Web Site Traps

Yesterday I had to do more paperwork on my dads estate, which included applying for a Tax ID number.  Apparently when someone dies intestate, or without a will or trust, the Administrator has to procure a tax ID number for the estate.

At the bank, the woman who helped me said you could go on the internet to the government website and apply for one, and that it only took a couple of minutes.  She was willing to do it for me, but I needed to make sure the attorney’s office hadn’t already done this and I needed to make a couple of phone calls, so I told her I would take care of it and get back to her.

Let me preface this first by saying that this was the second bank I’d been to.  The first bank regarded me  warily, and was even less enthused when they realized the paperwork was from another state.  IE, they did not want to help me even though we’ve been customers there for quite some time.  I left with my feathers pretty ruffled.

So, I went to my husbands office which was close by and used his computer to get the tax number.  As I’m reading and inputing all the pertinent information, I get to the bottom where it asks me for a credit card, and a payment of 238.00.  Say what????

Upon further investigation, I see that I am suddenly not on the government website.  Very clever.  I still don’t known if the site is a scam, or just a business praying on people who don’t know they can get the information for free.  I’m glad I didn’t have to find out.  I went back to Gov.org and got the tax ID number for free.

I can’t for the life of me figure out what these people are thinking, besides the fact that they must not have a life.  What has happened to our society?  These are the same people who spend their waking hours developing viruses because they have nothing better to do. The scam artists of the internet make it a scary place to be as well as making it tough to figure out who the good guys are.  Too bad there is not a way to turn the scam back around on them.  Maybe one day someone will figure out how to do that.  For now, extra vigilance is the order of the day.  Be careful out there.