It's official!

It's official!
David Stubbs Photography

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Think it's too good to be true? It is.

I made a huge mistake this week. I temporarily forgot the expression, "If it seems to good to be true, it is," and now I'm getting punished for it.

On Thursday, I started looking online for coupons in sticking with my 2011 philosophy "I'm not paying full-price for anything." I got to browsing, and found a website that offered to pay people cash to take product surveys. I thought that sounded perfect, because I'm full of opinions and always need money. So I signed up...and then it asked if I wanted to sign up for other paid surveys. I checked "yes", thinking score! I'll be making sweet cash in no time.

Then I figured out the catch. You only get money if you take the survey and then buy some product like an acne-treatment system, or new tires for your car. Dang it! But did I learn my lesson and stop there? Nope. I continued browsing and found websites that offer free product samples so you can write a review on them. I signed up, but found out again you have to buy other products in order to get these. Crap!

I closed out that web page, but the damage had already been done. All of a sudden, my e-mail inbox filled up with spam and before I knew it I was getting offers for Viagra, going back to school, getting "free" TV's, fighting hair loss and meeting attractive dark singles in my area. Now, I'm all about meeting new friends, but I have a feeling I'd have to pay for these new good-looking companions. (And I'm not sure the creators of this website meant to send their info to the whitest person in America. Even the girl who does my spray tans says there is NO one paler than me.)

As soon as I saw my inbox fill up with 50+ messages, the phone rang. When I answered, the woman said she was responding to my request to further my education. Sorry lady, I didn't sign up for that one (at least I don't think I did.) Plus, I've never really had the desire to be a mechanic.

Lesson learned: there are a lot of people out there trying to sell you crap, so beware. I think I may have to go into hiding just to stop the cyber stalking. But it's not all bad news--I think I did score a couple of free Oreos.

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