 400 and a debt load in excess of $10,000. Your ID ain't worth stealing if your credit score is 380 and you owe sixty grand in medical bills...if someone wants to get credit in your name, they will first have to pay off your accumulated debts.

2) By not having money or property.

Both of my solutions come with their own set of problems, but if you think option #2 is a good choice for you, let me know. I'll send you a link to my PayPal account and you can shed yourself of your monetary burden-for your own protection, of course.
I'll give all the money back as soon as the internet stops being so dangerous.

Scam Alert # 9,014

Have you ever received an email or comment asking you about advertising on your blog?
I have.
The offer below is obviously bullshit, and quite possibly it's nefarious bullshit as well. I'll explain in italics below. This is a cut and paste of an email:


Hello,

We have reviewed your blogger.com blog on behalf of one of our
clients that would be interested in placing advertising with you.

Who would want their business venture linked to my blog?

Client profile :
DoingFine "http://doingfine.org/"
New projectTheme A forum dedicated to those things that came out right
and worked out fine.

When I read this I laughed so hard that I fell off my unicorn, bounced off of a pot of gold and landed in a field of rainbows and four-leaf clovers. Then I married the princess and lived happily ever after.

We'd like either a 150x150 button, 160x600 skyscraper or 468x60 full
banner (or footer). Alternatively, we may be interested in text-only
advertising.
This would be a weekly, monthly or yearly arrangement. In either case
we will require a one time, one day (24 hours) free placement in order
to test the quality and quantity of traffic your website can actually
provide*. Within this interval, we will make a final determination,
based on the traffic volume, quality, and your asking price. Should
we find your terms acceptable, this trial day will count towards the
agreed interval.

I only see two possibilities here:

1) The offer is "on-the-level", but the revenue is minuscule or less. A quick perusal of the site shows that it's only income stream is that which comes from Google ads. This is an offer to get paid a proportionate fraction of that revenue. Woo. Hoo.
If you have ever dabbled in Adsense, you know what I mean. If you haven't, don't.


2) The ad contains harmful code such as spyware, Trojans or viruses. You might lose your URL to hijackers and/or turn your reader's PCs into 'zombies'.

Kindly let us know if you would be interested, which arrangement best
suits your editorial needs, (my editor needs to point out this useless comma) and what rates you would like to charge.

(What rate I would like to charge? Golly, that sounds too good to be true!)

We prefer using PayPal but may be able to accomodate (sic) alternative
payment methods.

Thank you.

*Please note that we employ software that reliably detects autoclick
and autosurf bots, pay per click and paid to surf type traffic, and
other such non-human traffic. This may be a concern for you,
especially if you are buying "bulk traffic", or employing the
services of dubious "SEO experts".

Employing the services of a "dubious SEO expert?"
I am a "dubious SEO expert". Insulting me isn't going to encourage my participation in your venture.
I'm a dubious expert on everything, including job-searching, which brings us to our second alert. Hardly a day passes that I don't get email such as the example given below:

Dear Allan ,

We have an Executive Assistant we need to fill and the Administration experience you listed on your e-resume make you a great fit for the job. I'd like to invite you to take this opportunity to apply. Included is the basic outline of the opening.

They need to fill an Executive Assistant? Fill the Assistant with what? First, they need to hire a proofreader.
Grammatical and spelling errors are a good tip-off that you are dealing with spammers and hackers.
I hope that the unfilled Assistant looks something like this:

They go on to say that I am a good fit for the Executive Assistant that needs to be filled, but don't go into specifics. A real recruiter would make a specific reference to your resume: "Your experience as a widgeteer at Acme Co. caught my eye" etc.

Another clue is the company that is doing the purported hiring. It's always a good idea to research the company that is named. (If no name is given, it is spam.)

William Morris Agency

In this case, the company named is hugely famous and it's very unlikely that they would pull my resume out of the e-clutter for any reason whatsoever. Let's google them and see what turns up.

Gosh. Would you look at that? Right at the ding-dong top of the WMA career page:
The William Morris Agency has received numerous inquiries about job postings that do not actually exist. Prior to providing any personal information to any recruiter, please verify that the job posting is valid by contacting the office at which you seek employment.

Really? Who would have guessed? Anyway, back to the original email:


If you're interested in applying for this job or learning more about it, please click on the link below...<more deletion>

The link is to a site called Fast Job Openings dot com and it exhibits classic tell-tale signs of information mining. They ask for personal info and try to get you to sign up for "higher-education" updates and opportunities. You are given a choice of replying:
-Yes! I'm really interested in enbettering myself! Sign me up! Here's my home phone number!

-No! Me be dumb like rock. You no sign me up.

It's a ploy. If you are smart, you'll take my advice and avoid Fast Job Openings dot com and it's myriad ilk.

Certain rules are timeless and apply to all situations. Can you think of one that might apply here?
See bold-faced red text (above) for a hint.

Selling Out

( Note: This is re-published from The Obvious. )

In The Secret, author Rhonda Byrne writes:

The first thing to know is that if you focus on losing weight, you will attract back having to lose more weight, so get "having to lose weight" out of your mind. It's the very reason why diets don't work. Because you are focused on losing weight, you must attract back continually having to lose weight.

The second thing to know is that the condition of being overweight was created through your thought to it. To put it in the most basic terms, if someone is overweight, it came from thinking "fat thoughts," whether that person was aware of it or not. A person cannot think "thin thoughts" and be fat. It completely defies the law of attraction.

Whether people have been told they have a slow thyroid, a slow metabolism, or their body size is hereditary, these are all disguises for thinking "fat thoughts." If you accept any of those conditions as applicable to you, and you believe it, it must
become your experience, and you will continue to attract being overweight.

She flatly states: "A person cannot think "thin thoughts" and be fat."

The Obvious wonders how Byrne was able to reach such a conclusion. Does she possess telepathic powers? Perhaps she owns a device that measures "thin thoughts" vs. "fat thoughts"?

The Obvious conclusion is that spending more time exercising and less time watching self-help DVDs would be a better approach to weight management than any sort of ' thin thoughts' program.

Still think The Secret might be valid? Replace the problem of being overweight with a problem that is more difficult to control than body weight. We'll use the same jumbled syntax and fuzzy logic espoused by Byrne, The Obvious will simply change the specific problem that is to be overcome.

Read this:

The first thing to know is that if you focus on having cancer, you will attract back having more cancer , so get "having cancer" out of your mind. It's the very reason why medical treatments don't work. Because you are focused on having cancer, you must attract back continually having cancer.

The second thing to know is that the condition of having cancer was created through your thought to it. To put it in the most basic terms, if someone has cancer, it came from thinking "cancer thoughts," whether that person was aware of it or not. A person cannot think "healthy thoughts " and be sick. It completely defies the law of attraction.

Whether people have been told they smoked too much, were exposed to gamma radiation , or their illness is hereditary, these are all disguises for thinking "cancer thoughts." If you accept any of those conditions as applicable to you, and you believe it, it must become your experience, and you will continue to attract having cancer.

Simple question: Do you believe that?

Don't Count Your Puppies Until They Hatch

I got offered a job today. I even started it, but I don't know if I'll keep it. The manager wasn't sure what my pay rate was- eventually we reached the owner on the phone and he informed me that my hourly wage was $8, which, multiplied by 40 and zapped by taxes is roughly 1/3 less than I need to survive- rent , bills food etc, much less live.

I was speechless.

I haven't worked for under $10 an hour since...I dunno. High School?
Yeah, if I sell a $2500 amplifier, I'd have a decent check- that week- but that doesn't happen every week. I'm leery of the idea of commission sales. I love to bullshit in person and on-line, but somehow it just never lends itself to making money. I'm just not a good salesman, I am afraid.

Today I sold a pair of drumsticks. That's about 35 cents commission, think.
I need to have a talk with my new boss.

All I'm really interested in selling is my time. I'm think of revising my resume to read:

Objective: To sell my time to the highest bidder. My time is available in 40-hour weekly blocks on a self-renewing basis. During these purchased block of time, I will do anything reasonable that is asked of me and I will do it well. In return for doing that, I would like to receive at least $500 per 40-hour block and, oh yeah, some health insurance.

Is that too much to ask?

---------------------------------

Geez, the e-search continues to haul in a bounty of spamourus come-ons...this most recent one even admits to being illegal (comments mine):

... On August 4th of 2003 I returned from vacation to discover the company I had started 9 years EARLIER would be 100% out of business on August 25th!

My company was in the business of faxing a daily comic relief news fax to about 8,000 offices in the Virginia Beach area. Offices loved to read it with the morning coffee (they did? we used to hate spam faxes), and we made good money selling advertising on it. But the Federal Communications Commission's new regulation made it "unlawful" after August 25th, 2003.
.

Coincidentally, the FCC passed regulations banning unsolicited 'junk' faxes from being sent to unwilling recipients on Aug 25th, 2003. If the offices were enjoying the morning fax so much, they could have signed up for it- the fact that they didn't leads me to conclude his ' comic relief' faxes were unwanted, ad-based spam.

Fax spam was "unlawful", i.e, illegal- this guy's business was sending 8,000 spam faxes a day and selling ad space on the spams -probably counting every fax # as several 'readers' when quoting circulation figures to client/dupes.

The FCC made the practice illegal because it was tying up business fax lines; wasting gobs of paper, time, productivity and resources etc...eventually enough businesses complained and the FCC was forced to act.

The spam lobby tried and failed to defeat this regulation, and they did get an extension until 2005, by which time the rise of email had rendered fax spam largely irrelevant...anyway, I , like most folks, detest spammers- and this guy is asking me to 'work' for him!
By paying him to send spam for me!
What a great deal.

See, deep down, he's a soft-hearted , sensitive guy who cares about his people:

About one week into shutting down the company, my office manager was crying at her desk, I tried to encourage her, but all she could mumble was, "there aren't enough jobs out there, I can't afford to work for $8 an hour (I know), those are the only jobs I'm finding"

I felt responsible, so I came up with an idea, "Suzy, give me your resume and cover letter and I'll fax it to all the offices that get our comic relief fax" We faxed it to all the offices (that was over 8,000 offices) and we were blown away by the response!

He spammed all the offices that it had become illegal to send ads to, but he didn't send ads- he sent his employee's personal info instead.
I need a job really, really badly, but I'm not sure I want to spam 8,000 offices with unsolicited copies of my resume.

According to Fax Man, you can expect 1 phone call for every 100 faxes you pay him to send out. He suggests sending at least 5,000.
He gives discounts for quantity.

5,ooo fax spams, with a cover sheet on each, wastes at least 10,000 sheets of paper on the receiving end. That's two cases of paper. I'm no Ed Begley, but I am uneasy with such a cavalier waste of paper in my name- my name printed on each sheet!

Is this what 21st century job-searching is all about? Paying spammers to put your resume on their mailing lists? I'd bet that your own info gets placed on a 'for-sale' mailing list as soon as you sign up.

Yep, he will send your resume to one of his many mailing lists. For a nominal service charge.

I'm not even sure if this is legal, I guess it is, but it seems phishy to me... according to his site, the fax will appear to have come from YOU...I wonder if that makes you complicit should it actually be a crime?

I'm sick of all this. I want to work, not send my phone number to 50,000 strangers.

Hmmm...I wonder how much it would cost to fax a Xerox of my ass to 100,000 office drones? That almost might be worth it.

A Cautionary Toy

My formative years were fraught with disappointment, stupidity, guilt, brutality and Sea Monkeys.
I'm not kidding. I can't even look at this ad without feeling like I'm dredging up a mucky mnemonic boot brimming with bitterness and remorse.


I put a lot of work into getting ripped off on the monkey scam. A lot of planets had to align just so to allow me to order the monkeys - as children we rarely stayed in one place for the requisite 6-8 weeks required for postal delivery; having a fixed mailing address meant that things at home were relatively stable- which was unusual, to say the least.
To my dad's credit, he was around during this episode.
He gave me a dollar and tried to warn me about the Sea Monkeys, but I wouldn't listen.

"Are you sure that this is what you want to buy? You only have one dollar to spend. That's a lot of money. "

He knew the Sea Monkeys were a scam. It was one of the very few things he and mom agreed on. She echoed dad's words.

"Are you sure? You'll have to take care of them.They might not be what you think."

"Of course I'm sure I want the Sea Monkeys! I'm five fucking years old! I'll believe anything if I think it'll provide even a passing diversion from the despair that your divorce is causing me."

Well, I didn't exactly say that. More likely I just pouted. But I did get permission to send away for the Monkeys.

*SPOILER WARNING*

I think most of us know the truth behind Sea Monkeys by now. They are Artemia Salina , i.e., brine shrimp. They don't look anything like the cavorting pink cuties in the advert.
This is what they look like. For scale, imagine the object below is roughly the same size as a deodorant stick:


If I had any common sense I'd have known that the fanciful critters in the comic ad were bullshit, but hey, I was five.

The Sea Monkeys were not as advertised, but they were worth the dollar for the lessons I learned from them:

1) Always read the fine print.
2) Be careful what you wish for.
3) A fool and his money are soon parted.

All standard rite of passage stuff, not exactly good times, but valuable life lessons nonetheless. Surely there can't be any long-term emotional damage resulting from the Sea Monkeys, could there? Everybody goes through a Sea Monkey moment- get over it, eh?

Ah, should that it be so easy. See, those little shrimp did hatch. Inside 24 hours I had a goldfish bowl brimming with tiny aquatic roaches. They weren't much to look at and they didn't do squat by way of tricks.
My mother's aquarium was much more fun to watch. There was a little pink castle in the aquarium , just like the one in the advertisement above. Coincidently, my mom loved angelfish, one of which also appears in the comic clipping.

My mom had already nixed my idea to raise my monkeys in her aquarium. She didn't tell me why- she just said "it wouldn't be good for them." I didn't know what she meant but I obeyed her. The monkeys stayed in the fishbowl. As pets go, they were a crashing bore.

It wasn't long before I had a plan. I thought my monkeys might benefit from some company. Perhaps a new playmate might inspire them to get bigger and more interesting...I stood on a chair and used mom's little green net to scoop an angelfish out of the aquarium and drop it --ploop!--into my tiny Sea Monkey world. Such friends they'd be!

I waited breathlessly for the monkeys to cheerfully greet their bowl-mate. They didn't do that.

I didn't expect what happened next, but it did cure my boredom.

If you drop an angelfish into a bowl of Sea Monkeys , the fish will eat until all the monkeys are gone or the fish dies, whichever occurs first. In this case, it was both. The poor angelfish, which was as bloated as it's puffer cousin, wasn't swimming correctly. It wasn't swimming at all.

Oh shit. I'd better put it back in the aquarium and hope mom doesn't notice.

She noticed.

"Did you put those little fuckers in my tank?", she asked.

"No."

"Then why is my fish leaking Sea Monkeys?"

I had become a killer.

-----------------------------------------------

NEXT: Yogurt and cultured genocide.

My Bad Attitude

I'm starting to get fed up with having my resume posted on HotJobs. I get emails from them everyday, but they are never from employers that I have applied to- all I get is spam. The first one I received is excerpted here:

Dear Allan ,

In a recent review of online resumes, I was impressed by your qualifications and feel that you would be a great candidate for the position of Administrative Assistants with World_Voice_News, the fastest-growing online news organization in the world.

For this particular position, we’re looking for someone who is organized, reliable and self-motivated. If you do join World_Voice_News as an Administrative Assistants, you’ll be responsible for making travel and meeting arrangements...

Compensation for World_Voice_News’s Administrative Assistantss is extremely competitive, including an annual salary ranging from $35,000 to $50,000, with the potential...

Sounds pretty good, right? Let's look closer. The weird underscored font gives this the appearance of an old-fashioned form letter, because that is what it is.

"If you do join World_Voice_News as an Administrative Assistantss"...geez.
I cannot join as an Administrative Assistantss. I am singular. Assistantss are plural. The extra "s" only serves to put me into a hissy, sibilant mood.

I wouldn't want to be an AA at the World_Voice_News- I would rather be a proofreader. The potential for overtime is enormous- I mean, this is a business letter and it has typos that Word should catch. A good AA, such as myself, would never allow such sloppy writing into a professional correspondence.

By now, I'm already pretty skeptical of the W_V_N, but I check out the link anyway.
It's a scam. It's a generic application site- the same one you'll be directed to if you are reading the W_V_N , determine that "this is the place for me" and click on the careers link.
(If you feel "at home" reading the W_V_N...well, I'm sorry to hear that.)
At the bottom I see this:
(click yes or no)

Yes, I would like to receive information about higher education opportunities in my field.
No, I do not feel I would benefit from educational opportunities at this time.

If you've ever opened one of those "Take Surveys at Home" emails, you know what comes next- screen after screen of Great Offers and Exclusive Deals on crap that you don't need and can't afford- hell, a lot of it I can't even take seriously- sorry, but nobody gives away BMWs via random email drawings-what this is an attempt to gather data and sell it to advertisers.

So I say, screw this, I wanna see what the W_V_N is. I read a lot of on-line news and I have never heard of them. What are they about?
You can draw your own conclusions, but the headlines include:

"Democrats Concede Surge is Working"
"California Democrat Charged with Assault"
"More Evidence Refute Warming Theories"

and my favorite:
"Who is Ellen Bowen and why is Gross Pointe Talking about Her?"

You won't find much in the way of answers in the article referenced above, which is almost entirely comprised of questions and sentence fragments. This is the opening line:

"I have been following this story for some time now, at Grosse Pointe South High School concerning Ellen Bowen, a teacher, award-winning program director and very well respected by parents, community members, and former students. "

Dude, that isn't a sentence- it's a mess. What is the subject? I? This story? Who or what is "and very well respected"?...Yeah, I know one can extrapolate the meaning from the mess, but the reader shouldn't have to.
This is supposed to be journalism. It requires clarity on the part of the writer- the reader shouldn't have to untangle a verbal mess in order to deduce the meaning.
Worst of all, the writer is a teacher.
This is the closing line, which also fails to qualify as a complete, coherent sentence:

As an educator myself, I am appalled, disgusted and shocked at the community of Grosse Pointe to show such hatred to a teacher who is exceptional.

Aaargh. (Here is a readable article, if anyone cares)

This is how the writer describes himself, emphasis added:

" [Mr. X ] is an educator, specializing in mathematics in the Grand Rapids, MI elementary schools. A proud investigative reporter for the Michigan school systems, and a creative journalist whose stories stimulate you to think. As a coach, mentor, role model, visionary, public speaker and philanthropist in the community, Mr. [X] has created many unique, nationally known programs to honor students.
It's All About the Kids!"

Dude. I thought I was the most humble man on Earth, but your humility is so awesome that it wounds my pride.

I do have a question though: Do your programs honor ( pay tribute to) students or are they for [H]onor students?

Mr X is an investigative reporter who has created many nationally known programs...his rather unique name is given in the article, one shouldn't have to be an ace reporter to combine his name with words like "school" and " student" and use search engines to find these programs.

I couldn't find the programs, but I did find a pdf file containing the minutes from an Aug. 3rd,2005 "Level 3 SPHCM" meeting that the author attended, which includes this note:

5.2 (Microwave Fire Alert)
Three microwave fires were reported where food was either re-heated or cooked without being supervised. An email was sent out by [Mr. X] and [Mrs. Y] to inform all staff regarding fire risks.

Dude! Way to save the children! It took two teachers to send out an email reminding the other teachers to stop burning their fucking popcorn? That's a sad sign of the sorry state of affairs in our public school system...maybe somebody should do some investigative reporting on that.

Try this headline:
"Blogger Exposes Microwave Crisis in Michigan Schools"

Like that one? I wrote it myself.

Note to W_V_N's editors: I was able to find and collate this data in less than an hour. As well as Proofreader, I would like to be considered for the position of Investigative Reporter. I would be considerably more current and objective than:

"How the Marshall Plan Won the Cold War"
Seriously. That's not breaking news or investigative reporting. It's an opinion piece on post -WWII history.

Anyway, the following day I got another email:

Dear Allan ,

The resume you recently posted online has been brought to my attention... you may have the skills needed to fill an Administrative Assistant position we are seeking to fill.
<snip>
The national employee placement organization, National_Human_Resources...

National_Human_Resources constantly seeks out experienced professionals...

The Administrative Assistant position with National_Human_Resources provides support services for small businesses and executives by editing documents, arranging schedules and making travel arrangements...
<snip>
The compensation package for the Administrative Assistant position ranges from $30-$35K annually...

Look familiar?
Yep. It's the exact same form as the W_V_N , just on a different template.

Seriously, if you guys need help with investigative journalism, I'm right here. I can fact-check your stories and proof your copy before I finish my first box of morning donuts. Here's a free piece of editorial advice, sort of a goodwill gesture to let you know that I really can be a valuable cog in your machine-

Tip: Use the same font, size and format on every article. Otherwise, your newspaper runs the risk of looking like it's cut-and-pasted from emails and blogs.

Looking forward to your response.

History Repeats

One of the worst jobs I ever had was working as a temp, processing home-purchase loans at Bank of Generica. I had absolutely no background in real estate but I did possess a working knowledge of basic arithmetic and things often just didn't add up.

I would input the applicant's financial info into the system and it would often 'auto-reject' the loan for reasons of insufficient revenue - these rejections were turned over to another group and never seen by me again. I assumed that a household with a combined income of under $30k would be discouraged from taking out a 20-year mortgage on a $450,000 home.

I was wrong.

Weeks later, during a second stint at BoG, I was assigned to the group that got the rejects, as well as hundreds of thousands of new applicants- the program was called something very much like "Purchaser Rewards" and was purportedly designed to give low-income applicants a chance at buying a home by waiving the closing costs, adding bonuses and offering really low short term interest rates (subject to change after x years)...I was stunned by some of the loans that were given- it was clear that a great many of these people would never be able to pay-off their loans and that the Bank would inevitably foreclose and repossess the home, starting the cycle all over again.
I even approached a supervisor who I thought was somewhat cool and asked him if my suspicions were right- were these people being set up to lose their homes? It seemed unethical to me.

The next day I was transferred to a new dept. for training and subsequently became deathly ill- booze almost killed me and my week in intensive care sort of pushed aside my thoughts about BoG and it's questionable lending practices.

Until I read numerous articles like this:

More than 2 million hybrid adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) come up for reset this fall - peaking in October with more than $50 billion due.

Borrowers who took out hybrid ARMs in 2004 and 2005 to secure low "teaser" rates for the first two or three years of the loan may see their monthly mortgage payments climb by 35 percent or more.

The company predicts that 2.5 million first mortgages will default this year, with little chance for improvement soon - Economy.com expects delinquencies to peak in the summer of 2008 at 3.6 percent of all outstanding mortgage debt, up from 2.9 percent during the first three months of 2007.

The worst-hit loan category will be subprime adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs). Economy.com expects foreclosures for those loans to hit 10 percent of that group by mid-2008. The foreclosure rate for that group is currently 4 percent and was as low as 2.5 percent in 2005.

2.5 million defaults could potentially mean 2.5 million newly homeless families- in just a year! The low-wage borrowers who could just barely keep up under the temporary 'teaser' rates are now finding it impossible to make the new, increased payments and are losing their homes at an alarming rate -from 10% to 50% depending on the source- in any case, it's a sure sign that the housing 'bubble' is now as deflated and distasteful as a used condom.

The worst thing is, this was planned. The Banks knew they'd be foreclosing- they just hadn't planned on this volume of failures- their plan worked a little too well. With a great many homes getting ready to be put back on the market during a short time, it's inevitable that property values will drop, possibly below the appraisal value given at the time of the now-defaulted loans.

It's possible that the lenders will not be able to recoup their funds, and when Banks go broke, people suffer. There is some precedent in American history for exactly what is happening today- these could be the final days of the end of a modern Gilded Age. The hedge funds that were based on this speculative cycle of easy credit and quick home turnovers are in danger of being exposed as the emperor's clothes and investors are getting sweaty. The market could sink faster than a Teamster in the Hudson- or it may not.

If the statistics quoted above hold true we are in for some long-term "market correction"...and that may mean a return to the days of breadlines...except I have a difficult time imagining the current government having the desire or ability to help the millions of first-time home-losers that seem to be the inevitable by-product of these subprime lending practices. I've not seen any stats to back this up, but my own experience showed me that a great many of these teaser loans were given to working-class minorities and new immigrants- people whose hopes probably outweighed their resources when they took out the mortgages...now they may have no home - and without a home, how much hope is there?

Economists that I have read tend to give conflicting reports, so I am not sure if it's time to panic or not, but this current situation was easily predictable and it just seems to me like another in a seemingly endless series of moves by corporations and government to increase immediate, short-term financial numbers without taking a serious, considered look at the long-term results. I was an untrained office temp with a grade school education and I was able to predict that this subprime lending would soon bite everyone involved in their collective ass- if I could see it coming, you can be certain the stuffed shirts saw it too- the difference being that I do care,but I have no power, and the Banks don't care and they have all the power.

I feel terrible for the millions of people who are losing their homes and I hope that the entire market doesn't collapse soon...yeah, I know, I know- the end is always nigh, right?

It's just that sometimes it seems a lot nigher than it needs to be.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

In other job-search news:

- My local paper recently switched to the Yahoo-based 'hotjobs'. I must first disclose that I despise Yahoo...my first email was a Yahoo account and I would get hundreds of spam letters a day- something I don't get with other services- and I once made the mistake of running the Yahoo Anti-Spy program on my computer- the Yahoo program actually infected my PC with malware that I had to use Avast and Ad-aware to track down and clean...anyway, hotjobs is horrifically rife with BS "work-at-home" 1-800 numbers scams- the kind where you pay a registration fee before you get the details ...I called one that was looking for A/V technicians and was told that I had to pay a $45 dollar fee and register as a 'movie extra/model ' before I could apply for the Tech jobs.
This sent my Spidey-sense to tingling. I told the phone rep that I wanted to research the company before investing $45 in it:

"Research? What do you mean? We are right here in San Francisco... (so what, I thought, I live in VA) ...all the info is on our website and I can answer any questions..."

"I'd like to run your company through a Lexis/Nexis search (a bluff, now that I am not working in a law firm) and consult the Better Business Bureau, among other things..." (like googling blogs)

The phone rep was verbally squirming. "Please, there is no need to research us- we have been in business for nearly four years and are in good standing with everyone, including all the major studios and networks...we are a member of the BBB too..."

"OK. I'll get back to you after I check that out."

Guess what? He lied.

According to the BBB, the company in question (San Francisco- based Talent 6) is not only NOT a member of the BBB, but they have also an "unsatisfactory record" due to unresolved complaints against them.
Then I found this blog. It seemed to confirm my suspicions- there's a lot of ID switching in the comments, but there's plenty of anecdotal info against the company and the only defense is offered by the CEO himself, who calls the blogger a "nigger" , "dyke" and a "whore" , among other things. Later he apologizes in a truly-half-assed way, but by that time the blogger had apparently initiated legal action - it's a confusing story, but it steered me away from Talent 6.

- Hotjobs also offers openings that are listed under categories such as "administrative" or "technician" , but when you click on the link you are taken to a Military recruitment site- yeah, I'd like a job in communications technology that offers training and a chance for advancement, but not by exposing myself to combat. My instincts tell me that now would be an unwise time to enlist in the military...

- I am in love with my home fax/copier/scanner. It's the best job-hunting tool ever made- I can scan documents, fax in my resumes to places that don't accept emails and easily print out all my unemployment searches - the great Commonwealth of VA has decided that I can exist on 200 bucks a week until I find a new job- I'm thrifty, but not that thrifty- but at least it extends my 'cushion' a bit. I just have to prove that I have applied to at least three jobs per week.
I applied for three before my first cup of coffee...very easy.

Now why isn't my phone ringing?