Posted by Ivan Petrov on Oct 5, 2010 | 0 comments
All IPs are not treated the same, the geographic location of your IP address can dictate what you see on a Website, and subsequently what you pay for online good and services. Using Identity Cloaker software you can make it appear that you are located elsewhere in the world, and as such take advantage of local offer that normally you would be excluded from. Recently I purchased a round the world cruise, and saved myself over 13% by booking it through a UK IP address rather than an Australian one.
You see it works like this, visit www.pocruises.com and attempt to make a booking, unless you are in the UK you will be forwarded to the details of your countries booking agents. You can contact them and get prices, but you will find they are much higher in general than the advertised prices on the P&O Website.
How To Book A Cheap P&O Cruise Outside the UK
So what is stopping you getting those prices? Quite simply P&O know you are outside the UK. To get those lovely UK prices there are a few steps you will need, this process is the same for almost all sites you might want to deal with be they in the USA, UK or just about anywhere else there is a proxy available for. Now in the case of P&O you will also need a UK telephone number and an address, in these days of e-tickets you would actually get away without the address to some extent but it's not hard to get one.
For a UK telephone number try voiptalk.org, or of course you could try getting a UK number from Skype.
For a UK address search Google.co.uk for "virtual office", and select somebody who does mail forwarding.
If you want to do this for a USA based company its much easier as there are many companies in the USA offering mailing addresses to the online world.
Now you probably need to clear your cookies as sites like P&O log your details the first time you visit, check Google for the free program CCleaner and run this to clear just about ever element of your online history.
Now fire up Identity Cloaker and select the country you need, in our case the UK, then visit the site. You will now find the online ordering system works fine, use your UK address and telephone number and hey presto you got your cruise.
Of course for cheap items this is hardly worth bothering with, but in this case we are talking about saving several thousand dollars. With regards to cruises some of the US companies will only sell to those with a US passport, and that's a little harder to get around!
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Posted by Ivan Petrov on Mar 27, 2010 | 0 comments
E-whoring is a term that refers to a new brand of money-making schemes on the web. Most people know now not to listen to mass emails from Nigerian Princes or banks promising them money if they help them, but new and more subtle forms of money scams have emerged.
If you or someone you know has fallen subject to an e-whore you are more familiar with this phenomenon. Perhaps you think you know enough not to get fooled again. Still, educate yourself and read as much as possible, and don’t stop reading this. You never know if you could get fooled in a new and different way.
If you have never, as far as you know, fallen prey to an internet e-whore scam then this information is still more important than you might think. Nobody is airtight and the internet is far from a secure place, with billions of users and very little security.
E-whores will try to get or earn money from someone interested in meeting or talking to someone but will appear so attractive and deceptive that you might just let them walk away with your money.
Still not convinced? It could happen far more easily than you think. If I could be obvious for one second, never let anyone have your credit card number. Everyone knows this, everyone has heard this, and likely you know too. But also don’t give out your credit card number to verify who you are.
What? Don’t be insulted. Scammers will hide behind what looks like credible-looking sites rather than asking outright for your credit card number. These sites may claim or appear not to charge you and may even seem like real companies but once they have your number the small print will kick in. Commonly the small print will read that unless you do something your credit card will be charged $XX in the next 3 days. The tasks that you need to do change, however in some cases these tasks include submitting your credit card to several different sites. These sites will have a similar scheme going on and you will be facing even greater charges.
E-whores love to troll dating sites and pretend to be interested in you. Sure, she looks pretty. Um, he. S/he will tell you she doesn’t like to use this site and to sign up for her favourite social/networking or possibly a xxx site. It requires a credit card to sign up, but offers a free trial that you can cancel before it charges you. If you give your credit card number, you will soon find that they are charging large monthly membership amounts and are impossible to cancel.
Yay.
Okay, so you stop giving out personal information on the internet. What about taking it? Seems idiot proof enough, doesn’t it? Pretty “ladies” on dating sites will often give out cell numbers and say they are never on the computer but would really love to meet you! If you text these numbers you will be automatically signed up for a monthly service and charged a fee every month that you cannot cancel.
This give a whole new meaning to “do not talk to strangers”.
Another expensive lesson learned. The third method you won’t notice is a pay-per-click link. It doesn’t cost you any money to click on the ad, but it does make the pretty lady some money, in the form of an advertiser paying pennies per click on a link the “e-whore” posts on every website, forum, and yes, your dating profile, and so benefits them to pose as an attractive lady that you really would like to get to know better.
I am always telling you to hide your online identity with software, but in this case software will not help. You must always remember that people are out there to con you, there are software packages available for sale which automate much of this process. So the lovely s/he you are falling for could quite possibly not even be human…
Oh and no Ivan has not been caught out!
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