on today's show, it's an unusual way to go about finding a new job, why so many people are heading to job fairs and offering to work for free, and the newest millionaire's club, that could be you, is online. we'll get a sneak preview of a social networking site just for the rich, and it was a record-setting trek to the north pole. we'll meet two men who walk, they skied and even swam to achieve this amazing accomplishment. we'll see these stories and more from florida to california. hang on because "america this week" starts now. ♪ ♪ this is "america this week."

♪ ♪ well, thanks for joining us. i'm veronica johnson. >> high school seniors all across the country are getting ready for graduation right now. many will walk across the stage with all kinds of honors. there's a trio of tampa-area 12th graders that have bragging rights that few ever achieve. as jennifer lee explains, this is a story 13 years in the making here. >> high school senior t.j. bennett is probably exactly the kind of kid you'd expect to never miss a day of school. >> i was the only one in my class to pass a.p.chem. i'm pretty sure i'm one of the few in the class to get a.p. history. >> he's not sure why the school district is making such a fuss about it. >> it's a big, huge perfect 10 because i showed up to school every day for the last 13 or so years. >> reporter: you heard right. the kid's never missed a single

day of school since kindergar n kindergarten. and neither has sarah perry. >> why is everyon looking at me. she thinks it's a little bigger deal. >> my mom forced me to go. during elementary school and in middle school i started realizing, i haven't missed a day and when i got to high school i said i'll have to get out. >> reporter: that's not to say she brags about it. her friends aren't overly impressed. i either get how did you do that? that's just not possible and you're such a loser and freak, why did you go to school all of the time? >> reporter: she's proud of the achievement and really glad to be five days from the finish line. >> i can't wait. i'll have more reason than everyone else because i've been here the whole time. >> reporter: a third high school senior, a woman named michelle jean from avondale high has also never missed a single day in 13 years. each though out of 5500 seniors

pope only has three with perfect attendance. t.j. bennett still wonders what's the fuss. >> i'm sorry. i don't get the big deal about it. >> that's something for a young resume. well, as parents, you know we love our kids. we do just about anything for them, there are definitely some chores that some moms and dads would gladly pass on for sure. knsd's katherine garcia shows us how doing just that is easier these days from san diego. >> that's two and a half-year-old julian and this is his two and a half-year-old brother alex. the twins' home is about as safe as a parent could hope for. >> obviously, you don't want the chilen to get into your medicine cabinet. >> there are latches on cabinets, gates near stairs and dressers tied to walls andplexy glass to keep them from tumbling from the second story. >> we realized this is too big a task to take care of ourselves. >> when shelly realized she

couldn't do it all herself she called brian microsoft with baby home safety. >> what i do in two or three hours could take the homeowners eight or ten hours. >> parents who are trying to balance careers, two-career families with small children, they value their time with their children and being able to pass off some of these chores to professionals is a great help. >> and more and more, parentses are passing off chores to professionals like dealing with lice. >> it is so hard to get rid of them and if you don't know what you're looking for, you're going to have them for a while. >> preschool teachers janet harken and darlene denison know lice and now they can hire the lice masters who use natural products to take over a job most parents dread. >> they're at their wits' end. they're still covered so by the time we get there we're very thankful to see us.

>> we just decided that this is something that we could actually help with because we know what we're looking at. >> and parents, you know another tough chore could be making sure your child's car seat is installed properly. >> so our car seat is kind of tilted and that's very common. >> for $40 bucks, debbie with the pacific safety counsel will take the headache of the sometimes confusing, but really important task. >> reading the instructions and it's greek to them and they don't understand the verbage and terminology. we don't want the car seat to shift from side to side. how about your own affordable super nanny. >> without tv. >> that's the service lauren bashard offers with a masters in child psychology she's a personal coach. >> everyone can use support. it could be a session for three months, five months and all depending on what they need. >> there's a lot going on, but baby proofing your home can cost as little as $100, depending on the size. if it's big it's a whole lot

more. there's a growing scam that preys on people looking to save money on their next car. the scam here targets buyers who are in the market for a used vehicle. kntv's mariana favreau takes a look at vin cloning from san francisco. >> state police! >> reporter: stan and james are the victims of an elaborate auto scam. >> it's a nightmare, total nightmare. >> reporter: turns out the used suv they bought from a newspaper ad four years ago was stolen and now out of nowhere the police are here to take it back. >> they said that thear had been stolen before i got it. >> reporter: even though james bought the vehicle legitimately from a private owner, his family still has to clean out their stuff on the spot before the police haul it away. this is happening to thousands of people nationwide. they bought used cars that looked like great deals and turned out to be real steals. police say the scam starts with the vehicle identification number or vin stamped in the corner of your car's windshield.

this is your car's identity and thieves are using it to dupe innocent car buyers out of billions of dollars. it's called vin cloning. here's how it works. the thief steals a car. take, for example, this chevy tahoe. they know that when you run the vin number it's going to come up stolen. so what they do is they go to a public parking lot, find an suv of the same color, year and make, get that number and then make a fake vin sticker so that the stolen vehicle looks legit. special agent dave rockfort is with the crime bureau and helps track down cloned cars in the bay area. >> itoes on quite frequently. >> reporter: he says another vin number car scam is also hitting car owners here. >> there's a group of people that are stealing cars in southern california, taking them to mexico, doing all of the work there and then bringing them back across the border with mexican paperwork and then they're solds if they're just

a new vehicle. >> reporter: rich paid 30 grand for his cadillac escalade and had no idea he was stolen, but there goes his truck along with the money he paid for it. >> there are two victims here. the victim that had the car stole 14 them and then there's the second victim who buys the fraudulent car and we take it from them. >> crooks sell you these cars through the paper and online. sometimes they trade the car into reputable dealerships where they end up for sale. in just the past several weeks the fbi busted a major ring, recovering more than 1,000 cloned cars worth more than $25 million. here's a secret clue to see if you bought one. look for sloppy errors on the sticker of your driver's door. on this car, the words conformed and standards are misspelled. >> this is a receipt for the vehicle. now as police impound the cloned car the family has only one option. file a claim with the insurance

company and even then they may never get the $11,000 they paid for it. >> i'm left holding the bag. the police have my vehicle. what do i get? i get nothing. >> here's a tip if you're about to buy a used car experts say run it through a service like car fax to get the complete history and beware of sellers offering a discount of 50% or more. that should be a red flag for sure. coming up on "america this week" find out how a better chair could get your children to learn more, plus changes are coming to google and they could make your searches more

it's been dubbed facebook for the rich. this new social networking website, it has quite an exquisite, exclusive clientele. membership is free if you're wealthy enough to qualify. wvit's lisa carburg got an inside look at what affluent.org is all about from hartford, connecticut. >> jewelry, private jet, sports cars, by looking on the ads on the website affluent.org you can tell they are aimed at a very upscale audience. the ceo saw the popularity of sites like facebook which this site does resemble. the difference, and it's big, the desired affluent member has to show them the money. >> we went out and targeted people that had a minimum of worth of $3 million or an annual income of $300,000.

>> tax records are examined and research is verified to figure out people are truly wealthy. only one in 40 applicants passes. one-third inherit their money. >> our typical member skews much higher than other social networks or so our average age is 54. they have an average net worth of $32.7 million. >> since launching in september affluent has attracted more than 30,000 members from all over the world. so what makes this exclusive website so attractive? we were given access to take a look with member bob smith. life stooil is one of the most popular sections. we saw chicago nightlife, culture in dubai and paris shopping featured. there are also discussions, articles and classifieds. bob showed us his page and some friends he's made. they include a publisher, movie director, royalty in india and a name we can't share, but is almost like american royalty. >> sort of like walking into the community room of a country club

and you're going, oh, what's going on? >> this is bob's house. he makes a living coaching top executives and likes affluence.org because he says it sifts out who is real online. >> trust is hard when you're wealthy, when you have position, and when you have status of any kind. >> smith says he'seeting people from all over the world. conversations can range from aliens to a world currency or business. smith likes the web seat because he says members are all trying to accomplish something whether it be a discussio or helping a charity. >> people on this site, in my experience, they're hungry to give and they're hungry to participate and for me, that's about as cool as it gets. >> well, this is one of the many exclusive websites. others promote themselves for more specific networking like dating, but the numbers of the members are still very small compared to the like of facebook

where people like the fact that they can make so many contacts. google has been the most visited search engine for a while now. not willing to sit on its laurels, google has several new ways to search from your laptop and from your phone. kntv's scott budman has more from san francisco on google. >> google wants to give you the moon, literally, on your phone. talk about an out of this world search, new software on google's andrd platform lets you find the stars wherever you are. >> ultimately providing much better answers. >> google invited the press to click through its new search offerings. the company called it searchology like the wonder wheel, letting you branch off from your original search topic and find a wider range of information. >> as the internet becomes more and more rich and people are able to do more and more with the internet, people want to -- you just need to be able to do more and making search more

conversational in that way is what we're really going for. >> this one's called google squared, boxing up and comparing information collected from your search. click again and you get timeline, showing you the most popular search results based on dates, all trying to make your search experience smoother as google tries to stay ahead of its competition. i think the main thing here is trying to give people a better understanding of what this is all about and they make good decisions on what to click on. from the gps-enabled search on the phone. >> it gives you a window to the sky. >> google wants to be all over your computer, one click at a time. another really cool thing. hey, there's still much more to come on "america this week," more cool, you might say, but would you go to work without getting paid, why so many people are offering to work these days

did you ever think that you

could make yourself smarter by changing the chair that you sit in every day? one researcher is recommending schools switch over to a new style of seat called a smart chair. nelson garcia explains from denver. >> dr. dieter wants educators to think. >> always body, mind and soul. >> about improving the brain by where you park your behind. >> all right, third graders! >> when students sit in rigid chairs, their bodies and brains are not stimulated enough. >> in an aesthetic way you lose concentration and you will fall into body and mind fatigue. >> he says students should use these types of chairs. >> it is a special ergonomic shape. >> shaped to their spines. >> it is flexible. >> which allow movement. he says that's when students learn better. >> then paired with an activity, yourhole postural organs are active. >> and so is your brain, he

says. >> they have more blood flow. there is more muscular activity, there is more oxygen supply. the 14th school district is already using ergonomic chairs at younger levels and also in the new adams city high school which opens next fall. >> it does aid in pressure because it's slimmed a little bit. >> he studied students for four years who switched from rigid chairs to ergonomic ones. he says the results were astounding. >> we really found out that the attentiveness of the kids was better, that they were more awakened so they could absorb the academics better. >> improving the brain by moving their behind. >> therefore, the way i'm sitting, i have the chance now to be active, to be dynamic. >> he makes me laugh. those chairs are obviously more expensive than the typical once. researchers say students learning improved by changing chairs and by having their teachers engage in activities

that required more movement as well. stop sitting all of the time. well, fortunatelunfortunate and more people are losing their jobs and new ones aren't being created. that has people doing the unthinkable. we report on the latest trick to get your foot in the door. >> a meet and greet for start-ups like mazoon looking for help. >> i'm looking for sales and marketing professionals. >> we do migration to construction service, cloud, infrastructure. >> and job seekers. >> p.r., marketing, government relations. >> i'm an i.t. and do project management. >> this job, vent has a twist. most of these people are willing to work for free just to get a foot in the door. >> yeah, i'll work for free. i have more than enough time on my hands. >> if i can work for you for a low cost and cover my fee to get

into the city and i learn new skills and they get a good benefit from me because i'm a hard worker. >> it may sound crazy, but there's a line out the door. >> this seems to be the routine. i was in san jose at the job fair and they expected 1,000 and they got, like, 4,000. >> employers say in this job market people are willing to take a chance. >> we'll get equity in the company and coming in at an early stage most likely. if you're the right person for the job you'll definitely get the job. >> it seems hectic, but start-up executives say meeting with hundreds of candidates is more civilized than tackling an inx jammed with resumes. >> why not? it's a hard world out there. all right, there's still much more to come. we'll meet a manith an incredible story of a record-setting trek to the

for most of us, most days our biggest journy is finding traffic to get to work, well that's nothing compared to a

suburban chicago man who walked, skied and even swam on a record-setting trek to the north pole. wmaq charlie wojorcowski has the story. >> it's a long way from the chicago suburbs to the north pole, john houston knows, he's been there. he and tyler fish are the first americans to ever ski to the north pole without support. >> we wanted the challenge and we wanted to see how it would allow us to pernally develop and -- >> each carrying 300 pounds of food, fuel and gear on special unsinkable sleds. they used gps unit tos find the pole which lies under a giant sheet of ice making it a moving target. >> it's not easy to find the north pole. we pulled out our little gps and we basically walk in circles, in our case it was only 20 minutes, but it can take up to two hours because the ice that we're standing on is moving slowly and we're doing little circles until we're actually at the north

pole. there's no pole and no sign or anything that tells you you're there. >> houston and fish have been blogging their entire way, tracking their progress on the website. john recorded this audio entry when they reached their goal. >> as you can tell from our voice, we are exhausted. we are so tired we don't know how tired we are. >> the goal, houston says, was not just to reach the pole, but to educate and raise awareness for curing bridge, a group that creates online communities for people facing serious medical conditions. he wants this trek to serve as positive inspiration. >> if you plan properly, if you're motivated and you really have a dream, you can achieve it if you put your mind to it. >> absolutely. listen, that ends our travels for today, but we'll leave you with a roar from italy where the most expensive car was ever sold. this black 1957 ferrari 250 testa rosa was put on the block and i've got goosebumps and when

the gavel came down the winning bid was almost $12.5 million. cart side to be in prift een condition and it has only been driven one mile per year since it was produced in 1957. thanks for joining us. until next time, i'm veronica johnson for "america this week." ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪