dot-con

A scam on the Internet. The Internet offers crooks and zealous marketers a wealth of opportunities to express their creativity. For example, people sell merchandise through online auctions that is not the quality advertised. There are countless products offered via spam, popup ads and ordinary Web sites that have prices "too good to be true."

Be Aware
Any site claiming to need your credit card for verification, such as to check your age, is suspect. It might be legitimate, but the real purpose may be to steal your card number. In addition, be wary of any site that asks you to download an application for viewing. It may dial up an international number with high per-minute fees.

Is It Real or Fake?
Anybody can create a Web site using pages from a legitimate Web site. The Web browser makes it a snap to copy pages from any site, which means the most official looking site can be a dot-con. One way to tell is to look at the URL address. For example, if the page is supposedly coming from HP, but instead of www.hp.com in the address, the URL is of some unknown origin, beware!

Read the Fine Print
No different than receiving junk mail from the post office, read the fine print carefully on any Web page offering you a deal that sounds extraordinary. See Web cramming.