After a few days passed, he checked with his Bank, and money still hadn't arrived. He again called Credit Card Company, was told that information requested was never received, and they were canceling his account, which they did. He then called his customers and sure enough, their accounts were charged for amount of merchandise he delivered.

Now - plot sickens. He is out $334.95 for referral fee and set up fee no matter what happens. In reading "fine print" company can hold his money for 180 days. Will he get his money then? Maybe - if company is still in business . In meantime, his money is most likely in an interest bearing account, and company will walk away with interest plus his $295. At end of waiting period, if they pay him charges they are withholding, company has acted properly as far as law is concerned.

Sounds like small potatoes until you multiply this by several thousand people. Now, AG will probably not get involved if they return money 6 months from now - they did nothing illegal, and they cancelled his account for cause.

Will they get a bad rep - sure - and people will stop doing business with them. But as this article is being written, this particular sales agent is now operating under a different name, and spamming new suckers.

Now pay attention - First, ignore email spams you get from people promising to process credit cards on your behalf. They are simply independant sales agents, and cannot bind actual company to anything, no matter what they promise.

Second, do a little homework - how long has company been around? Can you get contact information from some of their clients who are using their service? Are these real people or simply shills working for company?

Third, and most important, read fine print - better yet, have your lawyer review contract.

But wait there is an even better deal. You can get a CD with 15,000,000 addresses for only $199. "Now" you might think, "if I can 5,000-30,000 customers from one million, how many customers can I get with 15 million".

The first question I would have, is how are you going to send out your 15 million E-mails without having your ISP cancel your account. Most free ISP's put a limit of 50 E-mails you can send out at one time. Let's see 15 million divided by 50 would equal 300,000 mailings. Figure 20 minutes per mailing, it would take over 6 years, working 8 hours a day, to send a mailing to everyone on list. Ever wonder how many of those addresses will be valid next month, let alone 6 years from now?

Does that mean you will have to wait 6 years before you can start packing your bags? Not hardly - there are some people whose main goal in life is get E-mail accounts of spammers canceled. There is even software that makes complaints automatically.

But you think, I have software that can send out many thousands at a time. Granted, but all this means is your account will be canceled by your ISP faster. Most keep "logs" of E-mail sent out, and examine content of large mailings. If it is a commercial message - Bingo - You're Cancelled.