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banner ads
Jan. 17th, 2005 08:55 amI've noticed in the last month that the banner ads that show up on web pages here are different from the banner ads I am used to seeing in the US. I mean that I am accessing the same pages - yahoo mail, google searching, other random web pages, but the banner ads that I see while accessing the internet her aren't for the various products that I am used to seeing, free prizes, etc.
All of the banner ads advertise easy ways to get green cards and employment in the US. ALL OF THEM. Lottery schemes and craziness.
No wonder so many Uzbeks have asked me to help them with the internet so that they can win a green card - these schemes are just plastered in banners on every page.
A couple months ago I even had a taxi driver who apparently "won" one of those green card lotteries. He said that they never gave him the visa and he spent $500 by the end of it all. I told him what I tell every other Uzbek I talk to about this issue - visas and green cards come through the embassy, so if the internet site isn't from the consular section of the US government, it is probably a scam.
It just makes me sad. So many people here are struggling. Leaving seems like the easy solution, especially when America is painted in the media as a place of easy money and abundant available work. I spend so much of my idle conversation time trying to debunk this myth. I can't imagine how temping these rampant banner ads must be. They must be a successful way of taking people's money, since they are so prevalent here.
All of the banner ads advertise easy ways to get green cards and employment in the US. ALL OF THEM. Lottery schemes and craziness.
No wonder so many Uzbeks have asked me to help them with the internet so that they can win a green card - these schemes are just plastered in banners on every page.
A couple months ago I even had a taxi driver who apparently "won" one of those green card lotteries. He said that they never gave him the visa and he spent $500 by the end of it all. I told him what I tell every other Uzbek I talk to about this issue - visas and green cards come through the embassy, so if the internet site isn't from the consular section of the US government, it is probably a scam.
It just makes me sad. So many people here are struggling. Leaving seems like the easy solution, especially when America is painted in the media as a place of easy money and abundant available work. I spend so much of my idle conversation time trying to debunk this myth. I can't imagine how temping these rampant banner ads must be. They must be a successful way of taking people's money, since they are so prevalent here.
