Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some lost millions .
In genuine scams, yes. But nobody will accidentally pay millions for a business license that's also available for free.
Ransom should work.
Ads are impersonating government websites in Google results, despite ban
131–140 of 227 posts
Re: Ads are impersonating government websites in Google results, despite ban
#132I noticed that this is happening in the UK the other day. There are firms of lawyers (are they?) creating clones of the free Citizen's Advice service and marketing it via Google Ads. Slimy stuff.
Yeah, the one that caught my Mum recently was a "form filling service" for changing your driving license address. It sucks as it scams money out of people that probably don't have that much in the first place. Shortly after this she started getting additional scam calls/texts too, although this could be entirely unrelated...
Doubt it - these sorts of companies are very keen on people who are known to be susceptible.
Re: Ads are impersonating government websites in Google results, despite ban
#133Where does H&R Block and other tax prep services fall into this? Arent they (more or less) simply collecting a fee for handling otherwise "free" processes provided by the state and federal governments?
Not suggesting these nefarious actors, who rely on ignorance of the consumer, arent a problem
Re: Ads are impersonating government websites in Google results, despite ban
#134Google, Mozilla, et alia have trained people to not enter "www.whitehouse.gov" into the combined search/url bar, but simply "white house", and then to click on one of the links that shows up in search results, because this behavior increases clicks on their ads. It's shameful. Businesses used to list the URL for their company website. Now it's "find us on facebag!"
Re: Ads are impersonating government websites in Google results, despite ban
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's true, that's outside of the expected range. But confusion of authority is the same principle at this level or at a higher one it doesn't really matter. This particular context has a low expected value but the same principle in another context can cost very large amounts of money. Recently a big dutch retailer got caught out by a small thing, a suppliers administrative email got hacked and the company as a resu…
Some "service" numbers in the Netherlands advertise in google by showing a real phone number (for a gov institution or a business) that links to their paid number. People wait for 10-30 min then are call-forwarded to the real number. They may make multiple calls like that until the phone bill arrives that lists on average "40 euro service numbers" but even then they might not see though the scam, even if you see thou…
Yes, I've seen those too. I've already alerted OPTA to this and have sent multiple messages to Google, nothing however has changed so far.
This is a total scam and should be dealt with accordingly.
Re: Ads are impersonating government websites in Google results, despite ban
#136PSA: https://sec.report/ is not the URL for the SEC EDGAR database which is actually located here: https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html
Re: Ads are impersonating government websites in Google results, despite ban
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s rough out there. Was helping a friend of a friend last night who had been scammed into giving out her Instagram password. They’ve change the email / phone / pw on the account. In her case the account is actually a substantial business (art) portfolio with a lot of followers. Naturally, after a little digging, I discovered that her email was using the same pw and had also been compromised (hackers deleted the ema…
You usually login in the West Coast, then, all of a sudden, you started login in the East Coast -- hey, GOOGLE, FACEBOOK, isn't that ODD????????????????? I can't believe they act as they don't know what's going on and have no means to deter this. They SHOULD BE LIABLE!
Not sure about facebook, but google used to(no longer use them) warn me about location change(SMS and e-mail to secondary account).
Re: Ads are impersonating government websites in Google results, despite ban
#138Where does H&R Block and other tax prep services fall into this? Arent they (more or less) simply collecting a fee for handling otherwise "free" processes provided by the state and federal governments? Not suggesting these nefarious actors, who rely on ignorance of the consumer, arent a problem
Tax prep services have taken this game plan and gone major league by lobbying the government to prevent free, simple tax filing: https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-fre...
Re: Ads are impersonating government websites in Google results, despite ban
#139Its harder than it looks to solve this problem. And its also not that simple to weed out bad actors when normally the government sites that should rank are probably hopeless and the senior civil servants in charge knowledge of the web is “in need of some improvement” Google and Bing could turn up the YMYL (“your money or your life” ) knob but they would also need to employ higher paid local people to vet these sorts…
I've tried pitching similar roles in Government on the DoD side of the house for knowledge workers like Software Dev and Data Scientists. It's hard to get traction though when the folks making the decisions feel threatened that a 25 year old is going to be making the same as them and be the same "rank". I think part of the solution needs to be creating it on a separate scale than GS, similar to an SL or ST position,…
Probably not going to work for 25 year old junior developers at the more senior levels you need to be aware of the political side.
But its is a problem your not going to attract many B+ candidates if your so far behind industry.
About 3 years ago one uk org (I wont say which one) tried pitching people on linked in I got the pitch and so did a mate who's ex military he laughed and said "not on those poverty wages"
Re: Ads are impersonating government websites in Google results, despite ban
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've tried pitching similar roles in Government on the DoD side of the house for knowledge workers like Software Dev and Data Scientists. It's hard to get traction though when the folks making the decisions feel threatened that a 25 year old is going to be making the same as them and be the same "rank". I think part of the solution needs to be creating it on a separate scale than GS, similar to an SL or ST position,…
Probably not going to work for 25 year old junior developers at the more senior levels you need to be aware of the political side. But its is a problem your not going to attract many B+ candidates if your so far behind industry. About 3 years ago one uk org (I wont say which one) tried pitching people on linked in I got the pitch and so did a mate who's ex military he laughed and said "not on those poverty wages"
Yeah, the problem is that the US Government is trying to hire developers in at GS11 positions (~$72k salary in high cost of living area).
Never going to get good junior devs at that price point. Don't get me started on security clearance requirements in addition to low wages...
The fix is to provide competitive wages, but the politics of it is difficult.