Mom grew up in a somewhat more honest age, where the guy that fixed your furnace might pad the bill a little, but he didn’t plant smokebombs in the cold-air return or cameras in the registers. It ain’t that way any more. — Roberta X, on her experiences in dealing with Internet hucksters.

She makes an excellent point.  Even the more established, respected companies on the net are only a few notches above guys selling Ralex watches on the street corner, at best.  When my senior-citizen next door neighbor asked me to help him set up his new laptop so he could email with the great-grandkids, I had to explain that the Internet was full of places that were just bad neighborhoods that he wouldn’t want his mother catching him in, and that anyone he didn’t know, but tried to get to know him, on the Internet was probably a thief.  Luckily, he got my point and has been smart about how he uses his magic elf box, because I haven’t been called over to fix it, yet.