Photo Credit: Unsplash/ Solen Feyissa Students in the US and Canada can access two months of ChatGPT Plus for free HighlightsChatGPT Plus is temporarily free for students in the US and CanadaOpenAI will verify student status using SheerID's systemsChatGPT Plus offers several benefits in comparison with the free versionAdvertisementChatGPT Plus will be free to access for select users over the next few weeks, OpenAI announced on Friday. The AI firm's ChatGPT Plus subscription tier typically costs $20 (roughly Rs. 1,700) per month, but eligible users won't have to pay for access to OpenAI's deep research and multiple reasoning models and limited access to Sora video generation. The lowest paid subscription plan lifts limits on messaging or file uploads, and image generation, while also offering limited access to Sora video generation.ChatGPT Plus Free Access for Students to Remain Available Through MayIn a post on X (formerly Twitter), CEO Sam Altman announced that the company will offer students in the US and Canada free access to ChatGPT Plus. This is part of a limited promotion that offers access to the paid subscription for free, until the end of May, and details of the promotion are available on the company's support website.In order to avail of the student promotion, students must be enrolled at a degree-granting school in the US or Canada. OpenAI requires users to verify their student status via SheerID's secure verification system before claiming access to the complimentary ChatGPT Plus subscription. Students who are already paying for the service will get two months of access at no additional cost.ChatGPT Plus Subscription Plan Benefits, FeaturesThe free version of ChatGPT already offers access to ChatGPT-4o mini, along with limited access to GPT-4o and o3-mini models, while the Plus subscription offers access to deep research and multiple reasoning models. These include o1, o3-mini, and o3-mini-high. The paid subscription also offers access to a research preview of the GPT-4.5 model that was announced in February.ChatGPT Plus also lets users upload more files, send more messages, and generate more images than users on the free tier. Subscribers also have access to the advanced voice mde with support for video and screensharing.OpenAI also allows ChatGPT Plus subscribers to create custom GPTs and enables users to try out upcoming features on the platform. A subscription to ChatGPT Plus also grants limited access to Sora video generation, which isn't available on the free tier. For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube. Further reading: ChatGPT Plus, OpenAI, ChatGPT, AI David Delima As a writer on technology with Gadgets 360, David Delima is interested in open-source technology, cybersecurity, consumer privacy, and loves to read and write about how the Internet works. David can be contacted via email at DavidD@ndtv.com,on Twitter at @DxDavey, and Mastodon at mstdn.social/@delima. More Related Stories

Can You Really Talk to AI Like a Friend?What if I told you that the secret to getting the best answers from AI isnt about being a tech geniusits about asking the right questions?Thats right! Just like having a great conversation with a friend, the way you phrase your questions (or prompts) to AI tools like ChatGPT can make all the difference. Some people get vague, confusing answers, while others get detailed, helpful responses. The key? Prompt engineering.But what exactly is prompt engineering, and how can you master it? Whether you're a student, marketer, developer, or just curious about AI, this guide will teach you how to craft perfect prompts every time.Lets dive in!What Is Prompt Engineering?Prompt engineering is the art of designing clear, effective instructions (or prompts) to get the best possible responses from AI models. Think of it like giving directionsif youre vague, you might end up lost. But if youre precise, youll reach your destination faster.Why Does It Matter?- Better AI responses = Saves time - Reduces frustration from irrelevant answers - Helps AI understand exactly what you needNow, lets break down how to become a prompt engineering pro.Step 1: Be Clear and SpecificThe biggest mistake people make is being too vague. Instead of:"Tell me about dogs."Try: "Give me a list of the top 5 most popular dog breeds in the U.S., including their average size and temperament."Why it works:The AI knows exactly what details to include, making the response more useful.Step 2: Provide ContextAI doesnt read minds (yet!), so the more background you give, the better.Example: "Write a blog post about fitness." (Too broad!) "Write a 500-word beginner-friendly blog post about home workouts for busy professionals. Include 3 simple exercises and tips for staying motivated."Pro Tip:If the response isnt quite right, refine your prompt with more details.Step 3: Use Examples (Few-Shot Prompting)Sometimes, showing the AI an example helps it understand your style.Example Prompt:"Heres how I want the answer formatted: Question:Whats the best time to exercise? Answer:Early morning workouts boost metabolism, while evening workouts improve performance. Choose based on your schedule!Now, answer this: Whats the healthiest breakfast?"The AI will follow your preferred format.Step 4: Adjust Tone and StyleWant a formal report? A funny story? A kid-friendly explanation? Tell the AI! Example: "Explain how solar panels work in a way a 10-year-old would understand." "Write a professional LinkedIn post about the benefits of remote work."Step 5: Experiment and RefineNot getting the right answer? Try: - Rephrasing the question - Adding more details - Breaking it into smaller steps Example:"Give me business ideas." (Too broad) "Suggest 5 low-cost online business ideas for beginners in 2024, with pros and cons for each."Advanced Prompt Engineering TechniquesOnce youve mastered the basics, try these pro strategies: 1. Chain-of-Thought (CoT) PromptingAsk the AI to explain its reasoning step-by-step.Example:"A store has 10 apples and sells 3. How many are left? Explain your thinking."2. Role-Playing PromptsMake the AI respond as an expert. Example:"Act as a career coach. Give me 3 tips for negotiating a higher salary."3. Negative PromptingTell the AI what not to do. Example:"Explain blockchain without using technical jargon."Common Mistakes to Avoid Being too vague Leads to generic answers Overloading with info Confuses the AI Not testing different prompts Limits your results Final Thoughts: Practice Makes Perfect!Prompt engineering is like learning a new languagethe more you practice, the better you get. Start small, experiment, and soon youll be getting exactly the answers you need from AI. Your Turn!Try these prompts today and see the difference: 1. "Summarize this article in 3 bullet points."2. "Give me 3 creative Instagram caption ideas for a coffee shop."3. "Explain quantum computing like Im 5."Got a favorite prompt? Share it in the comments!TL;DR Quick Prompt Engineering Tips Be specificand detailed Provide exampleswhen possible Adjust tone and style Experiment and refineNow go aheadmaster prompt engineering and unlock AIs full potential!Whats the most interesting AI response youve gotten? Let us know below!

Push to Talk is a weekly newsletter about the business of making and marketing video games, written by games industry veteran and marketing director Ryan Rigney. Subscribe here for eclectic and spicy interviews and essays in your inbox every Friday.Of the hundreds of indie games released on Steam each week, only a fortunate few become breakout hits.Last weeks biggest winner was the viral drug-dealing simulator Schedule I. But it wasnt the only game that managed to crack 1,000 overwhelmingly positive reviews in its first week. The other surprise was Spilled!, a bite-sized game about cleaning up waterways.Spilled! puts you into a cute little solar-powered boat which you use to slurp up oil spills and gently, slowly, push floating cans and bottles into recycling bins, earning coins which unlock boat upgrades to speed up your task. Its a meditative experience that you can finish in about an hour.Image: Ryan K. RigneyAnd you probably will finish it, because theres something viscerally compelling about watching the games muddy brown waters gradually brighten to a clear blue as you putter around. Once each area is cleared, the next litter-strewn and oil-slicked environment beckons. So it goes for eight or nine turns of Spilled!s game loop. And since it only costs $5.99, a solid 95% of Steam reviewers have given it a thumbs-up.But maybe more compelling than the games price is its backstory. Spilled! was made primarily by a 25-year-old Dutch game developer called Lente, who lives on a boat which she purchased and renovated.The interior of Lentes houseboat, before and after renovations. Image: Ryan K. RigneyThe sun shines on Spilled!A few years ago, Lente made a YouTube channel and began logging the development of the game that ultimately became Spilled! At first, she was attempting to build the game entirely without a game engine, and though that didnt pan out, her other efforts seemed charmed with preternaturally good fortune.After making a Twitter account to try and make more game developer friends, the very first tweet Lente ever posted went semi-viral, earning her a following and a community. That kinda jump started it I think, Lente says. As buzz began building around her game, she says, I started getting into events and showcases, and those really grew the wishlist count for Spilled!Lentes boat is equipped with 1,600 watts of solar and has an electric motor that runs off of quite big household batteries, she says. Image: Ryan K. RigneyAfter an early demo for the game did particularly well on Steam, Lente decided to make a Kickstarter campaign, which was successfully funded in the first 12 hours.Lentes streak of good fortune continued when a member of her Discord community reached out with an offer to rework Spilleds 3D pixel art style. The artist, Starbi, had been following Lentes efforts since her early YouTube days.He showed me some of his previous art, Lente says, and made a mockup for Spilled!. I quickly got very excited as he is truly, very talented with 3D pixel art. Starbi joined the project officially, and the duo were able to show off the games visual update when Spilled! earned a promo slot in last Junes Wholesome Direct.More wins followed. By August of last year, the game had over 50,000 wishlists on Steam. A few weeks before the launch, a very simple tweet showing Lente on her boat and a short clip of the game in action went viral on X, earning 26,000 likes. And so it was probably no surprise that, when Spilled! finally launched last Wednesday, it immediately rocketed to the top of Steams coveted New & Trending chart.Fate smiles this brightly on very few indie games. Of the 18,239 games that released on Steam last year, only 445 earned over 1,000 reviewsa common milestone for indie success on Steam. Why does the universe deal so few games a winning hand?Fates reasons are rarely clearsomething Lente knows well. Shes had her fair share of inexplicably bad luck too.A nautical childhoodA photo of the boat where Lente spent her early childhood. Image: Ryan K. RigneyLentes current boat isnt the first shes lived on. My parents bought a ship 5 years before I was born, she says. For her entire early childhood, that boat was home.I had the best time growing up there, Lente says. It was in the middle of nature, next to a small town. I was playing outside all the time. And when my parents had to run the laundry or something and turned on the generator, me and my brother sometimes played CD-ROM and flash games on the old laptop (it was chunky).When her parents would tie-off on land, Lente and her brother built treehouses and played in the water. The world was our garden, she says.Lentes family lived in a small municipality outside of Amsterdam, where the rules for boat-living werent always totally clear. Usually you pay a yearly fee to put your boat somewhere, she explains. There are spots where youre allowed to officially live, but also plenty of harbors where its not officially allowedbut they dont really care. And then another option would be to roam around a lot. You can stay in most spots in nature for three days in a row. Either by anchor, or by some specially made poles created for recreational boaters.Image: Ryan K. RigneyLente recalls one early story about another seafaring neighbor who ran afoul of the local authorities. Next to the spot where her family usually anchored, there was a big wooden ship, she says. It was from a guy that used to do weddings and stuff on it. But unfortunately taxes caught up to him and he was not able to care for the ship anymore. Eventually the ship sank and slowly the masts would fall over too. It looked pretty cool. Me and my brother always called it the pirate ship.It was a charmed childhood, but around the time Lente turned 9 or 10, her own family began to run into trouble themselves. The municipality started acting a little strange, she says. They said wed have to move the ship because we didnt have a license to live there. This was basically correct, because her parents had simply purchased the ship itself and began living in the location where the boat had long been anchored.Eventually, Lente says, the municipality pushed her family out. Her parents were forced to sell the ship, and took out a mortgage for a small apartment in town so Lente and her brother could continue attending the same school theyd grown up in.That was important to them, Lente says. Talking about this gets me a little teary eyed.Image: Ryan K. RigneyHer parents engaged in a long legal struggle with the municipality, and after five years they won: Turns out the ship had been there so long, that they never should have kicked us out, she says. We got a replacement spot somewhere else, and my parents got a mortgage for a houseboat. But to this day, the new spot is only a temporary license, and we for instance cant sell the place if we wanted to.Why do these things happen? One day, some faceless small-town bureaucrat decides that the family thats been living in a local river for 15 years has got to go.From the perspective of a 9-year-old child, it must have felt incomprehensible. You have to leave your home and go live on land like all the other kids. Why?A childhood reclaimedImage: Ryan K. RigneySpoilers for the ending of Spilled! follow.Throughout Spilled! youll occasionally see an unnamed antagonist trawling the watersa sloppy oil tanker that leaves behind a mess wherever it goes.Whos steering this boat, and why are they doing this? Dont they know that people live here? Animals and humans alike are the victims of the villainous boats antics. And you have to clean up behind it.In the games final chapter, youre forced to face off against a supersized oil tanker. Using your boats water cannon, you can flood its decks and sink it to the bottom of the bay.You never learn more about your silent antagonists reasons. The inner workings of the machine are inscrutable. As the last vestige of its damage is undone and it disappears beneath the waves, youre left to wonder why it was so determined to cause all that trouble.In the end, the machines motivations dont really matter. All you know is that, despite the damage it dealt, you have the tools available to do something about it. You can reclaim the water. And with effort, you can turn your fortunes around.See More:

AMD is now rumored to launch a new variant within the Ryzen Z2 handheld-focused APU lineup, and its core focus would likely be AI performance.AMD's Ryzen Z2 APU Lineup Will Feature Chips With NPUs Onboard, Likely To Allow Faster AI PerformanceWell, it seems like Team Red isn't stopping when it comes to dominating the handheld markets, and now, with its recently-announced Z2 APU series, the firm plans to take performance to a new level. While we are aware of the official specifications of the Z2 SoCs, it is claimed that there might be a new model being planned by Team Red, according to the renowned leaker @AnhPhuH, and it would likely be called the "Ryzen Z2 AI Extreme", which might come with an enhanced AI performance compared to the counterpart without the "AI branding".The need for AI computation on a handheld isn't that significant, but AMD is likely moving to counter the influence from Intel's Lunar Lake SoCs, which are equipped with decent AI TOPS. The Z2 series, in general, will have their NPUs disabled on gaming handhelds, but with the rumored Ryzen Z2 AI Extreme chip, we believe that AMD will offer AI acceleration in some form, which'll be interesting to look at.There's also a Ryzen Z2 A model mentioned by the leaker, although the specifics of it haven't been mentioned yet. Judging by the fact that the list shared is in the order of the SoC's respective performance, we anticipate that the Ryzen Z2 A will be a more "budget-friendly" option with an NPU onboard, yet again allowing the handhelds to run applications requiring AI TOPS onboard. So far, the Z2 series will see five SoCs, which shows that integrators will have plenty of options to choose from.For a quick rundown on specifications, the Ryzen Z2 Extreme will be the flagship chip of the lineup, offering a total of 8 cores and 16 threads. The chip will boast a maximum boost clock of 5.0 GHz, 24 MB of cache, a TDP of 15 to 35W, and 16 RDNA 3.5 iGPU cores, and will be on the "Strix Point" die, making it the first Zen5 handheld-focused chip. Following the Z2 Extreme will be the Z2 Go and the standard Z2, featuring Rembrandt and Hawk Point dies, respectively. You can look about these SoCs in depth here.News Source: VideocardzDeal of the Day

Monster Hunter Wilds' Mizutsune battle is one of the game's toughest, thanks to the monster's fast, unpredictable movements and extensive control over the battlefield. Mizutsune moves quickly and uses a mix of ranged and up-close attacks to keep you on the defensive, though with the right armor and weapons, you can give yourself a much better chance of survival.Our Monster Hunter Wilds Mizutsune guide breaks down Mizutsune's weaknesses and attack patterns, the best gear you should use, and what you'll get for defeating the beast.Table of Contents [hide]Monster Hunter Wilds: Mizutsune locationMonster Hunter Wilds: Mizutsune locationMizutsune uses the forest's waterways to get around. Look for chances to use rocks and branches to damage it while it travels. Continue Reading at GameSpot

Royal Blood is one of the most prominent talking points throughout Attack on Titan. However, just like those pesky Titan shifters, it can pop up in the strangest of places. At first, royal blood appears limited to a select, secretive family within the walls. However, it then emerges that Zeke Jeager, an invading titan shifter from the world outside, also possesses the special lineage.

People dont understand how close D&D and wrestling are, said Brennan Lee Mulligan. And hes speaking from an informed perspective, ushering Dimension 20: Titan Takedown into the world this week.In the new four-episode season of the long-running anthology actual play show, Mulligan hosts four WWE superstars Xavier Woods, Kofi Kingston, Bayley, and Chelsea Green to a game set in a professional-wrestling-themed reimagining of Greek mythology. And despite its brevity, the season has become a playground for wrestling-loving Dimension 20 veterans, who were welcomed into a suite of extra skits and bits to celebrate their own fandom.The parallels between professional wrestling and actual play Dungeons & Dragons are easy to find, and when Polygon chatted with Mulligan via video call last week, we started with the obvious one. Did he feel like his entire career had come down to this: playing every heel?The Dungeon Master should just be called the All-Heel, Mulligan said. It is the heel of all heels; you play every heel, and it is your role to be big and blustery and then lose, and that is what the people want to see. Its a delight. I flew into it with all of the love and ardor I could muster.For more of Brennans thoughts on Titan Takedown, the kayfabe all around us, and the unexpected advantages of having new players in your actual play, read on.Polygon: Are you a wrestling fan from way back or is it something youve been introduced to later in life or for the show?Brennan Lee Mulligan: Later in life; I had the pleasure, the honor I wish that everyone in the world could be so lucky as to be pals with the magnificent Danielle Radford [comedian and co-host of the Tights and Fights podcast]. Danielle is a wrestling and comedy super maven.I have always been tangentially a fan of wrestling, as a lot of people are tangentially fans of D&D, where theyre like, Oh, that looks fun, but no one has invited me specifically to participate. I dont have an on-ramp. Im not at a friends house where theyre watching it, my parents arent watching it. So its this thing that seems cool, but that Im not getting drawn into.Working in comedy, there are so many comedians that are huge wrestling fans. And Danielle took me by the hand especially ramping up as this season was approaching and went like, Heres the historic matches, heres the lore, heres the jargon, heres the encyclopedia. She created this beautiful document for the season, came through and said, Heres the matches you need to watch to understand these four players.After years and years of being like, Oh, that seems cool, but I dont see an organic way into participating in that, Danielle could not have thrown more of a royal red carpet out for me and all the D20 people that wanted to finally be involved. And it was a joy, a privilege, and an honor.Ive always been in a similar boat, but the appeal of wrestling clicked for me when I found out what kayfabe means. I thought, Oh, its like the Muppets. Its a performance of a performance.Hey, listen, kayfabe is all around us. Anyone who has ever had to visit their grandma knows that you are not the same person everywhere, right? You go, [soft, cheerful voice] Hi, Grandma. Its good to see you! We present these masks; we present these sides of ourselves. Kayfabe is a really useful concept, and I love that its entering common parlance. Its a useful term, especially in the age of social media [mildly deranged voice] where we are all performers, Susana, all of us are performersOh god, interviews are already the most kayfabe space I occupy, this is a level of metatext Im not sure Im capable of processing.Dimension 20 has always included players of different levels of experience with Dungeons & Dragons. But recent seasons like Dungeons and Drag Queens and Titan Takedown have really leaned into new players as performers. Whats in your playbook for introducing not just a player to a game they havent played, but a performer to this kind of performance they havent done before?The best thing I always say is: Dont worry about the rules. And I try to really remind people that I am a living encyclopedia. Im like, You should just step out into open air and Ill build a bridge underneath you. You cant go wrong. Dont be afraid. And also just trying to remind people that its story first, game second.What I mean by that is, its not that the game doesnt matter its that people will literally come with a game mentality of being like, Wait, so how do we win? Can we die? Whats going on? What happens when we die, we lose the game? And youre like, No, you make another characterIts very funny, because its not even a debate. It is story first. The game is story first. Theres no lose condition, theres no win condition. The game ends when youre done telling your story, its built into the bones of the thing. And so: Reminding people of that [is the first step]. But the truth is a lot of that being a novice to the game [stuff] is incredibly beneficial to the show. Its really helpful. It creates an on-ramp for people that can come and find a season really approachable.Its so funny, we did Dungeons and Drag Queens, which was a lot of first-time players, and whats so funny is you think, Oh, this is going to be like a Reeses Cup; your peanut butter got in my chocolate. Fans of drag and fans of D&D can cross-pollinate and find these other mediums and performers. It was so funny that a lot of people approached that season as people that were not drawn from either, but it was a good on-ramp to learn about both.That you are novice to each other creates this really interesting opportunity to be able to jump into the beginning of something and go, Oh, theyre explaining the game to these performers and its an easy on-ramp for me coming in. I think that with Titan Takedown, it was really great, because you see apex performers at the top of their mastery of this skillset, learning something new, but being absolutely so entertaining and charming that its a wild ride while youre learning along with them.Maybe this is a question wrongly asked, because all gaming groups are going to be different in their own ways, but were there any unexpected differences between introducing a group of drag performers to the game and introducing a group of wrestling performers to the game?Yeah, I think I would say no. Id say that theyre just wonderful. Theyre just really wonderful.Dungeons and Drag Queens just won Best Web Series at the Queerty Awards, onstage with Mont and Bob and our incredible producer, Ebony Hardin whos the supervising producer for Dropout, but was also our day one production coordinator and producer going forward in Dimension 20. Theyre just phenomenal people.You meet them on day one and you see these people that are quite famous, and theyre just the most down to earth and funny and gregarious. Like Bob and Monts rivalry, taking shots at each other, the cameras arent [even] rolling, its just delightful. And the same was true for these wrestlers, they were just the most warm and incredible [presences]. And again, to watch that facility and charm I would say the cool thing was the storytelling.If youre someone thats approaching this as a D&D fan that is seeing wrestlers for the first time, you might think of them as these obviously athletic, incredible performers. You see the big, larger-than-life persona. What I grokked right away was [that] their facility was storytelling. The understanding of setting something up and paying it off. The understanding of those turns, of moments where something shifts. There are storytelling moments in [Titan Takedown] that you really see how confident and skilled they are at bringing a character through an experience. I think thats going to be really gratifying for people to come in and see.Titan Takedown premiered on Dropout on April 2, with new episodes airing Wednesdays through April 23.

I'm sure you've received a random text from a supposed employment recruiter recentlywe all have. These texts, you likely realize, are scams. No company is so desperate for workers that theyd message random numbers with job offers. According to the Federal Trade Commission, you shouldn't respond to these texts or click on any links on themthe smart thing to do is to block these numbers and get on with your day.But I wanted to see what happens to people who follow through and actually try to get the job, so I answered a scam text, and it led me down a surprisingly long road that included bogus online piecework, a discussion of the nature of labor itself, and repeated requests for $33.The signs of a fake job textThere's a 99.9999% chance that any unsolicited text offering you a job leads to a scam, but some scams seem more realistic than others. This one is particularly easy to spot: Credit: Stephen Johnson That's $780,000 a year for working in your spare time, so not something that really happens on earth.Some scam job offers arent so patently ridiculous though. They often mention a company you know and presumably trust, and if you're already looking for work, you might be fooled. Like this one, supposedly from Home Depot: Credit: Stephen Johnson That works out to $45,600 a year for evaluating and rating products and providing real IP and device data for uploading. If you squint, those words could be describing an actual job, so Itook the next step. After checking whether it was a scam first, of course. Credit: Stephen Johnson As you can see, scammers won't tell you they're fake. They also usually provide a second phone number to the fish who sniff their bait, and it's often on WhatsApp. The initial phone number is likely to be disabled when the vast majority of people the scammer sent it to report the number to their phone company. Theyre only really concerned about the few people who bite anyway. They want to get these people over to WhatsApp quick, partly because it's encrypted, which makes it easier to hide your tracks, but mostly because the WhatsApp Number will take longer to be disabled.A surprisingly elaborate digital scamThere's any number of ways a bad actor can take advantage of someone who responds to a job offer, from asking for bank account information immediately to taking your SSN to trying to get you to "invest" in a fake crypto scheme. But this scam was a little deeper. Heres what happened when I messaged my trainer on WhatsApp: Credit: Stephen Johnson Maria seemed super nice, even if her profile says her name is Riley. Credit: Stephen Johnson Maria/Riley asked me for some basic information, so I filled in the details of the character George Kennedy played in 1975s Airport (I'm not giving my real info out) and we started training for my new job at Home Depot: Credit: Stephen Johnson Maria/Riley had me make an account on a website called gncojjhwd.com, not, for some reason, HomeDepot.com. The website is plastered with the names and logos of companies like Amazon, Nike, and Costco, but it's not actually affiliated with any of them. A WhoIs request reveals that the site was about a week old at the time, hosted by Cloudflare, and the owners name is being hidden. While that doesnt definitely make it a scam, its definitely a scam.But I got to work anyway. According to Maria/Riley, $60 was deposited in my account to compensate me for my training, and I could add to that by clicking submit" 30 times on pictures like this: Credit: Stephen Johnson I earned $.30 for a click! After a few clicks, I felt sufficiently trained, and I started to wonder about how scammers could keep up the charade that Home Depot pays people to do this. Even in the fictional world the scammers set up, it's puzzling that anyone would think this was a job that paid nearly $50,000 a year. What is "work" anyway? I wondered. So I asked my coach. Credit: Stephen Johnson After lunch, I clicked about five more items, then stopped. I was trying to be a terrible employee to see if it's possible to get "fired," but no matter what I said to them, or how long I shirked the "job"of clicking "submit," my fake employers kept me around. I decided to knock off early for my first day. The next day I was met with concerned messages from my coach: Credit: Stephen Johnson If this were a real job offer, my rude tone, lazy attitude, and overall jerkiness would result in a swift pink-slip. But scammers don't care who you are or how you talk to them, because there is no job. They're trying to make you believe in a job long enough to send them money, but that's all. So I played along some more, put my nose back to the grindstone, and hit "submit" enough times to make my quota. Credit: Stephen Johnson As easy as the "job" was, I wasn't finding meaning in my work, so I let Maria/Riley know I was leaving: Credit: Stephen Johnson She convinced me to give it another shot, but I was met with this message when I tried to go on to my next set of things to click: Credit: Stephen Johnson I really wanted to "go for more journeys," but in order to do that, I had to send the company $33. This is where the scam part comes in. Pro tip: If a job asks you to send them money, don't. That's the opposite of how jobs work. Credit: Stephen Johnson I decided to try to take the "money" I'd "earned" and move on. It would have been hilarious if it was somehow possible to actually withdraw the cash, but it wasn'tI tried. I even clicked the site's customer service link (props to these scammers for even having a fake customer service chatline) to demand my compensation. Real companies that offer pay for training generally have to give you that money, even if you leave right after the training. Scam job offers do not. Credit: Stephen Johnson As you can see above: Customer service was not helpful, so I went back to Maria/Riley, but all she did was ask about whether I'd sent $33 through Cash App too. Being a proactive new hire, I tried to make it easier for her: Credit: Stephen Johnson Things started going in circles from here: The trainer asked for $33. "Customer service" asked for $33. I asked if I could pay the $33 after I completed more work. They said, "send $33." I told them I could send them a check. "Has to be Cash App. Send $33," they said. I explained that I was writing a blog post about scam jobs, and they still asked for $33. So I left 'em on read.What happens if you send money to a fake job scammer?Had I actually sent the money, they would no doubt have strung me along by having me click submit for another round, telling me I was making even more money per click, and adding fake funds to my account. But they would eventually ask for another payment, probably higher than $33. This cycle would repeat until I stopped sending them cash or their website disappeared. There would never be a way for me to withdraw this money, because the money isn't real. So what did we learn?The overall lesson from this enterprise is that nothing good will happen to you if you answer a random text offering you a job. Even if it seems legitimate, and there's a website with a customer service element, and you really like your trainer, they're going to eventually ask you for money. You should just delete these texts immediately, but if you can't quite bring yourself to because of the possibility that they're from an actual recruiter, ask for a phone number to call them. They probably won't give you one, but if they do, check whether it's an actual number of a legitimate company. It won't be, but you can check. I was actually surprised that I was able to waste so much of these scammers' time. The (initial) payday of $33 seems pretty small, given the hours of time I took up pretending I didn't know how things worked. Even though I was outwardly rude from the very beginning, and I told them I knew they were scammers, they're still texting me, four days later, and asking when I'm going to send them $33.