Do Scammers Have Souls?

Two things will certainly go up in a bad economy. Crime and scams. I know about the crime, cause Marc is swamped at work. The scams appear obvious from other things, for instance, craigslist's new SCAM ALERT which is shown now before you can look at jobs on their site. I say good job craigslist, because I would say about half the help wanted that are placed on craigslist are scams.

Granted, most of us know we cannot make thousands of dollars working from home. And would definitely not pay someone $150-$500 to send us a kit. And granted if you explained it to some of the poor saps who fall for it as "Would you pay a company that much to interview you?" they might come around and realize the scam for what it is.

Also big props to craigslist for the "FUN FACT" - telling you if you find out the scammer's affiliate ID and report it to their affiliate marketing program, you can get them fired. Sweet.

What makes me a little angrier though, are the regional area help wanted dot com sites. Long name, not so much on the amazing results. These places advertise as the best place to find a job, on the radio, in the paper on your tv. Because of their ads, you think, "huh, that site is probably legitimate and wouldn't let scammers in to take advantage of me." Craigslist, you kind of already know is a scary, scary place with scary posters and less than legitimate job offers. However, you would expect an employment site to sell it's space at a higher standard. Not. So. Much.

Browsing through my local Queensbury results in this system, I often come across "23 people needed IMMEDIATELY! Work at HOME! Make $5,500 - $8,000 a MONTH!" or "PAID ONLINE SURVEY TAKER-*Part Time* !CLICK HERE!" And these are in the legitimate results, not off to the side where even stupid people will recognize that they are an ad. This ticks me off. Sites that purport to help people find employment, should at least help them find legitimate employment.

Do scammers not feel guilty? I mean it is true, as P.T. Barnum is credited with saying "there's a sucker born every minute." I guess one attitude would be "well, someone's going to take advantage of these poor schmucks, may as well be me." But I personally think I would feel kind of guilty taking hundreds of dollars off of someone just trying to find a way to work at home so they can stay home with the kids too. Or someone disabled or whatnot. I mean granted, about half of the money scammers gets probably comes from lazy people, and that I guess I don't feel as bad about. But how is anyone in the world ok with ripping off stay-at-home-moms and disabled folks?

I merely feel that scammers should be held to some sort of "truth-in-advertising" commitment. Such as saying "While this program COULD potentially earn you eight thousand bucks this month, it is more likely to earn you $8, that's right 8 dollars."

Bah, scammers. Part of the reason I have to believe in karma & purgatory. And no, the two are not mutually exclusive.