Internet Scams & Browser Cache

Something bad happened to the Chrysler yesterday morning. I won't know how bad until Mr. Heaton takes a look at it. It may be time for another car, which brings us to part two.

Daughter found a couple of big black SUV's for sale really cheap. Both are 2001's with about 80K miles. One is a BMW X5, the other is a Range Rover. Price is $3500, about $10K under what you might think. Big, complicated gas hogs, but certainly cheap enough. Normally I wouldn't think cars like this would be so cheap, but with the economy the way it is, maybe nobody is buying these things and somebody needs to unload theirs quickly. (Silly boy.)

Which brings us to part three. While we were looking one of the ads vanished from the net. Well, it should be in the cache, I can retrieve it from there and harangue the guy about it. So I'm trying to figure out how to pull the file from cache, and I'm not getting anywhere. Seems Firefox has a "new and improved" cache management system - it compresses all the files and stores them in one giant database.

I dig around looking for a viewing tool, but no luck. I finally resort to the Firefox help forum and in a surprisingly short time I have an answer: CacheViewer, an Add-On for Firefox. It installs quickly and easily, though it does require restarting Firefox. It's not readily apparent how to view the file. Pictures show up in the window in the upper left hand corner, but to view html files you have to right click.

I find the ad and with it I get the guy's email address. I write to both of them (the X5 seller and the Range Rover seller), just to see if anybody answers, and they both answer promptly. The first guy is a Master Sargent in the Air Force and is stationed in Alaska, and guess what? The second guy is a Master Sargent in the Air Force and is stationed in Alaska. What are the odds? These guys in the Air Force must be making pretty good money to be able to sell these fancy cars so cheap. I smell a rat. Especially when the first guy wants to ship the car via an Air Force cargo plane to a nearby airport. I know corruption is rampant, but even this is straining my credulity.