The call couldn't have come at a better time.
''I saw an ad in the paper about making money at home with a computer,'' the voice on the phone said. There I was, reading a junk e-mail about the same thing.
''What did the ad say?'' I asked, and the caller recounted the spiel: Work at home in your spare time, make hundreds, even thousands a week, call for more details.
These scams have been around for decades. The con artists prey on the vulnerable: shut-ins, unemployed, people scrambling for ways to make a few extra bucks. The result is the same: the person needing money is the one who loses it.
The classic work-at-home scams are stuffing envelopes or writing greeting-card ditties. Because they often add up to mail fraud, operators have moved to the on-line frontier, where laws - and lawmen - are rare. Anyone with an America Online account has seen these ads, either in forums or e-mail. Cruise the Internet, and you find them everywhere, from newsgroups to ''MLM'' web pages (for an example, see http://worldentre.com).
Some examples:
Chain letters. Some are classic chain letters via e-mail, others want you to buy bogus shareware that you then resell.
Turn your PC into a server to accept orders for merchandise. You either buy the software, and the company promises orders will come flooding in (and never do). Or the company gives you the software but wants you to advertise and market its products in your area. (The products usually are so worthless that your efforts are a waste).
Buy and sell Get Rich Quick information. You buy some ''secret of success'' information, then resell it. You're out $5 or $20 or $100, and you recoup your investment by peddling it to other suckers.
Distributorships: Often called ''multilevel marketing'' (MLM), these schemes invite you to become a distributor for some worthless item (often a diet or health product). By selling other distributorships, you then take a commission of all the sales you control. The problem: Everyone is selling distributorships, not products.
Grocery coupons. Buy books of grocery coupons and sell them at a big markup to your friends. Or do the same thing with the new phone calling cards.
Companies offer a list of investors who are interested in paying you money for your software (or just ideas for software). The list will cost you, of course. And then you have to sell your ideas to the investors.
Start your own on-line service. With this company's amazing software, you can create CompuServe in your basement on your unused 486 PC.
Put up a web page and sell ads on it. Amazing new information on how to make millions in the new on-line world! (They don't mention that major corporations are spending millions trying to make a buck in cyberspace.)
And the sleaziest I've seen: Raise money for charities, and take a cut. Are the charities real? Probably not.
The list goes on and on. But they all fall into two categories:
Outright fraud: You buy a worthless product or service that promises to make you rich.
Pyramid schemes: You buy in and must sell the scheme to others to make any money. It's nothing more than a sophisticated chain letter.
Perhaps the on-line world gives these time-honored rip-offs a new cachet. Or perhaps it's easier to skirt the law in cyberspace. Or perhaps it's just cheaper to market this garbage by e-mail than real mail.
Or perhaps all the above.
Whatever the reason, cyberspace is full of con artists. Stay wary and watch your wallet.
E-mail Charles Brewer with questions, comments and suggestions at cbrewer@enquirer.com.