The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
MTS is cautioning Internet subscribers to surf with caution in light of complaints from customers who have been unwittingly billed by certain Web sites. When users click onto certain sites, typically adult entertainment sites, they are billed several dollars a minute in long-distance fees. Those charges then come to MTS, which bills them to the customer. While some of these sites reportedly do not warn of a charge, all of the cases that MTS has investigated showed that a billing notice did in fact appear. However, users may not always read the notice or trust its legitimacy. MTS spokesperson Jackie Shymanski said Internet surfers should always be wary. "We provide the network for people to get on the Internet Ñ we don't police it," she said from her Winnipeg office. "And people, when they go on the Internet, have to be very careful about where they surf and about what they connect to." See 'Scams' P.# Con't from P.# The US Federal Trade Commission warns of the following popular Internet scams, which have been pulled off all over the world: Solicitations that make it sound easy to start a successful Internet-related business without much work or start-up cash. Many of these offers are illegal pyramid schemes. Chain letters, which ask recipients to send cash to people on a list, replace one of the names with their own, and forward the message through bulk e-mail. Chain letters are almost always illegal, despite some scam artists who claim they have checked with a lawyer and were told otherwise. Work-at-home schemes, such as envelope-stuffing, promising cash for minimal labour. The offer requires people to pay a fee to get "started" in such businesses. The scam artist makes money but the victim does not. Health and diet offers that sound too good to be true, such as pills that let you lose weight without exercising or changing your diet. Offers of free goods, such as computers or long-distance phone cards, in exchange for joining a club (for a fee, of course). Most of these messages are related to pyramid schemes. Credit repair scams, which offer to erase negative information from your credit file. The scam artists who promote these services can't deliver. Only time, a deliberate effort, and a personal debt repayment plan will improve your credit.
