Scammed (PDF)

Prologue: Fenced In xi Scammed--or Just a Bad Deal? xiv Down That Road Lies Madness xvii Introduction: You're Not a Victim xxi Confessions of a Heretic xxii Preventive Medicine xxiv How Businesses Are Scamming Us xxv How We Are Letting Them xxvi What to Do about It xxvii The New Scams xxviii Part 1 How They Scam Us 1 1. Reputation Management 3 Avoiding Sock Puppets 6 How Companies Manipulate Customers 8 How We Fall for It 10 "SocialSpark Loves Your Blog" 12 Don't Fall for a Managed Reputation 13 2. I SEO You 17 A Scam That Wears Many Hats 19 The SEO Pitch 20 SEO Gone Wild 22 Above the Law? 25 3. Fooled You 27 But Everyone's Doing It 29 Little White Lies 33 Who's to Say What's Bogus? 36 4. That's Not an Ad 39 How They Lie 42 Pay per Post 46 But Wait! There's More! 47 5. Lying about Your Rights 51 Oops, You've Already Signed It 54 Fine Print Gone Wild 56 Signing Away Other Rights 57 One Word at a Time 57 Part 2 How We Scam Ourselves 59 6. Our Own Damned Fault 61 Losing Your Mind 63 A Scam-or-Be-Scammed World? 65 There's Something in the VitaminWater 66 A Wayward Offer from DirecTV 67 That's Not the Spirit 68 Customer Confessions 70 7. Walled Gardens 73 If the Customer Is Always Right, Why Worry? 79 Trapped in the System of It All 79 Do You Suffer from Walled Garden Syndrome? 81 8. The Price of Loyalty 83 What Loyalty Programs Make Us Do 85 What Makes Loyalty Programs Dangerous 87 The Loyalty Effect 91 You're Complicit 92 Questions to Ask before You Buy 93 9. When the Watchdogs Sleep 95 Where Have the Watchdogs Gone? 98 When Dogs Follow the Wrong Scent . . . 100 Being a Discerning--and Demanding--Consumer 102 10. Tired, Confused, and Apathetic 105 Eyes Wide Shut 108 Decisions, Decisions 110 When You Don't Make a Decision . . . 111 Dereliction of Duty 112 Splitting the Difference 114 Part 3 How to Fix It 115 11. The Enlightened Consumer 117 A Thirst for Knowledge 118 Getting Inside the Mind of a Business 119 Corporatespeak 120 Getting Inside Your Head 124 What Smart

CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT is one of the nation's foremost consumer advocates. In his nearly two decades of fighting for consumers, he's proven himself as a fearless, fair, and effective mediator, going toe-to-toe with large corporations, litigious business owners, and government agencies.

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