Crackdown On Internet Business Scams

Are you familiar with (do you ever receive ) those E mail scam messages to "make big bucks at home stuffing envelopes!" Or perhaps one to "assemble magnets" and make $800 a week profit". There are hundreds more of those business scams floating about on the Internet. Anyone who has seen them repeatedly knows to delete them, but apparently some novice Internet user are being tricked into spending money to engage in such bogus businesses. According to the U.S. government, that magnet scam, for example, attracted 30,000 people who were fleeced out of a good deal of money. Now the U.S. government has had enough. A crackdown on some of those phony businesses that promise lucrative work-at-home opportunities and has just begun. Just last year tens of thousands of suckers wee robbed out of more than $100 million, said the Federal Trade Commission yesterday. The Federal Trade Commission, Justice Department and Post Office filed over 200 lawsuits in 14 U.S. states against more than 200 alleged scam operations (sigh... but I love reading those ridiculous E mail spam messages) that have been involved in fraud or violation of consumer protection laws. It's a good thing because those whom lose money in those businesses will likely never get it back. The government is now saying that too many net users are too naive and need protection from the ads. In one instance some individuals invested 37,500 per machine from a crooked company called American Entertainment Distributors, in a plan to own a DVD movie rental vending operation. They were promised annual earnings from $60,000 to $80,000 and were told that AED would even place their machines in profitable places. Instead it sold the over priced machine and left the buyers to them selves, with no market or understanding of the units purchased. In the case of the make at home magnet business, 30,000 people signed up with National Home Assemblers to make refrigerator magnets. They paid $38 for "registration starter kits" and $12 for "inspection fees". The promise was for profits of $800 per week, but in all or most instances the magnets they made were rejected for "quality reasons" and the investors left with nothing but their magnets. Now the Federal Trade Commission has started a web site htp:www.ftc.gov to educate consumers which use the Internet to find business opportunities. It shows which companies the government has or is suing and advises the visitor about Internet get rich quick business schemes.
Oh....uh.. want to buy a magnet?