As some of you may know, the old guy who used to own the house that I rent passed away a while ago. That's obvioulsy a sad event, however it also meant that I may have had to look for somewhere else to live. His two daughters inherited the house and were happy for me to stay on as a tennant, however they now need some cash and want to sell. That's a bad thing for me. I have tried to come to an agreement on price so that I can buy it myself, however we have very different expections. That lead me to look for another rental property. The rental price of a three bedroom house has gone through the roof latley. I just couldn't find anything that was half decent and affordable so I started looking at villa unit's. I actually signed the forms on one before I realised that there wasn't anywhere to store all of the stuff that I currently have in my garage. Last weekend I looked at the private rentals in the paper and found the one.  It's in the fairly new Whitewater estate in Kingston. I've never been into apartment living, and I remember laughing at this development when it went up. The apartments are all funky colours and situated around the outside of a big rectangular block like tents at a caravan park. I looked at it reluctantly, however I was blown away when I walked inside the door. It's actually bigger than my first house. The main bedroom even has a walk in robe and a double vanity in the ensuite. It's all very modern and stuff. The yard is just slightly larger than a postage stamp, but it's also funky and brand new and comes with it's own gardener. The best bit is that I get the full use of the tennis court and swimming pool!  Emma and Brad were with me and they both were very keen to grab it. There is so much competition for rentals at the moment that they hold open days and then choose the tennant from there. We must have said something right because he chose us! We move in a few weeks time. Legoland? That's the name that many of the Kingston locals have given to the development because the shape, size and colours make it all look as if it was made by a kid out of Lego!

Many of you are already reaping the benefits of the free stuff that can be had from Australian websites. Some of you may have already seen the story I wrote on some of the great survey, competition and free give away sites there are in Australia. If you haven't seen my previous story, then click here. I wanted to let you know of my personal experience with two of the biggest Australian sites.

I've been a member of Emailcash for about a year. In that time I really haven't participated in much of their extra activities that can give you bonus points. All that I have really done is click on the email's that they send me to earn 5 points every time. The email's are all for really big well known Australian brands such as Telstra, news.com.au, Quickflix, P&O Cruises etc. Most of them are actually invitations to enter some great competitions. I haven't won any competitions (yet), but the email's and the sites that they take you to are always interesting, so I see these as a good thing! In that time I have accumulated enough points to redeem a $30 cheque and I'm only a few weeks away from a $50 gift voucher. That's not too bad for just clicking a couple of email's a week and if you buy stuff from their partners, play the online games, participate in their forums and do their surveys then you can earn heaps more points. Click here to go to the Emailcash website.

The other winner is the YourVoice panel.  This is a survey panel that any Australian can join. This is the best paying website that I have ever signed up to. I have already received a kitchen blender for free and a Playstation Eye camera is on it's way as I type this. I bought the Playstation Eye camera with a $100 Dstore voucher that I redeemed from YourVoice, so I still have $20 left to spend. These guys pay well and every survey that you do gives you an entry into a quarterly draw for $16000 worth of car, travel or home entertainment gear. If you would like to join up then please contact me and I'll send you a referral email with a link to click that will allow you to sign up. 

 I know that there are a lot of "get rich quick" schemes on the Internet, but these two really do work!

This one was interesting. For some strange reason I decided to check my spam email folder. I found an email that looked legit asking for a price to advertise on Tasweb. This is the email;

Good day,

My name is Edward Johnson and I am looking to buy links from good websites as yours (tasweb.org).
I will be glad if I can have a text link or a text box 120x60 or 125x125 on your site. Please advise what what will be the price for each of these ads, if it is placed:

1. On your homepage only
2. On all site pages

I will be very thankful to you if you take into consideration my requrest.

Kind Regards

Edward Johnson

 I question everything that I receive in email, but at first I thought it was real. The fact that there was a real link to my real website gave it credence and the request seemed reasonable. People really do this sort of stuff. Then I noticed the slightly dodgy grammar/spelling and decided to look a bit further. Whilst the email was signed by Edward Johnston, it was sent to me by Isabel Whithead. I then looked back at my spam folder and found another two of these emails. One was signed by George Nelson and the other by my new friend Edward. The wording was identical, however the emails were actually sent from another two different people (i.e. not Isabel). Not only that, but the reply to addresses of each email came from different domains. I then Googled for my new friend Edward and found another site who had received the same email's and had decided that it was an overpayment scam. If I had replied they would have agreed on a price and then sent me a cheque for an amount more than the agreed price. They would then aplogise and ask me to transfer the balance back to them. Some time after that the cheque would bounce because it had actually been stolen in a different country. I'm out of pocket for the money I transfered and the crooks have pocketed some cash from a stolen cheque. I guess this is a form of money laundering by organised criminals. Apparently the email addresses are spoofed (forged). The moral of the story is "don't believe everything you see on the Internet"!!!