Would you like some honesty with that spam?

Okay, today I have to bitch just a little bit about something I'm running into when applying for writing contracts: scams. It's frustrating and I just want to grab a hold of the people running them and beat them over the head with my Webster's Thesaurus. Usually when you read the advertisement for freelance writing gigs you can weed out the ones that are just looking for you to do some free work for them. But Monday I applied for a job for an on line car magazine. A few hours later I got an answer back stating they LOVED my work and could I go to their website and fill out an application? Now, this is an actual legitimate thing and I've had to do it a few times when applying for other contracts. But when I went to the link I was sent to, I was redirected to a sales page about downloading a tool to add "bling" to my toolbar. At first I was confused. Then I was mad. I mean, it doesn't take hours and hours to applying for a contract, but it does take some time and thought. I have to word my cover letter and decide what writing samples to send. And besides, it's just wrong. A few others were taken in by this too, being directed to different sites. I figure buddy was doing two things: one, collecting emails for further spamming and two, getting paid for redirecting folks to various sites. So while I was wasting my time applying, time I could have been writing, I was making him some money. And the kicker? When I emailed him about the job I had to jump through hoops to prove that I wasn't spamming the account. Now how's that for ironic?