There are a bunch of craigs ads popping up advertising a live camera show for the great price of $10 for a 30 minute show. They are all SCAM! They direct you to their AOL or Yahoo IM account and will chat with you telling how good the show will be. They even email you pictures and direct to a picture account such as Flickr or a Yahoo group to further get your attention. Then when your ready for a show, they’ll send you a link to the credit card charge web site (CCbill or Epoch) and it will charge the $10 as advertised and give you credits (even 15 bonus credits) toward an http://www.imlive.com camera show. Once your charge goes through, she will tell the appropriate name to search for so you can find her. The first problem is, it’s not the person whose pictures you’ve been viewing, though roughly similar. The 2nd problem is that the $10 isn’t good for 30 minutes. It’s more like 4 or 5 minutes. My first hint that something didn’t sound right was when Heather (wildnstykitten1) gave me her Imlive name she said she had to sign off yahoo IM to log into her camera page. That didn’t make sense, because I was still logged into the yahoo IM. Of course when I tried to contact her on IM she is long gone. I knew it was a SCAM although I’m not sure how they make their money. I’m guessing they get some type of kickback from the girl they refer you to. I initially went to the girl I was referred to RussEliza and upon telling her I’d been diverted to her, she quickly logged off her cam (only cost about $1). Now knowing this was a scam, I remembered that heather also had an AOL IM of the same name and since I had a separate AOL ID, I logged in and abracadabra there she was. Not letting her know I was waiting to watch her show from my yahoo IM, I asked if she was ready to play. If she had been legit, she would’ve said give me about 20 minutes, since I’m in a show but of course, she said yes and gave me the CC charge link as before and this time the imlive username of xsweetjewelx. Naturally, she had to log off the AOL IM to use her cam and like before never to be seen again.
If it was happening here, I figured it was happening other places so I checked the NOLA craigs and found these:
Jan 26 - My dual stimulus CAM package - w4m - (New Orleans) pic Also on the BR craigs
Jan 26 - SPECTACULAR BLOND - w4m - (N.O)
Jan 26 - Hot blonde (19)!! Sweet, outgoing and waiting 4U! - w4m – pic
Jan 26 - Beautiful LSU Blonde for private 1 on 1 fun. All IM's answered :) - w4m - (New Orleans) pic
Jan 25 - All natural college girl (20). Dirty blonde and outgoing! - w4m - pic
Jan 25 - >>>>THE BEST AROUND<<<< - w4m - pic
Thought I would try them at their game so I sent and IM to msblondenikki in the dual stimulus ad http://neworleans.craigslist.org/ads/1572149188.html and she was ready to go. Same exact MO – she sent a link to some pics http://www.bebo.com/msblondenikki and then a link to the imlive web page and then promptly signed off IM. The only difference is that she really was the girl in the cam show. I didn’t enter her area because it tells you upfront that it will cost $1.98 per minute! Another scammer and I have to believe they’re all the same. But hey, I think I’ll try everyone of them that logs into IM and then send them to imlive and have them waiting on me and just hope they come back to IM later so I can pass on a few words or encouragement.
$10 for a lesson learned is actually pretty cheap and rather than let my credits go to waste, I scrolled though the available live girls and found a little cutie who quite fun and gave me a great interactive show until my credits ran out not too many minutes later. The moral of the story –if it sounds TGTBT, it probably is!