About a week ago I received an email from Google. The email was to inform me that my Adsense account has been disabled due to “invalid clicks”. I applied for my account to be reinstated and it was re-enabled a few hours ago today. Upon logging into my Adsense account I noticed that my earnings were reset to zero. I checked the Adsense help forums and I am not the only one this has happened to. I don’t make much from the ads on my website, barely enough to even cover hosting and domain costs. I feel that this is 100% unfair and that Google is just targeting random people to avoid having to pay. Either that or Google has a real asshole working for them who just decided to flag a bunch of people’s accounts at random just for the hell of it.

Did this happen to you? If so, reply in this thread on the Adsense help forum (click here).

A friend of mine has no medical insurance and his doctor wanted him to have some expensive blood tests. He really didn’t want to have to pay for it out of his own pocket so he got to looking around online to see if there was anyplace that offers online lab tests. He came across a website called PrivateMDLabs.com. They offer confidential lab testing and they email you the results. This seems like a pretty unique service. Usually when you have blood tests, the results go on your permanent medical record. This can lead to higher insurance premiums and alot more. All of the results from Private MD stay confidential. The only people who will ever see the results are you and Private MD. Visit their website at www.PrivateMDLabs.com and check out the services they offer.

After my post a while back regarding the Craigslist and eBay car scam, I was browsing through Craigslist looking for more cheap cars and came across several of them. After contacting a few of the sellers, they all replied with the same type of email as the other scammer! They all claimed they lived in another country and that they would use eBay as the middle man. I guess this scam is alot more common than I thought. Everyone should use caution when buying a vehicle online, especially when it’s not in your local area where you can pick it up and pay in person.

Last week I was browsing through craigslist to see if i could find a reasonably priced vehicle in my area. I came across a silver 2001 Honda Civic EX Coupe for right under $3,000. The price seemed very nice so I contacted the owner via the craigslist sale email address.

The person replied a few days later with the following email message:

Hi there and sorry for the late reply.

The car is still available for sale. This is a 2001 Honda Civic Ex Coupe, 1.7L 4-CYL VTEC, 5-SPEED Manual Transmission, Silver, 112000 MILES, VIN 1HGEM21951L088189.

It is in EXCELLENT condition; the body and paint are great, no scratches and no dents; the interior is clean; it has never been involved in an accident.

Here you can find more pictures with the car:
http://picasaweb.google.com/joel8matrix/Civic

I’m an US Air Force Lieutenant currently stationed in UK. And the car is here with me. It was bought in the US and shipped to Europe, but it was never permanently registered here, the car is still registered in the US.

The car is for sale locally as well, but there are slim chances of this to happen. First of all this is a US model car, with the steering wheel on the left side, as opposed to a UK model, that has the steering wheel on the right side. And second, in order to be able to register this car here in UK the buyer would have to pay very high import/custom taxes that will double the price. So I decided to sell the car back in the US.

As I’m unable to travel in the near future and I don’t have anyone back home to help me with the sale I decided to make this transaction through eBay.

So how this actually works? Simple: the buyer sends the payment to eBay and they hold the money until the car is delivered; I ship the car to US; I get my money only after the buyer receives the car and makes sure everything is as agreed. I believe this protects both buyer and seller and it’s the right way to do this.

The final price is $2,999 including shipping from Europe to the US and delivery to your home address.

So if you decide to buy this car or need further information please get back to me as soon as possible.

Thank you and have a great day,
Lt. Joel Miller
joel8matrix@hotmail.com

At first it seemed like a very good deal. A great car for an even greater price. I even got a Carfax check on it and everything looked good.

I then replied to the person and asked for more details regarding exactly how it works, going through eBay and all. They replied with pretty much the same information that was in their first email. It seemed a bit vague, so I started getting a little suspicious.

I told him I would give it a shot and I went ahead and emailed him my address and contact information. Shortly after sending him my information, I received 2 emails, both appearing to be from eBay Motors. The emails looked very legit and included my information, a picture of the car and the sellers information.

The thing I noticed, however, was the email addressed they were sent from. They werent sent from eBay.com or any subdomain of eBay.com. The emails were sent from protection-ebaymotors.net. I forwarded the emails to eBay’s spoof department and just as I suspected, the guy is a scammer. He almost got me for $3,000 dollars.

There is no telling how many people actually fall for scams like this. Posting a car or other item that is worth far more than your asking price, just to get alot of replies, making it easy to scam unsuspecting internet shoppers such as myself.

If you receive any emails from protection-ebaymotors.net or any other email address that you suspect may be fraudulent, forward the emails to spoof@ebay.com. They will review the email and tell you if it’s a legit eBay email or if its fake.

> Email this story to a friend so that they don’t fall victim to this same kind of scam!

I found a website called WhoGets.com. It’s an online sweepstakes contest that allows you to enter and win prizes, or you can just vote for another contestant to win. Basically whoever gets the most votes wins the prize.

Best of all, it’s completely FREE. No offers to sign up for and they don’t email you 10 times a day about special promotions and news like some of those other “free prize” websites.

They also have lots of different sponsors, so the prize isn’t the same for every contest.

Check it out and sign up!

I have found a great new ZIP utility. It’s called SecureZIP and it works great for sending private files and other information that you dont want to risk leaking by sending it normally. It’s also great if you just want to keep certain files secure on your personal or company computer.

I have always used the more well known ZIP softwares, but after trying SecureZIP, I’ll be sticking with it.

They have dubbed the software “SecureZIP - The next generation of ZIP” and i can see why. The GUI of the program is pleasing to the eye and it’s not cluttered with all sorts of useless functions that you might only use once a year. You can also set it up to work with Microsoft Outlook, so you can quickly and easily email the ZIP files you create.

I downloaded the free license version from www.SecureZIP.com. All you have to do is enter your email address and they will send you a link to download it for free.

They also have an Enterprise version of the program available for only $29.95, or you can purchase volume licensing for numerous computer systems.

I’m going to recommend the program to my manager at work. We’re always sending ZIP files back and forth for system updates and reports, so this will make things a little more secure, should a file get intercepted through our network security by some chance.

Check it out if you frequently use other ZIP programs or if youre just looking for a little extra security. It’s free, so theres no risk involved.