Thursday, March 12, 2009

Daily frauds

It's odd how many frauds are floating around on the internet.

I received a notice from an apparently legitimate company explaining how they were compiling a list of "leading Canadian lawyers" in a specific specialty and telling me I had be found to be among the top 45 in Canada.

How flattering.

Except I do not, and never have, practiced law in that specific specialty.

Curious though I replied to the email and said how delighted I was to be selected -- what's next?

Of course ... An invoice to have my name in a special directory of "leading lawyers" ... .

Any time you have to pay for an honour, the honour is bogus. Perhaps not as obviously as a PhD bought for cash but it's the same idea.
James Morton

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

But I'm sure you are in the top in your field in Canada!

Stephen Downes said...

What's more odd is that, even though these are obvious frauds, and even though it's dead simple to get in touch with the people perpetuating them, they just go on and on unmolested. As though they aren't even illegal.

People are all up in arms over people sharing music with their friends, and yet massive widespread obvious fraud goes unpunished. And then people wonder why so many people hold the law and its enforcement in contempt these days.