When her daughter came over, she discovered that only a small portion of the roof visible from the road had been repainted. The receipt they left her had no way to get in touch with the workers. Unfortunately, this scenario is very typical of the classic scam perpetrated by the travelers. Each year 50,000 applicants out of 8 million are randomly selected to receive permanent U.S. work visas or green cards . Feeding on that statistic is a new Internet scheme that exploits the hopes of potential immigrants trying to improve their chances.
Any person submitting more than one entry to the lottery is disqualified.
The Federal Trade Commission recommends that anyone applying for the green card lottery should make himself familiar with the rules and lottery procedures to prevent scamsters from utilizing the lack of knowledge to their benefit. Potential applicants can get legitimate information by calling the State Department. Two former officers of a company perpetrating an alleged pyramid scheme recently agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that their scheme violated federal law. The company, called FutureNet, used the Internet to promote a multi-level marketing opportunity selling Internet access devices . The FTC charged that the bulk of the income that prospective distributors earned actually came from recruiting other distributors rather that the sale of products, which is typical of an illegal pyramid scheme.