Comments on: US visa waiver scam

By: Iain

Iain — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:25:52 +0000

You could have linked to the real ESTA site in your article to boost its Google juice.

BTW when I try your search the real ESTA site is currently second below a legitimate .gov site about visa waivers.

By: Shane Legg

Shane Legg — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:55:10 +0000

If there were no indications that this were a scam site then this would be true… however, I just missed these things at the time. So yeah, my dumb.

By: pgd

pgd — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:02:40 +0000

Shane Legg wrote:

“I got scammed online. I guess it was just a matter of time, but Iâ€™d thought that I was smart enough to avoid such things.”

Apparently, Shane Legg forgets that what is important “is not that an intelligent agent succeeds in any given situation,
but rather that it takes actions that we would expect to be the most likely ones to lead
to success” (See: Legg et al. 2007)…

By: Shane Legg

Shane Legg — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:57:56 +0000

I tried and no they wouldn’t do it. They only do it if something is paid for that I didn’t ask for. Nevertheless, a few days after the payment was made, a reverse payment was made so I haven’t lost any money. I don’t know why that happened. All I’m lost then is a bunch of personal details… which isn’t great either.

By: Peter Turney

Peter Turney — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:56:34 +0000

If you paid with a credit card, you can likely get your money back through your credit card company.

By: Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia

Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:16:20 +0000

Means that the first scammer with a perfect knowledge of English will be invincible ? Oh my …

By: Peter Turney

Peter Turney — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:11:25 +0000

I almost fell for a somewhat similar scam. I searched on Google for the Avast anti-virus software. The first link, a sponsored link, is a scam. It pretends to offer Avast software, but it has no legitimate connection to Avast. I was part way through their registration process before I suspected something was wrong. I contacted Google about this, but I got no reply. I searched for Avast just now, and the first hit is still a sponsored scam link. So much for Google’s policy of “do no evil”. Google could have a “report scam” link next to each hit, but they would lose revenue.

By: lix

lix — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:37:26 +0000

Actually you’re supposed to fill out the ESTA each time you visit, even within that time – or so I was told by the immigration officer who processed me a couple of weeks ago. But the approval process does seem to be automated – the first time it took a couple of days, but the second time only a few minutes.

I hope Google responds – as you say, pretty morally dubious.

By: Stephen Donnelly

Stephen Donnelly — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:29:21 +0000

You’ll still need to fill in the I94W on the plane, the ESTA does not substitute. Also the ESTA is good for 2 years (from memory), you don’t need one per trip.

Sorry to hear you got scammed though!