A TouchPad for $49? Maybe if you're Rick Astley

23.08.2011
With geeks still scrambling to get their hands on the last of Hewlett-Packard's US$99 TouchPads, a $49 deal just seems too good to be true.

And, as the thousand or so people who tried to buy cheap TouchPads on an HP look-alike website Tuesday learned, one should steer clear of things that seem too good to be true.

The -- looks legitimate. In fact, many of the links on the site go to real HP addresses.

But anyone who tries to buy the $49 TouchPad gets Rickrolled. It's a popular type of Internet prank where the victim clicks on a seemingly irresistible link -- a $49 TouchPad, or a sneak copy of a Kim Kardashian wedding video -- and ends up instead sitting through a YouTube clip of schmaltzy soul singer Rick Astley singing his 1987 hit, "Never Gonna Give You Up."

Clicking on the TouchPad's "Add to Cart" button brings up the Rick Astley video and the line, "srry no hp touchpad! looooool," along with a running count of how many people have been fooled (925 as this article was completed).

The prank website is registered by Phillip Sullivan of Los Angeles. Sullivan could not be reached Tuesday, and it's unclear whether the name is a pseudonym.