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Posted by TJ on Sunday September 27, 2009 @ 12:16 AM
[Tags: scam, craigslist, business]

Note: This is part 24 in the Job Scam Series.

Thanks goes to Chris Rolston for sending in this scam. This is an email scam sent in reply to ads placed on Career Builder.

McKechnie Automotive & Engineered Plastics may be a real company, however, this job offer is a definite scam. These scams often use real companies to try and appear real. Do not respond to any job emails from "McKechnie Automotive & Engineered Plastics" or "Stuart Sonley".

Do not deposit any checks received from the this offer. They are fake or fraudulent and if deposited will be subtracted from your bank balance once the fraud is discovered.

If you received another job scam featuring another company please forward the email to
User submitted image
(This email address does not accept attachments for security purposes)


How do I spot a job scam?
  1. The message is for a position that you did not apply for
  2. The message is from or asking for a reply to an email address from a free email provider (ie: @aol.com, @yahoo.com, @gmail.com, @rocketmail.com)
  3. The position is for a work at home job. Let's get real here most of these positions are hard to come by.
  4. The message provides no phone and/or no mailing address
  5. You are "hired" for the position with no actual real life interview.
  6. The company does not have a website or the website was created in the last year. Do a whois lookup to see when a domain was created.
  7. The job list few or no qualifications
  8. The message is written with poor English
  9. A Google search for the company finds little or no history for the company
  10. The email fails to mention you by name. Starts off with generic opening (ie: Dear job seeker, Dear applicant).
  11. The work at home position involves receiving payments, money transfers, or check cashing.
*** This list is not all inclusive. Scams could meet any one of these or none at all. Remember if you have to ask yourself "Is this a scam?" it probably is!

What should I do if I provided my information to scammers?
  1. Do not respond to further communications.
  2. Do not cash any checks you received from fraudulent offer.
  3. Do not direct wire any money to addresses provided.
  4. If you sent bank Information: Call your bank immediately and tell them what happened. They should be able to change your account number or cancel your account.
  5. If you are still concerned you might want to enroll in credit monitoring such as LifeLock Identity Theft Prevention
  6. You can also file a claim with The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). They are probably overloaded with these types of claim though, so I would not expect an individual response. You can also contact the Better Business Bureau or your states attorney general's office
  7. Post a comment below with any information you have on this scam to inform other people to try and avoid any future victims. Post the email you received with exact wording if different from original posted so when people search for terms they find this warning.

Copy of Original Scam Email
Stuart Sonley said:

From: Stuart Sonley [mckenzieautos@live.co.uk
Sent: Wednesday, September 02, 2009 1:53 AM
To: Chris Rolston
Subject: RE: Office Administrator

Detailed Job Description – Payment Collection

Please Read Carefully For better understanding

McKechnie Automotive & Engineered Plastics moulds and extrudes all known types of plastic from its two UK sites, based in Stamford Bridge (Yorkshire) and Pickering (Yorkshire). Both businesses have a high degree of technical competence in the field of injection moulding.

MPC Stamford Bridge houses the divisional technical centre inclusive of a wide range of CAD design and Moldflow tools to assist customers with in depth product development. Advanced automotive and Multi shot moulding are featured throughout this diverse and high tech facility.

MPC Pickering is the divisional centre of excellence for automotive work where high volume output and statistically repeatable quality are fundamental to our customers needs. We also offer extensive painting and assembly facilities on this site.

Together these facilities provide customers with an unrivalled set of technical and manufacturing competencies from design and development to fully automated production.

Since the position for “Office Administrator” is no longer available, We have accepted your application for Another job and We have your information in our database. The primary goal of the Account Receivable Clerk is to provide local customer assistant to our clients within North America. You will be assisting our clients within North America, the assistance to be provided will include: payment collections and customer service. The HR Managers checked your resume and you have been picked as one of our possible candidates for Accounts Receivable Manage due to some factors of the Company, Your primary task would be receiving payments for our company and Customers. We are about to open a representative offices or authorized sales centers in some local city in the States. Your Accounts Receivable Clerk duty would be that you become our Account Receivable Manager (ARM) and it’s a contract –to-hire position which is a 1 month trial after which the position is made full time.Please be advised that we need total dedication for the job.

Your duties will include: Collecting Payments When a buyer in United States decides to purchase an item through an online auction from our sellers he has the following payment options:pay pal, international wire transfer, international check, or local wire transfer. The quickest option of these is local wire transferring. Local wire transfers are the option that the sales support representative will provide to the clients.

- Forwarding of the Payments

Once you receive each payment you will be keeping 10% as commission and forwarding the rest to the seller or representative, whose information will be provided prior each transaction. It is crucial to complete forwarding of the payments in a time efficient manner.

Here is an example of a brief report:

Date: 15 07, '09
Buyer: Bluestone Medicals
Item: Plastic Wares / Hospital Plastic Eqiupments
Price: £ 2,921.27
10% Commission :£292
Fees: £ 115
Total Forwarded: £2514
Forwarded to: John Adams, England, United Kingdom
Money Gram Reference Number: 9932091
Sender : Emmanuel Elijah

- Fees, and Transferring Procedures

All fees are covered by the company. The fees for transferring are simply deducted from the payments received. No client will contact you during initial stage of the trial period. After three weeks of the trial period you will begin to have contact with the buyers via email in regards to collection of the payments. For the first three weeks you will simply receive all of the transferring details, and payments, along with step by step guidance from your supervisor. You will be forwarding the received payments by wire transfer.

: Additional Information

Salary:

During the trial period, you will be paid 1,250USD per month while working on average 3-4hours per day, plus 10% commission from every payment received and forwarded. The salary will be sent in the form of wire transfer directly to your account. After the trial period your base pay salary will go up to 1,650USD per month, plus 10% commission.
-Taxes
You will receive a monthly invoice stating your total income. All applicable taxes are covered by the company at the end of the year.

Your First Primary task (Collection of Payments)

1. Receive payment from our Customers or Clients.
2. Cash Payment at your Bank or any cashing facilities near you.
3. Deduct 10 % which will be your percentage/pay on Payment processed
4. Forward balance after deduction of percentage/pay to any of the offices you will be contacted to send payment to, you'll have a lot of free time doing another job, because this job schedule is flexible, you'll get good income .But this job is very challenging and you should understand it.

Please kindly fill your details below to apply :
------------------------------------------------

Full Name : ___________
Full Address: _________
City: _________________
State: _______________
Zip/Postal code:________
Home phone :__________
Cell phone: ___________
Recent occupation: ______
Gender: _______________
Personal Email Address:___


Human Resources Manager
McKechnie Automotive & Engineered Plastics

- Stuart Sonley
- Website : http//www.mckechnie-platics.co.uk
- Bridge Works
- Stamford Bridge
- York
- YO41 1AL
McKechnie Engineered Plastics Limited is a member of the Melrose Group registered in England, No 3984537.
Registered Office: Precision House, Arden Road, Alcester, Warwickshire, B49 6HN.


If you receive this scam and found this post helpful please post a comment so I know these warnings are being read! Thanks!



Posted by TJ on Sunday September 27, 2009 @ 12:09 AM
[Tags: scam, craigslist, business]

Note: This is part 23 in the Job Scam Series.

Thanks goes to Chris Rolston for sending in this scam.

Avoid any association with this scam and do not respond to any emails from
"iZZi Computers" or "Angela Hynes"


Do not deposit any checks received from the this offer. They are fake or fraudulent and if deposited will be subtracted from your bank balance once the fraud is discovered.

If you received another job scam featuring another company please forward the email to
User submitted image
(This email address does not accept attachments for security purposes)


How do I spot a job scam?
  1. The message is for a position that you did not apply for
  2. The message is from or asking for a reply to an email address from a free email provider (ie: @aol.com, @yahoo.com, @gmail.com, @rocketmail.com)
  3. The position is for a work at home job. Let's get real here most of these positions are hard to come by.
  4. The message provides no phone and/or no mailing address
  5. You are "hired" for the position with no actual real life interview.
  6. The company does not have a website or the website was created in the last year. Do a whois lookup to see when a domain was created.
  7. The job list few or no qualifications
  8. The message is written with poor English
  9. A Google search for the company finds little or no history for the company
  10. The email fails to mention you by name. Starts off with generic opening (ie: Dear job seeker, Dear applicant).
  11. The work at home position involves receiving payments, money transfers, or check cashing.
*** This list is not all inclusive. Scams could meet any one of these or none at all. Remember if you have to ask yourself "Is this a scam?" it probably is!

What should I do if I provided my information to scammers?
  1. Do not respond to further communications.
  2. Do not cash any checks you received from fraudulent offer.
  3. Do not direct wire any money to addresses provided.
  4. If you sent bank Information: Call your bank immediately and tell them what happened. They should be able to change your account number or cancel your account.
  5. If you are still concerned you might want to enroll in credit monitoring such as LifeLock Identity Theft Prevention
  6. You can also file a claim with The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). They are probably overloaded with these types of claim though, so I would not expect an individual response. You can also contact the Better Business Bureau or your states attorney general's office
  7. Post a comment below with any information you have on this scam to inform other people to try and avoid any future victims. Post the email you received with exact wording if different from original posted so when people search for terms they find this warning.

Angela Hynes said:

From: Angela Hynes
Date: Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 10:45 AM


Dear Candidate,

We got your resume and your application for our advert on Craiglist. We are sincerely sorry to inform you that the position for the Business

Management/ Customer Service Executive / Administrative Assistant has been occupied. Our managers went through your resume and you have been picked for an alternative Job which is the Accounts receivable. This position is also a Business Management position only that you work from home till September 2009 when the new office in your state is open for business then you would be the Administrative Assistant there.

About US

iZZi Computers is a U.K and U.S. Based Company and with established leaders in Printing Products such as Ink Cartridges, Toner, Ribbon e.t.c. and also Engraving. We are involved in supplying printing materials worldwide. We serve the entire United States and a growing export market efficiently. Once orders are received and sorted we deliver the product to a customer. After this has been done the customer has to pay for the products but in most cases we make our clients prepay for orders or items they ordered for. About 90 percent of our customers prefer to pay through, Certified Checks or Money Orders drawn from the United State based on the amount involved why Only few decide on other forms of payment.

Your primary task for now, as a representative of the company is to coordinate payments from customers and help us with the payment process. You are not involved in any sales. Once orders are received and sorted we deliver the product to a customer. After this has been done the customer has to pay for the products but in most cases we make our clients prepay for orders or items they ordered for. About 90 percent of our customers prefer to pay through Cashiers Check, Certified Checks or Money Orders drawn from the United States based on the amount involved.

We have decided to open this new contract to hire job position for solving this problem. Your First Primary task (Collection of Payments).

WHAT YOUR NEED TO DO FOR US

1. Receive payment from our Customers or Clients.
2. Cash Payment at your Bank or Deposit payment and let us know how long its going to take before it clears at the Bank
3. Deduct 10% which will be your percentage/pay on Payments processed, also you will be earning $1,000.00 for a Monthly payment at the end of every Month
4. Forward balance after deduction of your 10% pay to any of the offices you will be instructed to send payment to.


You' will have a lot of free time doing another job, because this is a part time job, you will get a really good income. But this job is very challenging and you should understand it. We are considering your application because you satisfy our requirements and we are sure you will be an earnest assistant till we start running our branch office in your state. For example if you recieve 4000.00 USD, your 10% should be
400.00 USD. Here are the information you are to provide then we will get back to you after we must have gone through it all. Get back to us with
information required below, so that we can add your mailing address to our Regional database and forward it to our customers for them to send payments.

MAIN REQUIREMENTS
* Responsible
* Ready to work 3-4 hours per week.
* PC knowledge, E-mail and internet experience (minimal)
* Ability to record work activities.
_________________________________________

APPLY BY FILLING THE INFORMATION BELOW: _________________________________________

* Full Names.................
* Address(NO P.O. BOX).......
* City.......................
* State......................
* Zip Code...................
* Phone.....................
* Email .....................
* Present Occupation.........

Thanks for your anticipated action. And we hope to hear back from you.

HR Director
Angela Hynes

Note: This is also a medium of challenging the possibilities inherent on the online technology according to my research work titled "Staff development for online delivery: A collaborative, team based action learning model" you can check the website below for a more comprehensive reading of the article.

Please cite as: Ellis, A. and Phelps, R. (2000). Staff development for online delivery: A collaborative, team based action learning model.

Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 16(1), 26-44.


If you receive this scam and found this post helpful please post a comment so I know these warnings are being read! Thanks!





Posted by TJ on Monday September 7, 2009 @ 11:08 PM
[Tags: scam, business, craigslist]

Note: This is part 21 in the Job Scam Series.

Thanks goes to CJ Hayden for sending in this scam. This is an email scam sent in reply to ads placed on Craigslist. This scammer picked an interesting company to use in this scam "Fuchs". Just seeing the name alone makes we wonder is that real company? It is a real company but this offering is not...it's a scammer who has no affiliation with the real company. CJ also sent me similar for these jobs: " PERSONAL ASSISTANT", "Office Assistant", Mystery shopper - Great America Inc, Mr Poun J Lintakoon (Lintakoon@live.com). If you received any offers for these companies they are scams and should not be replied too.

Avoid any association with this scam and do not respond to any emails from Alhamrani-Fuchs Petroleum Ltd

Do not deposit any checks received from the this offer. They are fake or fraudulent and if deposited will be subtracted from your bank balance once the fraud is discovered.

If you received another job scam featuring another company please forward the email to
User submitted image
.

How do I spot a job scam?
1.) The message is for a position that you did not apply for
2.) The message is from or asking for a reply to an email address from a free email provider (ie: @aol.com, @yahoo.com, @gmail.com, @rocketmail.com)
3.)The position is for a work at home job. Let's get real here most of these positions are hard to come by.
4.) The message provides no phone and/or no mailing address
5.) The company does not have a website or the website was created in the last year. Do a whois lookup to see when a domain was created.
6.) The job list few or no qualifications
7.) The message is written with poor English
8.) A Google search for the company finds little or no history for the company
9.) The email fails to mention you by name. Starts off with generic opening (ie: Dear job seeker, Dear applicant).
10.) The work at home position involves money transfers or check cashing.
*** This list is not all inclusive. Remember if you have to ask yourself "Is this a scam?" it probably is!

What should I do if I provided my information to scammers?
  1. Do not respond to further communications.
  2. Do not cash any checks you received from fraudulent offer.
  3. Do not direct wire any money to addresses provided.
  4. If you sent bank Information: Call your bank immediately and tell them what happened. They should be able to change your account number or cancel your account.
  5. If you are still concerned you might want to enroll in credit monitoring such as LifeLock Identity Theft Prevention
  6. You can also file a claim with The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). They are probably overloaded with these types of claim though, so I would not expect an individual response. You can also contact the Better Business Bureau or your states attorney general's office
  7. Post a comment below with any information you have on this scam to inform other people to try and avoid any future victims. Post the email you received with exact wording if different from original posted so when people search for terms they find this warning.

lindabarr006@gmail.com said:

From: emp_goldenage@yahoo.com
To: [[email removed]]
Sent: 9/7/2009 8:09:56 A.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: Re: Personal Assistant wanted ASAP

Hello,

How are you doing today? Thanks for the quick response, I am Public Relations Manager, a native of San Antonio, TX. based in Saudi Arabia. we are a crude oil merchant based here in Saudi Arabia & Kuwait for 13 years. We have lots of business associates, clients and customers round the globe and this is what prompted us to contact you.
However, due to our large business empire we are finding it difficult to handle most of the international transactions with our clients, investors and business associates....would like to employ your services as my Marketing, Clerical & Sales Manager for investors and customers in the states and Canada.
Below is what this position entails:
1...JOB ENTAILS
* Taking records of crude oil sale to my customers in the state...
* Sending price increment or decrement notice to our customers in the states via phone, email or fax.
* Be in charge of the company's account in the states.(An account will be open on behalf of the company, which i will let you know when to do that, funds will be made available)
* Printing and packaging payments, mailing payments to suppliers in the states.
* Receiving payments from customers and clients in the states.
* Deposit payments into the company's account or wait for further instructions from me.
2....PAY RATE.
* $680 weekly is what i am willing to pay. If you are interested, get back to me with the below details so as to get started.
3....REQUIRED INFORMATION.
* Name:
* Address:
* City:
* State: * Zip code:
* phone :
* Age:
* Sex:
* Present occupation:
* Bank name:
You are providing your information for a proper screening in other to confirm maybe we have branch in your environment and to confirm if you are capable of the job that will be giving to you.
On the company's website, you will find a field where you could send your resume, do not use that because it's for applicants within Saudi-Arabia only, i hope you understand this very well.
I await to read from you as soon as possible.
Thank you and God bless.
MANAGER, LESLIE WILLIAMS.
PRO/MD
Alhamrani-Fuchs Petroleum Ltd
11 Kumaranyakae Road.
P.O. Box 7103
Jeddah 21462
Kingdom of Saudi-Arabia
Email emp_goldenage@yahoo.com
Yahoo messenger id: emp_goldenage
Website: www.fuchs.com.sa



If you receive this scam and found this post helpful please post a comment so I know these warnings are being read! Thanks!



Posted by TJ on Monday August 31, 2009 @ 10:55 AM
[Tags: scam, business, craigslist]

Note: This is part 20 in the Job Scam Series.

This is an email scam sent in reply to ads placed on Craigslist. Thanks goes to M Mize for sending this one in.

Avoid any association with this scam and do not respond to any emails from Green Group Plastics LTD

Do not deposit any checks received from the this offer. They are fake or fraudulent and if deposited will be subtracted from your bank balance once the fraud is discovered.

If you received another job scam featuring another company please forward the email to
User submitted image
.

How do I spot a job scam?
1.) The message is for a position that you did not apply for
2.) The message is from or asking for a reply to an email address from a free email provider (ie: @aol.com, @yahoo.com, @gmail.com, @rocketmail.com)
3.)The position is for a work at home job. Let's get real here most of these positions are hard to come by.
4.) The message provides no phone and/or no mailing address
5.) The company does not have a website or the website was created in the last year. Do a whois lookup to see when a domain was created.
6.) The job list few or no qualifications
7.) The message is written with poor English
8.) A Google search for the company finds little or no history for the company
9.) The email fails to mention you by name. Starts off with generic opening (ie: Dear job seeker, Dear applicant).
10.) The work at home position involves money transfers or check cashing.
*** This list is not all inclusive. Remember if you have to ask yourself "Is this a scam?" it probably is!

What should I do if I provided my information to scammers?
  1. Do not respond to further communications.
  2. Do not cash any checks you received from fraudulent offer.
  3. Do not direct wire any money to addresses provided.
  4. If you sent bank Information: Call your bank immediately and tell them what happened. They should be able to change your account number or cancel your account.
  5. If you are still concerned you might want to enroll in credit monitoring such as LifeLock Identity Theft Prevention
  6. You can also file a claim with The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). They are probably overloaded with these types of claim though, so I would not expect an individual response. You can also contact the Better Business Bureau or your states attorney general's office
  7. Post a comment below with any information you have on this scam to inform other people to try and avoid any future victims. Post the email you received with exact wording if different from original posted so when people search for terms they find this warning.

lindabarr006@gmail.com said:

From: linda barr
Subject: Re: Office Administrator
To: [[Removed]]
Date: Wednesday, August 19, 2009, 10:44 AM

Detailed Job Description – Account Assistant


Please Read Carefully For better understanding

The Company Green Group Plastics LTD. Formed in 1992, Green Group Plastics LTD has established a strong reputation as a manufacturer and designer of technical trade extrusions for a number of industries. Using these base skills, we have expanded our offering over the years to include a range of specialist plastic products including:

- Domestic fencing and decking
- Caravan verandahs and sundecks
- Roof walkways and safety decking
- Plastic Piling

We have accepted your application for the job and We have your information in our database. The primary goal of the Account Receivable Clerk is to provide local customer assistant to our clients within North America . You will be assisting our clients within North America, the assistance to be provided will include: payment collections and customer service.The HR Managers checked your resume and you have been picked as one of our possible candidates for Accounts Receivable Manager due to some factors of the Company, Your primary task would be receiving payments for our company and Customers. We are about to open a representative offices or authorized sales centers in some local city in the States. Your Accounts Receivable Clerk duty would be that you become our Account Receivable Manager (ARM) and its a contract -to-hire position which is a 1 month trial after which the position is made full time .Please be advised that we need total dedication for the job.

Your duties will include: Collecting Payments

When a buyer in United States decides to purchase an item through an online auction from our sellers he has the following payment options:pay pal, international wire transfer, international check, or local wire transfer. The quickest option of these is local wire transferring. Local wire transfers are the option that the sales support representative will provide to the clients.


- Forwarding of the Payments

Once you receive each payment you will be keeping 10% as commission and forwarding the rest to the seller or representative, whose information will be provided prior each transaction. It is crucial to complete forwarding of the payments in a time efficient manner.

Here is an example of a brief report:

Date: 15 07, '09
Buyer: Bluestone Medicals
Item: Plastic Wares / Hospital Plastic Eqiupments
Price: £ 2,921.27
10% Commission :£292
Fees: £ 115
Total Forwarded: £2514
Forwarded to: Donna Moore, England, United Kingdom
Money Gram Reference Number: 97343981
Sender : Emmanuel Elijah

- Fees, and Transferring Procedures

All fees are covered by the company. The fees for transferring are simply deducted from the payments received. No client will contact you during initial stage of the trial period. After three weeks of the trial period you will begin to have contact with the buyers via email in regards to collection of the payments. For the first three weeks you will simply receive all of the transferring details, and payments, along with step by step guidance from your supervisor. You will be forwarding the received payments by wire transfer.

: Additional Information

Salary:

During the trial period, you will be paid 1,250USD per month while working on average 3-4hours per day, plus 10% commission from every payment received and forwarded. The salary will be sent in the form of wire transfer directly to your account. After the trial period your base pay salary will go up to 1,650USD per month, plus 10% commission.

-Taxes
You will receive a monthly invoice stating your total income. All applicable taxes are covered by the company at the end of the year.

Your First Primary task (Collection of Payments)

1. Receive payment from our Customers or Clients.
2. Cash Payment at your Bank or any cashing facilities near you.
3. Deduct 10 % which will be your percentage/pay on Payment processed
4. Forward balance after deduction of percentage/pay to any of the offices you will be contacted to send payment to, you'll have a lot of free time doing another job, because this job schedule is flexible, you'll get good income .But this job is very challenging and you should understand it.

Please kindly fill your details below to apply :
------------------------------------------------

Full Name : ___________
Full Address: _________
City: _________________
State: _______________
Zip/Postal code:________
Home phone :__________
Cell phone: ___________
Recent occupation: ______
Gender: _______________
Personal Email Address:___


Human Resources Manager
Green Group Plastics LTD




If you receive this scam and found this post helpful please post a comment so I know these warnings are being read! Thanks!



Posted by TJ on Friday November 7, 2008 @ 02:02 PM
[Tags: guide, internet, craigslist]

Okay lets say you want to sell something on Craigslist. How about we say it's refrigerator.

A good description to sell this is not:

"White refrigerator for sale"

This is missing a lot of information and you are not going to get a lot of serious replies. You may also miss serious takers because they are not willing to email every ad asking for more details.

Here is some important information that should be included in every ad:
  • Brand
  • Model #/Part #
  • Photo ... if you do not have a digital camera find a stock picture of item off the internet... do a Google image search.
  • Color
  • Size
  • Price
  • Condition (good/decent/bad/like new)
  • What is included? (list all separate items included/power cord/ice tray/)

If you do not want to list all this information and the item is still for sale find the item on Amazon.com or other retailer and link to it.

If applicable:
  • List if the product Manual is included. If you don't have manual you can usually find the manual on manufacturers website. Find the manual and include link to it in your ad.


Spend a little time on your advertisement and you will be surprised at the responses you receive.



Posted by TJ on Monday May 26, 2008 @ 03:55 PM
[Tags: free, links, craigslist]

Oddly enough craigslist is a cool place to find free stuff. Most people post the stuff because it is more convenient to give it away then throw it away. Here is some things I found:

  • free dirt delivered
  • Free desk on the street NOW
  • 2 large bags of packing peanuts
  • Free punching bag
  • Free Guinee Pig
To find free stuff in your town goto http://craigslist.org and browse the "free category" under "For Sale"



Posted by TJ on Sunday January 28, 2007 @ 10:27 PM
[Tags: web design, myspace, craigslist]

I spend a lot of time on the coding of my website to make the design appear somewhat presentable. I find it very amusing that some sites that bring in millions of visitors each day do not put any effort into their appearance. With a little bit of designing I bet these site can increase their visitors by at least 10%. Here is a list of offending sites:

myspace.com Besides their very poor services they also have very poor design problems. You never know when you're logged on and page transition in the member's area is very slow. You think one of the most popular sites on the web can I spend a little money to make their site appear top notch. Have at least their main page appear presentable will lessing the nuisance of viewing those awful teeny boppers myspace profile pages.

Drudge Report Drudgereport.com is a popular U.S.-based news website run by Matt Drudge. The site consists primarily of links to stories from the US and international mainstream media. The site looks like it was designed in MS Word html editor. One think I hate worst when visiting a website is having to scroll. I like all the main content to be in one viewing area. I understand this can't only happen but this site makes you scroll left->right and up->down... doing this loses the readers attention. Viewing the website is worst then having to flip through pages of the NYTimes on a crowded subway. The viewing area spreads will easily extend over a virtual football field. This site is in dire need of a overhaul.

Craiglist is a centralized network of online urban communities, featuring free classified advertisements. This site has made the owner (I forget his first name) a millionaire. The site however is plain, in fact I do not think theirs an image hosted on the Craigslist servers. Their HTML links everywhere and often you find yourself getting lost because there's no defined menu.


Ingdirect.com For a multi-million dollar financial institution this bank has a very fake looking design. I just can not trust the security on a site with poor design.

Snopes.com a website dedicated to determining the truth about many urban legends, Internet rumors, email forwards, and other such stories of uncertain or questionable origin. Snopes design hasn't been updated even after they current receive millions of hits each day. How can Webmaster be so ignorant to the fact that a good design = more visitors? More visitors = more profit from ads.

IMDB The International Movie Database needs some organization work. It just a bunch of text spread throughout.



Posted by TJ on Thursday January 25, 2007 @ 12:27 PM
[Tags: internet, classifieds, craigslist]

So here's my second attempt at this article the first was accidentally deleted...

The internet is responsible for a lot of things that didnt happen 10+ years ago. Among the most interesting is how the internet has managed to effect the market of the following print media that you basically do not need anymore as the internet is a much more resourceful in obtaining the information the media had to offer.

Yellow Pages: The only thing these are good for these days is allowing my mom to see over her car steering wheel. Who needs this when you can just type in what your looking for into Google? Need a barber search for "Barber [your city]" need a contractor search for "contractor [your city]" Not only will you get a list of phone numbers but you should also get links to the business web pages which provide a lot more info than an ad in the newspaper. With the internet you can also do a reverse telephone lookup. Have a weird number on your called id... type the number into Google (ie: XXX-XXX-XXXX) and find out who called you. You would have to look through the whole white pages to achieve this with the Yellow Book.

Encyclopedia: There is no longer a need for these unless they are for show and you want people to believe your scholarly. You have sites like Wikipedia or just search for what your looking for and find out up to date information quickly.

Dictionary/Thesaurus: No sorry, Webster your going to have start writing comics or something. Just type any word into Google and not only will Google define it but it will correct your spelling if it is spelled wrong.

Classifieds: Newspapers are having trouble maintaining profit with the proliferation of online classifieds, site's like eBay, Monster (Help Wanted), and Craiglist.org (classifieds) are among the most popular. Why post a classified in a newspaper and only reach the local area when you can post it on the internet and reach the World?

Newspapers: I just mentioned classifieds above but hey who still needs to read the newspaper? Besides keeping people awake when on the train or toilet there is not need for newspaper. Google News provides news articles from 4,500 sources around the globe. The news is easily searched which beats trying to fold any paper page so it's just the article you want. What's another great thing about the internet news? It uses 100% less trees. Go me on saving the enviroment one step at a time. Now we just need to figure out how the internet can reduce the need for fuel... hmmm.

Cliff Notes: Students no longer need to pay money to cheat on that book exam. Just type in your book title to goolge and get tons of reviews, summaries, sample exams.

Wait... for my next article how the iPod not only destroyed the market for music CD's...

There is many more anyone care to add...?