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Internet scammers act fast

The web is an interesting place. The election was just last night and Ohio came to the forefront late, but already there are lowlifes out there trying to profit from it.

There's no issue out there too sensitive that people won't try to make a buck off of these days. After September 11th we were flooded with patriotic t-shirts and catchy bumper stickers and now with the war in Iraq we can "Support Our Troops" for only twenty dollars. Is the money actually going to a good cause? Most of the time it's probably going to a company whose only "cause" is to make a fat profit off of others' misfortunes.

Now today, I saw this animated GIF on Joystiq. It claims you can click the obnoxious advertisement and get a free t-shirt and $100 gift card. The fine print:

To receive your free t-shirt and gift card, you must 1) submit email and mailing address information; 2) review offers and complete requested surveys; 3) complete at least one sponsored offer from Level A, one offer from Level B, and one offer from Level C; 4) follow redemption instructions. See Terms & Conditions for additional details.

So all you have to do is sign away your first born and you might get the items they promised you. Almost as alarming is the fact that there are even more details that they don't bother telling you in that disclaimer.

Misleading crap like that is why I'm glad Google's AdSense are just simple text ads. It's hard to be too dishonest with the two lines of text it gives you.

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