I meant to bring this topic up at the Meeting tonight. I'm advising all of you that clicking on the "Camaro Ringtone" link above may be hazardous to your pocketbook.

I was curious WTF is a "Camaro Ringtone" was so I clicked on the sponsored link above on this site. You are requested to enter your cell phone number. A text message containing a PIN # is sent to your phone along with congratulations that your phone is capable of downloading these ringtones. Then you're supposed to enter that PIN # online and click that you've read the terms and conditions. (Yeah, right, who reads those). I did. From their terms and conditions:

"...Blinko.s Club Service is a monthly subscription available for AT&T, Cingular, Dobson/Celluar One, Sprint, T-Mobile only customers. Customers receive Club Service at $9.99/month...."

..."By entering the Blinko PIN code sent to the mobile number provided by you, you agree that you are subscribing to Club Service. By subscribing to Club Service, you represented that you are of legal age to agree to these terms and conditions or you have a parents permission to do so. Your right to use Club Service is strictly limited to your personal, non-commercial use and is not transferrable by you."...

"...For HELP text message to 42222 at anytime. To cencel your service, text message STOP to 42222 at anytime. For question, please contact Blinko.s customer service at www.Blinko.com/care or call 1-800-971-2271. By subscribing to Club Service, you agree to receive free content and promotional offers from Blinko and bound by Blinko.s Terms of Use and Service Agreemen, located on www.Blinko.com...."

I called their 800# and cancelled it right away. I hope I don't get billed for anything. I didn't write down that PIN #. Oh, I never did get to hear any Camaro Ringtone.

Just fair warning so y'all don't get suckered.

Lon

 

Just drop a Camaro ring gear and you'll hear one!

 

So this site is now officially sponsored by spammers!? 90% of the emails I get, maybe more, is spam and "free" ringtones are right up there with with all of the viagara ads, and get rich quick buying the latest $0.25 stock.

 

Russ, the links at the top of the page are sponsored links, not spam. The website admins. likely get pennies on the dollar for everytime one of us click the links. Just another revenue stream to help support the cost of the site.

I'm always cautious, however, whenever sites aks for information like an e-mail address or phone number. I have an e-mail account that I specifically use for such occasions, that gets anywhere from 20-50 e-mails a day after the original recipient of my e-mail addy. sells it, as well as an invalid phone number that I use for the same reason.

 

Those ads are sent to thirdgen.org by Google advertising. They're not specifically chosen by thirdgen.org. The actual thirdgen.org ads are what you see on the right hand side of the screen from top-downsolution.com and such.

 

I have a bunch of g-mail invites available. It's a really good expendable e-mail account and is really good at filtering SPAM.

It's free because it has a few ads of it's own here and there, but they are nowhere near as annoying as the ads here.

PM me your e-mail address if you want one.

 

Remember, nothing good on the Web is free.

What bugged me the other day is that while clicking to view a post on TGO, a pop-up ad appeared. Some junky advertising with a link back to the TGO thread I wanted to see.

If this keeps up, there are going to be some unhappy campers around here.

 

That's not the site, it's adware on your computer.

 

Except that I use Firefox on a MAC with pop-blocking turned on AND I usually check the site during my lunch hour at work. We have a pretty good firewall system in place.

I still say it was tied into the site somehow, be it thru Google or whatever, just like the crap ringtone and parts ads above.

 

Bret, is this the ad you saw?
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/prob...50-new-ad.html

 

It was similar.

 

Sure, and you still have adware.

 

OK then. What should I look for and where should I look?

Under OS X nothing can be installed without administrative password authorization so I guess I need to read up some on adware. It's never been a problem on Macs before, so I've never worried about it.

 

Bret, I use "Adaware" by Lavasoft to remove spyware and adware. Lavasoft I use the free version for private home use. If your problem is on the computer at work, they may need to buy the small business version. Then again, if no one tells Lavasoft that it is a business computer, how would they know?

I put a link on this post. It shows up when I go to the edit screen, but is missing from the post. The box to automatically parse links in the text is checked, but it isn't there when I come back to the post. Anyway, if you "Google" lavasoft, the site comes up first on the list.

 

I use Ad-Aware, SpyBot, Spyware-Blaster, Windows firewall, Microsoft Defender, Firefox browser and Norton Anti-Virus. This is after it comes through my neighbor’s wireless router which also has a firewall. It runs pretty clean, I may get a bug now and then but nothing serious.

Speaking of ringtones, does anyone know how to rip a few seconds of music from a CD and save it as a ringtone? What software will do this? I was thinking about the first few seconds of the Beach Boys 409 would be cool.

Ford has similar ringtones here:

http://fordmobile.mqube.us/cars/mustang/

 

Thanks for the info Russ, but Lavasoft is PC software.

My home computer has been fine, plus I keep it pretty well updated. The one time the ad appeared for me on TGO was on my work computer.

We have a firewall system and run Norton Anti-virus on all the macs. Not to mention that OS X on the Mac requires an authorization password to install anything into the system files.

Not to say that the Mac is invincible, but so far there hasn't been any real adware/malware threats to date. That could change down the road, but the way the Mac OS is structured makes it more difficult than on a PC.

 

A little off-topic, but I had to mention this. I think everyone has seen those TV ads for ringtones. Get "rap-this" or "Brittney Spears that" for your cell phone. Just send a text message to ####.

This has to be similar to the Camaro Ringtone scam Lon found out about. If you send the text message, you get signed up for some subscription. Well, while watching TV last night I saw what has to be the boldest of these things.

The ad said, and I'm not kidding, "Get the SILENT ringtone for your phone." It even had a demo! An animated graphic pops up of a sound wave and then the spot asks, "Did you hear it? Very few people can." Then there's some little snipe in the corner of the screen that says it operates in the 15,000mhz range.

What's next? Invisible paint? Can you see it?

 

I saw that on the news a while back.We in our elderly state cannot hear the phone ring but the kids can hear it, and they showed it in a class room.The teacher could not hear the phone but all the kids could hear it ringing Its kind of like the Dog Whistle we cant hear but the dogs can.

 

I've heard it. My ears are just fine, thank you very much.
I dont know why anyone would do that, its painful.

 

I got suckered into that ring tone ****! Cost me at least 20.00 before i noticed it on my bill.

 

Sorry Chris,I was refering to the Folk's in "My age bracket.

 

Madmax's hearing has improved with age.
When he was a youngster mentioning anything "chore" related went unhead even when he was in the same room.

 

Never said I didnt hear it.

 

Thats how it is now ..... Wait till your older ....