Consumer Law

Consumerism 2.0 conference a scam?

By Sam Glover

I received an unsolicited e-mail today that has all the hallmarks of a scam, but some hallmarks of a non-scam, and so I am confused. The sender, “Lauren Hackett,” claims to be from Consumer Reports. But her reply e-mail address is @consumer.org, a domain that is temporarily unavailable (and not @consumerreports.org or @consumersunion.org, which would make more sense). Moreover, her e-mail is listed as HACKLA in the reply-to, and lhackett within the e-mail. She is inviting me to an invite-only conference, “Consumerism 2.0, a unique, free event that will bring together a select group of bloggers, consumer advocates and others, with one shared goal: to empower consumers using the unique capabilities of interactive media, including blogs, video, user-generated content and more.”

On the other hand, the conference information link does appear to be a genuine convention organizer (?), and asks only for basic contact information. It is the kind of shabby sign-up I would expect from a scam (if it is invite-only, why don’t I have to log in to see the sign-up?), but there are no obvious spelling or grammatical errors.

What do you think? Is it a scam, a “time share”-type of sales event, or a legitimate invitation that just doesn’t look very good? (If so, I am guessing this post gets me uninvited.)

Full post as published by Caveat Emptor on April 14, 2008 (boomark / email).