Scammers Follow Unions from Newsprint to Cyberspace
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As long as there have been labor publications, there have been scam artists masquerading as legitimate union newsletters, magazines or newspapers trying to swindle advertising dollars from unsuspecting businesses looking for a vehicle to reach union members and their families.
Today, as most union publications have migrated to the web, the con artists have followed, reports Andy Zipser, editor of the Guild Reporter of The Newspaper Guild-CWA.
“As print publications have moved increasingly online, so too have the rip-off artists, with such creations as unions.org, unionfriendly.com, unitedworkforce.org, unitedunions.org, unionmembersweb.com and other equally suggestive URLs.
“As the names imply, such bogus websites implicitly suggest—or explicitly state—that they’re union connected, relying on deception rather than the outright extortion of their print predecessors.”
