British authorities report that con men set up a website designed to look like that of a major British bank. Users of the website lost around $100,000. This seems very similar to a case that occurred in South Africa last month, which I posted here at the time. I wonder if it's the same group of con men?

Hoax Website: www.ayleeorgnet.com. It looks like the homepage of a web design corporation, but it's not. A reader explains what it is:

This is a hoax site related to the comic strip at www.sluggy.com. There was an evil web design corporation in the strips for the last few months of this name. There's never been an actual link to the site, but they've mentioned it in the strip several times, and the website is set up just like it would be in the strip. The photo of the receptionist looks just like Gwynn, the cartoon character who was the receptionist. The other title page picture of a ferret is another allusion to the strip, where a ferret is a main character. The joke of the strip is that Aylee, an alien (long story) who runs the webdesign company tends to eat people. You can find various jokes about that on the website as well.

South African con artists recently set up a hoax website pretending to be the official website of the South African Reserve Bank. They used it to scam international investors out of thousands of dollars.

Hoax Website: petsorfood.com.

Hoax Website: villainsupply.com

Someone wrote in with some new info about the Asian Prince website, which I have listed in my Hoax Websites Gallery. I stated that I wasn't sure if the Asian Prince was a hoax or not, but this reader reveals that the Prince's name "Wo-Hen Nankan" means "I am very ugly" in Mandarin. A clue that the site really is a hoax.

A reader sent in this hoax website, though it actually seems more like a scam website than a hoax website. It's GetPaidDriving.com. For just $24.95 they'll let you access their database of companies that will pay you to drive your own car. This brings up memories of the Freewheelz hoax. I think people would be well advised to save their money and not shell out any money for info on how to 'Get Paid Driving.'

On the subject of Digital Buddies (see below) here's a website where your online digital buddy can be a member of an LA street gang. His name is Pirate. Ask him whatever you want. You even get to see him type his reply.

I once read a science fiction story that theorized that we never die. We just grow more improbable. Whenever we face a life/death moment, there is always a probability, however remote, that we could survive. In one universe we might die, but in an alternative universe somewhere that branches off from our reality the remote probability that we survive is followed. It was a neat theory for a science fiction story. This site has found a way to make money from a very similar idea. Just before you die, they promise, you will be sucked into the future by time travellers. You guarantee this by putting $10 now into their time travel mutual fund. Over 500 years that $10 will turn into millions of dollars, thanks to the miracle of compound interest. This will pay for the expense of sucking you into that future world. Somehow I doubt that they intend to keep any money given to them in a mutual fund for 500 years. But at least they give you a certificate in exchange for your cash.