I'm guessing desperate, not evil, intentions

> MaaMaw has a point here. If Kay were looking for more traffic to her page,
> she would have put up a link. As it is, all she put was an e-mail address
> ripe for spamming. :(

Agreed. It was the hook to run a few searches, that's all. Her post was not spamming at all.

> As I lurk and wander in forums often frequented by newbies, I am just
> floored by the number of naive and hungry people looking to make any money
> at all on line to support themselves, their families, or just as a
> cushion. They jump at all the freebee offers because that's all they can
> afford. And when one doesn't work they jump to the next one, and the one
> after that. Always one more.

And why is that? They're infected with the "grass is greener" syndrome, or the "maybe the NEXT appealing opportunity won't be a con or scam like the last 19 were."

You can warn them with sites like this. You can educate them if only they ask to be educated. But the profile I got from this newbie was that she wasn't quite a newcomer to being conned, yet she was asking questions from the slant that it was possibly HER fault that she wasn't getting rich because she wasn't doing the right amount or kind of advertising.

It's not HER fault for not marketing or advertising effectively. It's that almost every opportunity I saw her get into was crapola.

That's a poisonous cycle that in my experience can only be broken with some harsh intervention or a wake-up call like my post. I *do* have a tendency to dig in and find the dirt on folks if they're dirty, and the on-line trail left by Kay wasn't that bad in terms of conning others. It was more a demonstration of how she got conned repeatedly, over many months, and not learning from the experiences.

> They have no database to weigh the info they get against. Everything they
> read has as much a chance of being valid as every other thing they read.
> And it all looks so good! Yes, that's how they get taken to the cleaners,
> and shame on those who take them.

Somebody has to break the cycle, and stop being so gullible. In this small way, posting to the FIB forum is like being invited to the Dr. Phil show. :-)

> Maybe a light is coming on and she is beginning to realize that the
> freebee route isn't likely to be productive, but which way is? Just
> because you have eliminated one option doesn't mean you know which way to
> go; it just means you know which way NOT to go.

Freebies are worth what you pay for them. Pay-to-read-email programs are similarly bunko. Free IPod sites and their ilk: crap. FFA: ludicrous. HYIP: scams. "Safe lists": all sellers and no buyers.

Plenty of ways to not go, and the awareness will come with understanding what common thread ties all of these sorts of opportunities together - it's the big payoff for no work syndrome.

> Yes, Roadie, all that stuff you posted looks bad. Uselessly bad. Maybe now
> she can see that, too? Do you have evidence of sinister intentions? If so,
> post more. Or has your enviable talent exposed just a boatload of naiveté?

Nah, she's not evil, but horribly misguided and needing a mentor. An honest mentor, or a group of mentors like the FIB crowd.