Beam me up Scotty, scammers in the house

There was another story in the news this morning about some poor old lady who got conned out of all her money by some random bloke persuading her she could earn a gazillion pounds if she handed him over £3,000 in cash. Now, far be it from me to want to sound unsympathetic – especially towards an old lady - but I have no sympathy for her. It’s like a story a few years ago about another old lady who was conned out of tens of thousands by some African bloke telling her she had won the Nigerian Lottery and she could claim her prize if she handed him over several thousand pounds first. I mean if you’re too stupid to believe you’ve won a lottery you never participated in, you deserve to lose all your money.

The reason I bring this up is because I get a lot of scams like this from moronic fake SEO companies. At least once a week I get a badly written email from someone claiming my site is rubbish and to contact them, whereby they will rob me blind, steal my identity and attempt to frame me for a murder they committed.

This morning I received the following:

There are a few things to point out here. Firstly I wouldn’t trust anybody whose name sounds like a villain from Star Trek. Secondly, he claims that no keyword pertaining to my domain comes up on the first page of Google. Well, if you type in “Datapartners” we come up first. We also appear on the first page of Google for a lot of relevant key terms so he obviously hasn’t done his research. Thirdly, I know for a fact that Search Engine Optimisation is, and has always been, a load of bollocks. Fourthly, anyone who claims they can guarantee you a top ranking on Google is a liar. The only way to guarantee a top place on Google is to pay for it so I know that all this imbecile is going to do is create a Google AdWords account for me, bid obscene amounts of money to get me top the top of the paid listings, charge me an even more obscene amount for the privilege and then steal my credit card details.

And he is promising this to how many other web companies? So he is guaranteeing every web company a number 1 ranking for the same key words at the same time. How is that going to work Mr Kahn? It is completely illogical.

To email a company that designs, builds, hosts, manages and promotes websites and try to fob them off with this kind of transparent con proves that these people actually have the IQ of a pickled onion. The fact that so many people fall for it says everything you need to know about the state of intelligence. Don’t fall for it!

How to divide opinion and be successful

Obviously the subject that has been dominating the news over the last few days is the death of Margaret Thatcher. The impending Nuclear War between North Korea and the West has paled into insignificance. The threat of an angry little man with an inferiority complex and questionable haircut means nothing compared to a woman who divided opinion in the UK. Some thought she was an evil witch and the niece of Satan himself and others thought she was the best Prime Minister since that dog who sells insurance. My personal opinion is that spending £10 million on a funeral when the country hasn’t got any money is a bit over the top.

Whatever the differing opinions are, I think the imbeciles who are planning on protesting at her funeral should be arrested and given a good kicking for their lack of respect for the dead. Ignoring the fact that most of these would-be protesters probably weren’t even alive during her time in office, what actually is left to protest about? It’s been over 20 years since she left office and since then the country has been ruined by Labour.

The bottom line is people just like to have a good old moan. This is why I’m so surprised at the lack of fuss being kicked up over Facebook’s latest change to members’ profiles. Last year they upset the entire world by introducing the Timeline layout but somehow have managed to slip their latest revised layout in without anyone noticing. Of course, not everyone has it yet. As usual, they are sneaking it in country by country and it seems to revert back to the current layout at will. It’s basically the same but the navigation across the top is slightly different and they’ve made certain parts of the “About Me” harder to find. They’ve probably also violated a dozen more privacy laws.

It seems to be part of a ream of changes and new things the social networking giant is releasing. In an attempt to keep his disgruntled shareholders happy, Mark Zuckerberg has announced a new payment gateway, mainly with the aim of charging stalkers to message celebrities (no, really!) and this new Facebook Home thing which is something designed to basically make your smart phone do nothing other than connect to Facebook.

Whatever they do next, you can be assured that Facebook will continue to piss the entire population of the world off but still somehow manage to become more popular. It’s a skill Maggie had. RIP.