Scam Warning

This week I have become aware of a nasty little scam being run on the websites of some major players on the web like Easyjet, Interflora and Vistaprint. You may see an offer on the order confirmation for money off the next spend, If you take up the offer you're taken through a lengthy process in which you're joining up to the Shopper Discounts & Rewards programme run by Webloyalty and agreeing to a monthly direct debit or continuous payment. The offer is a hefty discount on hundreds of major shops and eBay but try to use it and you will find out it is not a discount at all.


My bank tells me that the way they operate this scam is by getting your card details from the firm you have ordered from and then using the details to set up a recurring debit on your card. The banks can't refuse to pay it so the only way to stop the scam is to cancel your card with all the inconveniences that causes.


If you want to read what other people think about this scam and how it works look at http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=819869. There is also information on this site about what to do if you are caught.


I had another attempt to complete the rewiring of my network this week. When I torn the nail off the thumb that is in plaster I gave up. My study looks like it has been trashed by a determined police rummage team and I can only just get to my main computer but it will have to stay like that till I have got both my hands back.


The publisher I do occasional work for has decided that one of his sites needs a face lift. This site was originally written using an ecommerce program called Zencart. For a small business like his, Zencart has proved to be unwieldy and needs a lot of expertise in PHP to maintain. Also Zencart seems to be biased to selling music on line and adapting it to sell books has not been fully successful. His other company website uses osCommerce http://www.oscommerce.com/ which is more lightweight, much more intuitive to maintain and has a good number of people writing first class templates for all sorts of online stores including bookstores. I am meeting with him on Monday to decide which template to use so watch this space to see how we get on. The site we are updating is this one http://senbooks.co.uk/ so keep an eye on it.

That's all for this week I'm afraid, typing one handed isn't good productivity wise.