I've had similar experiences. I have a few browser extensions and other similar tidbits that I've built, and every now and then I get an email with an offer to sell it for a hundred bucks or so. Sell full scripting access to every user who installed something I made over the years? It makes me sad that that's the kind of world we're in, and sadder still knowing that surely there are people somewhere out there who do accept these bids.
It's pretty clear we're screwed as a civilization. As tech gets more powerful, the same people making these offers as well as the same people doing cyberlockers, etc will do the same with bio-tech, nano-tech and anything else then can extort others with. They'll infect you with virus to which only they have the antidote, etc....
"Google offered me a pittance to take over and then kill my extension" doesn't make for a good headline. They'd rather just nuke the malicious extension when they get notified of its sketchy behaviour.
If I want to send money to someone I trust, I'd ask for their IBAN and do a bank transfer. Now, that cannot be reversed, so I really would have to trust them.
(Also, I'm assuming that both bank accounts are in SEPA countries, or at the very least countries which use IBAN, because in my life, that's likely to be true.)
Note that although the transfer itself doesn't have a recall mechanism, the recipient's identity is accessible to judges and lawyers and police officers if you got scammed.
It's for one blog post so the audience is random blog owners, not developers. Prices for e.g. taking over an established browser extension would probably be higher.
I'd think so too, but a top comment mentions hundred dollar offers for the author's extensions. I guess some devs will take that over earning nothing from an extension.
I think that's really cute that the author of the article thinks that reporting something to the FTC might be something he could do, as if the originators of this aren't working in the overseas scam equivalent of a call center that's effectively beyond US legal reach. There is no "Ben".
There's a chance that they might stall you and never actually pay (or chargeback the invoice).
That way they'll get a free link for at least some amount of time, and if done at massive scales correctly, it could bump some site up the search results for long enough.
I would definitely at least take a look at the "Received from" in SMTP envelope to confirm the physical location of the last real mail server hop (or all of the public ones).
That's great for confirming the physical location of the SMTP server connecting to your own server.
"Only publish things you'd publish otherwise" doesn't make any sense. If you had to be paid, you weren't really going to publish it. If you were really going to publish it anyway, you're deceiving the advertiser by making it seem like you require payment.
Readit News
It's pretty clear we're screwed as a civilization. As tech gets more powerful, the same people making these offers as well as the same people doing cyberlockers, etc will do the same with bio-tech, nano-tech and anything else then can extort others with. They'll infect you with virus to which only they have the antidote, etc....
Dead Comment
What are the good ways to be sent approximately this sum of money nowadays?
For receiving money, it would be great, for the same reasons.
(Also, I'm assuming that both bank accounts are in SEPA countries, or at the very least countries which use IBAN, because in my life, that's likely to be true.)
Can't even tell
Direct bank transfer (which above will support OR just a regular bank)
Requires trust yeah (except maybe the regular stripe credit card txn)
That way they'll get a free link for at least some amount of time, and if done at massive scales correctly, it could bump some site up the search results for long enough.
just hoping that some people will forget to unpublish the links after non-payment, or they'll get some links for a while at least
If the company is fake, it’s also possible they’ll pay you with a stolen credit card or hijacked PayPal account.
That's great for confirming the physical location of the SMTP server connecting to your own server.