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The Top 10 Internet/Email Scams

By Paul Gil, About.com

10 of 10

10) "Turn Your Computer Into a Money-Making Machine!"

Although not a full blown scam, this scheme works as follows: You send someone money for instructions on where to go and what to download and install on your computer to turn it into a money-making machine… for spammers.

At sign-up, you get a unique ID and you have to give them your PayPal account information for the “big money” deposits you’ll “soon” be receiving. The program that you are supposed to run, sometimes 24/7, opens multiple ad windows, repeatedly, thus generating per-click revenue for spammers.

In other scenario, your ID is limited to a certain number of page clicks per day. In order to make any money whatsoever from this scheme, you are pretty much forced to scam the spammers by hiding your real IP address with Internet proxy services such as “findnot”, so you can make more page clicks.

I won’t even go into the discussion about what this program will do to your computer’s performance... it is a true tragedy if you get conned into this scam.

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