Administrative assistant needed by Powell Exotic Furniture,Good pay and flexible hours, see attached pdf for more info or sign up via www.pefurniture.net/careers.php

Here’s a new website spoof scam – take the website of a perfectly respectable, American furniture company – Nichols & Stone and copy it. Then substitute the new name ‘Powell Exotic Furniture’ and register a domain name – PEFURNITURE.NET

Here’s the domain name details  – complete rubbish as usual – created in February, updated today.

complete Domain Name: PEFURNITURE.NET
   Registrar: DIRECTI INTERNET SOLUTIONS PVT. LTD. D/B/A PUBLICDOMAINREGISTRY.COM
   Referral URL: http://www.PublicDomainRegistry.com
   Creation Date: 06-feb-2010
   Last update of whois database: Tue, 11 May 2010 21:47:04 UTC <<<

Registration Service Provided By: HIGH HOSTING ENTERPRISES, INC
Contact: +001.8503682092

Registrant:
    PHYLLIS THOMPSON
    William Ace        (surveyciti@rocketmail.com)
    21 E. Penn St
    Mundeline    IL,60060    US
    Tel. +1.2066664204

Obviously this is a scam. do not go there or give any of your details – you have been warned

My answer is ‘Almost‘!

These sites (and there are plenty of copycats) appear to operate as eBay-type auctions, but they have several important unlike eBay, when the auction ends, it doesn’t!

These are not real, fair auctions like you’d expect – you bid in tiny increments, say a penny – but, every penny costs you around 60 cents (or equivalent local currency) and every bid costs money so the more bids, the more money the ‘house’ gets.

It’s obvious;y a huge money spinner – a few ordinary goods seem to be going for $5, when in reality they can be paid for many times over by the losing-but-paying other bidders.

This system and the interminable nature of these auctions (the clock gets reset every time a new bid is received) means that the end result is a lottery. This is a fact that these sites want very much to suppress as the legal rules change a great deal if this is the case, but the fact remains that any logical examination of the system points to a lottery or some other form of gambling.

I tried this out for a day, lost $50 and helped the profits of Swoopo incrementally. I’m sure there are plenty of people who have the time and money and persistence (and luck) to actually snag one of those HDTVs for $20, but they are very much in the minority.

My advice? Avoid these sites like the plague that they are – if you want to gamble, buy a lottery ticket or play online poker, just don’t waste your time and money on Swoopo!