Agreed, I wish I could go out there and trust vendors (both online and offline), but that's not the world we live in. Unless you have reason to believe otherwise, if anything sounds a little bit too good to be true, assume it is a scam. -Learn what different types of URLs do. -Run Firefox, disable pop-ups, run NoScript and ONLY run things you know you can trust. -Don't ever save personal or CC info anywhere you don't absolutely have to. -If you can use any kind of service which allows at least some other level of protection (like Paypal), do so. They won't offer much, but at least there's another entity between your money and a potential thief. And just because you're online or offline, don't assume you're safe. You're NEVER safe.

"As soon as you complete the transaction a pop-up window appears. It offers a discount on your next purchase. Click on the ad...." So this is something that affects only people dumb enough to click on pop-ups, while those of us with either blockers or the brains to close pop-ups like this when they open are not affected? Internet darwinism at work and working as intended imo.

The only way to win is not to play? I think I've heard that somewhere before...

Long time reader, first time I've actually felt the need to post.

I went to a middle-of-the-road college. At the time, going in (1998), I was told that choosing IT was a GREAT move and I'd immediately make AT LEAST $60-80k right out of school.

During college, I watched the tech bubble burst, watched 9/11 happen, and noticed pretty quickly that I wasn't actually learning anything other than theory. Did I blindly charge ahead thinking "well, this theory will really pay off eventually?" No, I got a job in a computer lab (worked my way up to running the day-to-day operations there), started a chapter of the ACM with some friends to learn more out of class (and teach others at the same time), and got a pretty good internship, to try to set myself apart from the pack a bit.

The result? I graduated in '03 (yea, yea, it took me 5 years) with a worse GPA than Ms. Entitlement into a pretty bad economy. I tried to use my school's job-finding services, saw they were a joke, and instead worked my ass off to find a job on my own. My friends all did the same in one way or another.

The morale of all this? That was 6 years ago. Same basic generation, my mindset (and most people I know had the same one) was that we were obviously lied to many times so fuck what everyone else was telling us, we just had to go out there and hustle ourselves into jobs and do it on our own.

(and yes, when I was a kid, I do remember everyone getting trophies after the soccer season and in little league, so don't blame that, either)

So don't blame a whole generation, it's just a bunch of lazy-ass kids who weren't smart enough to see the signs and handle life like they should.

-Jed

PS: In case you're wondering, no, I didn't get a good job right out of school. I couldn't find ANY job right out of school. So after a few months of looking, I took a crappy data entry temp job, worked there till I found perm data entry job which had some small IT bits to it, then moved to a job where I was a recruiter, and worked my way up in that company to in-house IT, then up to head of IT there, now sys admin for a branch of a larger office. So nothing handed to me, I worked my way up like I should and am still working on climbing the ladder.