USAGC.ORG is a scam
Wed Sep 15, 2010 5:40:16 am

---

A client asked me to help her with registration on usagc.org, because she was having difficulty. I did not immediately realize that this was a scam site and attempted to help her. Filling out the form was fairly simple, but I encountered unusual problems when trying to upload a photo. The box that should show the path to the file displayed something very strange. Instead of something like "c:\users\myclientsname\pictures\photoname.jpg", it showed "c:\fakepath\photoname.jpg". There is no bug I know of that causes the path name to be substituted with "fakepath".

This seemed very suspicious, but I persisted. I initially had tried on Internet Explorer 8 and decided to try on Firefox 3. I again encountered a problem with the upload, but the problem was slightly different. Instead of "fakepath", I got two boxes. One showed the path, which was correct this time, and the other showed the file name. The upload still failed. I tried again in Chrome and got only one box that showed no text. The browse button was not visible but functioned if I clicked in the correct area where the button should be.

These errors were too odd. It seemed almost as if the errors were placed there intentionally to frustrate users. I asked my client about the site and she informed me that she discovered it through an unsolicited email (spam). She also informed me that she had to pay for the service. She paid, believing that this was the Green Card Lottery registration system. It is not.

The only correct site for the Green Card Lottery is http://www.dvlottery.state.gov. On the official site, there is a fraud warning about sites that charge a registration fee. The green card lottery is free. Also, official US government sites should end in .gov and not .org or .com.