Early this morning, I received an email on my mobile from McDonald’s. “Strange”, I thought, “why would I be getting email from the Golden Arches”. Almost immediately I felt a bit embarrassed that perhaps I had become a VIP Member and that they were offering me some free food. After opening the email, I was asked to take a McDonald’s survey and much to my surprise, they were offering me $80 to my ‘account’. So, for the sake of curiosity, I clicked the link and opened my mobile browser and was redirected to the survey.
They asked some quick but expected questions about quality, friendliness of employees and were even interested to know what my favorite meal was – Bic Mac duh! After taking such valuable time out of my life I was given a kind thanks and redirected one last time to offer up my Credit Card information so that they could “credit my account”. All of my excitement and bliss came to a screeching halt – someone was trying to rip me off!
So when I got to the office, I opened my email account and once more saw the McDonald’s Survey and decided to see what it looked like from my desktop. I use Firefox for my browser and when I clicked the link, I got the following screen:
Bogus McDonald’s Link using Firefox
I also have a copy of Internet Explorer 7 on my computer which I am forced to use when I log into the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). I was curious to see how well Bill Gates was watching out for me and opened the exact same link in my Internet Explorer 7 – voilà !
Bogus McDonalds Link Using Microsoft Internet Explorer
*It’s obvious that someone is trying to scam other people and has put forth quite an effort in the attempt, because the Ronald McDonald I know would never ask for my credit card information. Perhaps I’m preaching to the choir here and you all have figured this out long before me (if so, shame on you for not warning others of this trickery) or perhaps not. In either case, I think the evidence is clear, Firefox is clearly looking out for you while Billy Boy is out getting pies thrown in his face!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpCMJ2xlLfo[/youtube]
Please tell us about scams that you’ve seen in recent days!
If you’ve experienced some sort of hoodwinking on the net let us know about it. After all, I don’t know too many people who have the extra cash to be duped into some of these deceptive schemes. You can do so by leaving a comment below.
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Yesterday, I received a once and a life time offer from the King of Nigeria. All I had to do was send my banking information to the Bank of Nigeria and then they would transfer money into my account. INCREDIBLE!!! The King of Nigeria is generous enough to give me $5000.00 of his own money. Hey King, how about this, use that money to buy your people FOOD!
Watch out for Craig’s list! I found a $600,000 hse.in the for rent category for $900 per month. I happened to know the realtor associated with the house. It was definately a scam. The “owners” in the ad were supposedly in Liberia vacationing and gave a phone number to call. It was pretty transparent to me, but the realtor representing the property was certainly glad I told her about it. Just another reminder to beware!