Net Detective 2001

July 26, 2001 6:21 AM

Net Detective 2001 can help you find "EVERYTHING you ever wanted to know about your friends, family, neighbors, employees, and even your boss! You can even check out yourself. It is all completely legal, and you can do it all in the privacy of your own home without anyone ever knowing. It's even better than hiring a private investigator."

A friend of mine who is still unsure of the security of the Internet was curious about a spam he received and forwarded me. I wrote it off immediately as typical rubbish spam but decided to investigate it. I searched for it in Google only to find the same web page on many different sites.

I haven't tried installing it, just seems a bit too dodgy and I don't want to risk my computer's security, but has anyone heard about this program? I assumed it was some sort of scam but couldn't find anything about it in that sense.
posted by Jase_B (13 comments total)

I wonder if you can use the "Special Free Triple Bonus" to find out if you're on "double secret probation."
posted by lawtalkinguy at 6:41 AM on July 26, 2001

I don't support companies that think spamming is a legitimate marketing tool.
posted by waxpancake at 6:48 AM on July 26, 2001

At what point does this thread become spam in itself? This is most assuredly junk. Let's not give these guys any more promotion by discussing it further.
posted by jpoulos at 6:50 AM on July 26, 2001

shorter Front Page posts, please.
posted by ParisParamus at 7:00 AM on July 26, 2001

Actually I'd be interested in knowing more about this. I mean, of all the spam that one receives in one's inbox, this one always tweaked my curiosity. I would think the same thing is true for a lot of other people as well. I'd be really interested in finding out exactly what it is that they're talking about and if it is truly, as we all expect, a complete pile of arse.
posted by barbelith at 7:05 AM on July 26, 2001

I watched their stupid popup/flash/ad on their site, and the very end of the ad displays some text:

"Net Detective is a complete organized collection of resources and websites that will save you time and money when it comes to investigating and searching".

Sounds like they might be charging just to give people a bookmark list.
posted by jragon at 7:16 AM on July 26, 2001

Breaking my own suggestion by contributing to the thread... :-)

Years ago, I shelled out the $4.99 or whatever for "Cyber Spy", which I found on eBay. I got a floppy disk that held an html document containing links to several dozen "reference" sites. Included on the list were phone books and crappy search engines and the Library of Congress home page.

It wasn't a scam necessarily, but it was just a list of urls.
posted by jpoulos at 7:33 AM on July 26, 2001

I used it on myself and discovered I was wanted in 30 states, often married, either had or had not any kids, and was to get back money from George W. Bush someday soon. Seems that they supply you with the sort of stuff that is in public records--at a price.
posted by Postroad at 7:35 AM on July 26, 2001

If you ever stroll over to alt.privateinvestigators, you'll find that Net Defective (as they call it) is just a list of search engines, basically.

From what I've heard about it, the disc contains nothing that you wouldn't be able to find online by yourself.
posted by Oriole Adams at 9:37 AM on July 26, 2001

I checked this out once (friend's copy) and found it useless, FWIW.
posted by rushmc at 10:16 AM on July 26, 2001

email me and and for the low price of 14.95 I can tell you when you get your Bush income tax refund.

;-)
posted by andryeevna at 11:56 AM on July 26, 2001

I don't know why people are badmouthing this product- I think it's great! When I ordered my copy, it came with a free pair of X-Ray specs! Now I can look through girl's bikinis when I'm at the beach!
posted by hincandenza at 12:27 PM on July 26, 2001

*bloody vikings*
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:34 PM on July 26, 2001