E-Commerce is a World of Shit

I really feel that e-commerce has shot itself in the foot. I would much rather buy about any product at a brick and mortar store any day of the week. My experiences with e-commerce have typically been horrible.

I just got a spyware infection from a site that sells fake spyware apps to consumers. Why are these sites even legal?

First they try to load trojans (in this case, one called Zlob) on your site, then they install malware on your computer without even asking for it, then it runs and "finds" all this fake spyware on your system that doesn't even exist, then tries to make you buy the program to fix the nonexistent spyware problems.

Then they make it impossible to remove it from your system, and I'm a computer expert. Now I have a popup all the time in my tray and no way to get rid of it.

The program was uninstalled via Add Remove Programs and I deleted some Registry entries and went through and found more crap afterwards, and deleted it from Registry and Programs. Despite all my deleting, I still have rogue processes going that I can't even find or kill or anything.

It also outrageously installs a fake program giving you a fake Windows Kernel Fault screen that requires a computer reboot. Someone tell why this shit is not illegal?

The program is called AntiSpyCheck and you get it from AntiSpyCheck.com. I did not download this program on purpose. Instead, I clicked on a video codec and it installed installed itself without even asking. AntiSpyCheck is a rogue antispy program. These programs run on your computer and tell you that you have all sorts of spyware infections that you do not even have.

Then they try to get you to buy the rogue antispyware program. If you do buy it, then you just wasted money on a fake program. In addition, many of these sites are phishing sites that are designed to steal your credit card information. As if that were not bad enough, the fake antispyware itself is often a criminal program that installs a Trojan and tries to steal any valuable data on your computer.

All of these Zlob programs seem to be originating from Russian Organized Crime, in this case, often in the Ukraine. Even if you don't buy the evil program, they often have an annoying popup that never ends until you buy the program. One is tempted to purchase the evil program just to make the popup go away. In no case should you purchase such a program!

Overview.

Then I shelled out for some complete garbage spyware software called Spy Hunter. Spy Hunter charges your credit card after six months to renew your subscription, but it sends you an email warning you first and lets you opt out. Why is that even legal? There was no choice about whether or not to allow them to slam your credit card every 6 months.

Update: I fixed the AntiSpyCheck infection via this site. You run MalwareBytes' Anti-Malware program and it gets rid of it perfectly. The trial run is free, but if you want realtime protection, you need to shell out. The product is excellent and I may just buy it.

Typically, these Internet shit e-commerce joints have no humans at the other end. There's a tech support email, but who knows if they answer it. The general rule in e-commerce is no customer service whatsoever. There's typically no phone # to call and no human to talk to. Often you can resolve things with emails, but not always. It's still a pain in the butt.

The fuck customer service thing is the latest wonderful trend in US capitalism. It's all about cutting costs. It's even spreading to credit cards.

Credit cards used to have decent customer service, but my last card was with "Juniper" which it turns out is actually owned by the British Barclays Bank.

There's no brick and mortar joint to pay your card,as the bank is in the UK! They deviously (Why is this legal?) allowed me to run my card over the limit and then started pounding me with monthly overlimit fees. I could not afford to pay down the over-limit draft.

Banks will now outrageously allow you to overdraw on your account at the ATM with very few warnings. Instead of a loan, which it is, you are immediately hammered with an overlimit fee as you overdraft. Why is this shit even legal? Then you have to put it all back in before the beginning of the month or they will close your account! Now you will have a big black mark on your credit rating.

Now, just tonight I tried to buy SpyHunter. Of course there's no humans on the other end, and they don't even have a physical presence. First of all, it did not let me look over the purchase before I bought it, so my autofill program filled in my name and last name with my address and I was not able to change that.

The thing would not even let me download the program. It kept asking me for a username and password. It gave me two different ones in the email and I tried both of them. Both failed over and over.

Earlier, I purchased a product called Stuffit for $30 so I could unzip files. I had a previous version on there, so this new one never would install because it said I had to remove the old one first. Although I uninstalled through the traditional way, it still claimed the old program was still there! I searched the whole computer for anything related to the old program and never could get all of it off. So my $30 program never got installed.

I could call the company, but customer service with even huge software companies is so horrible I have not even bothered.

I have a cam with a software program that requires a code to make it work. The code has been lost, so I can't install my cam software. I guess I could call Intel, but I bet their support is garbage too. Another problem is that a lot of these programs get abandoned (abandonware), so they might not even be able to give you a code even if they wanted to.

There is a product I like to purchase called Tamer. It kills the acid in coffee. None of the phone numbers ever work. You buy the product online and the first thing it tells you is that there has been a database error. So you assume that the sale did not go through. But that really means you bought it!

I've had them mail the product to me a few times, and every time, it seems like something screws up. It gets shipped back to them, but they don't notify me that the product came back. They only tell me that when I email them and bitch (No way to talk to the company on the phone, remember?).

Software is probably the only product in the world like this. It's the only product that refuses to work with competing products. It's the only product that installs itself and makes it so you can't get rid of it. It's the only product whereby you could have a perfect working copy of it sitting around but you can't make it work because you can't punch in some "make it work code".

It's the only product that tries to force you to buy their product. With most everything else, you still have a choice. You can buy product A, B, C or D. Name one other product you are more or less forced to buy like Windows or Word. Name one other product where the old product doesn't work anymore and you have to keep on shelling out for new versions all the time.

Software has been all about fuck the consumer from day one, unless you are a big corporate customer, in which case I guess you get some service. As a natural monopoly like water, power, phone or cable, software probably needs to be regulated by the state like any other natural monopoly.

It is the disgust and rage of computer users with the world of shit that software and its evil twin, e-commerce, have wrought, that has brought about open source and free products like Firefox, Open Office, Linux, etc. With these products, the model has no reason to fuck the consumer at all, so it just doesn't happen.

It's sad that America idolizes a punk like Bill Gates. He's been fucking over consumers from his first day on the job. He's violated every contract he's ever signed, and he's stolen just about every bit of competing code he could find. He's a liar, a thief, a traitor and a snake. In the real world, when people act like that, they are called sociopaths. They get their asses kicked, they get killed or they go to jail or prison, or all of the above.

In Corporate World, you act the same way that gets your ass kicked or gets you tossed in prison in the real world and you turn into the Businessman Hero of the World.

The point is that this shit Internet industry is to blame for all of this. They are the ones that have been screaming loud and clear from day one about "no regulation of the Internet" and "no taxing of the Internet".

So the Internet is the Wild West with no sheriffs or posses that do anything. There's rustlers, crooks and robbers everywhere, and you go the sheriff or the posse and they shrug their shoulders and say so what. They wanted an unregulated Internet and that's what they got. Internet e-commerce - the most consumer-hostile industry around.

I like the brick and mortar world. In general, the workers help you and show you where things are. There's usually someone to talk to. If something doesn't work, you can always bring it back. The clerks and aisle help go out of their way to be as nice and friendly as possible.

It's the mirror opposite of E-Commerce World.

There's actually a lot more to this story about the Internet being a haven for every criminal, thief, liar, scammer, and fraudulent dog on Earth, but I'll save it for another post.

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