Busting Scams - From HYIPs to Identity Theft Insurance

Today I was looking for the lowest price on a 1GB SD memory card, and started with the techbargains section of pricegrabber.com (which as you will see, I highly recommend).  Pricegrabber showed me both the price and the S&H charge (along with Tax!).  It then points out the "best deal" -- assuming you're only going to buy one of them. 

In this case, pricegrabber recommended one merchant with free shipping and handling as my "best deal" at a total cost of $8.50.  Of course, free shipping is not really "free,"  it's just built into the price.  If you buy a lot of something like a memory card, those "free shipping" deals are sometimes not that great.  When I pursued my "best deal" and tried to buy 10 of them, I found out the cost was $85 (of course) -- which I didn't find out until the very end, after I had entered my credit card information.

Another company in pricegrabber's list had a VERY low price per unit, and a reasonable shipping charge (i.e., possibly the ACTUAL COST OF SHIPPING).  And when I ordered 10 units, the cost to ship 10 was LESS THAN TWICE the cost to ship  1 unit.  Makes sense for something that weighs less than the air in LA.

Basic gradeschool math: $8.50 < $5.35 + $4.90S&H BUT 10x$8.50 > 10x$5.35 + $8.18S&H ($85 vs $66)

I was happy and feeling how clever a shopper I was ... until I checked out the best deal on Buy.com.  I saw a deal there for $1.99 for a microSD with SD adapter *** :-o "HOLY CRAP" *** I thought, this was amazing.  A GIG of flash for 1.99???  At that price I could tile my bathroom with the silly things (scary thought).  So I quickly went to the site and saw... a S&H charge of 6.95.  Damn.

"No problem," I thought, I'll just order 100 of these puppies so S&H is a smaller percentage of the cost.  And then I'll  flip'em on ebay..Hehehe.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_____WRONG_____!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Ok, I mean REALLY !?!?! 
Are they REALLY going to ship me 100 little boxes?

REALLY? Or do 100 SD cards weigh 200 lbs?

I've had enough of this.  TV and the Internet have been doing this for years, and it's gotta stop. These companies are just hiding their markup in the "handling" part of shipping and handling.  It's why UPS and the USPS have special ways to hide the shipping costs when you print out your labels.  It's a friggin' conspiracy.

There should be some basic rules out there about this S&H game.  How about this:

  "Shipping" should be the cost of shipping.  Handling should just go away, and get built into the price, where it belongs.  Anything else is just plain misleading.

Finally, some remarks to the vendors:

Buy.com -- c'mon guys, get your act together.  This is ridiculous

Pricegrabber -- nice job.  Why not go the extra yard and let me specify a quantity.  Then, you will be as gods... 

 Do your math.

Five Types of Identity Theft

By Nicole Kinsey

By now, every adult should know that identity theft is the fastest growing crime in America. It has become an epidemic, leaving everyone at risk, including children, adults, the elderly, those with good credit, bad credit, or no credit. And, to make matters worse, most people do not know if their identity has been stolen.

The biggest misconception is that identity theft only affects or involves your credit. If you, too, believe that identity theft only affects or involves your credit, then you might want to keep reading.

In addition to credit related identity theft, there are at least four other categories of identity theft that will not necessarily affect your credit, but can ruin your life. The following are real life stories.

1. Character identity theft. Someone impersonates you and commits a crime in your name resulting in warrants issued in your name, arrests made, and time spent in jail.

Donna has been impersonated by her sister for many years. Unfortunately for Donna, her sister has an extensive criminal record. In order to clear her name, Donna has had to hire an attorney. She has been told that once your name is associated with a crime, it can never come off.

Someone with a criminal record stole Harry's wallet. Unbeknownst to Harry, the thief then committed several crimes in Harry's name. Unfortunately, this criminal activity was entered into the database of a background check company that provides data to potential employers. Harry lost his job and has been unable to find work because of the false information.

Three years ago, Jane's purse was stolen by someone she knew. The identity thief bought a car with Jane's ID and committed other crimes in Jane's name (writing bad checks and burglary). No one in law enforcement believes Jane when she says she is not the criminal, not even the District Attorney who is charging her with the crimes.

John, a man from San Diego, traveled to Mexico to visit his relatives. On his way back home, he was stopped and told that there was an arrest warrant issued in his name. Apparently, someone had been committing crimes in his name and using his Social Security number. John was arrested and taken to San Francisco where he spent 10 days in jail. After finally convincing a police office that he was not the criminal, John was released and left stranded without any money.

2. Social Security Number (SSN) identity theft. Someone steals your SSN and obtains employment in your name. The thief's employer reports wages earned to the IRS under your SSN leaving you to pay income taxes on these earnings. Further, an identity thief's use of your SSN can cause you to lose life sustaining benefits.

Paul received a letter from the IRS stating that he had earned additional income in 2003. Paul never earned this additional income. An identity thief used Paul's SSN and earned wages in Paul's name. Now Paul's credit is ruined, and the IRS wants to be paid.

Alex lost his wallet, and he never bothered to report it to the police. In 2005, he filed his tax return and expected a refund. Instead, he received nothing. The IRS withheld his refund check to pay off back taxes he owed from 2002. Apparently in 2002, someone had used Alex's SSN to earn wages in Alex's name. This "unreported income" left Alex with a $9000 tax bill.

Someone has been using Mary's SSN to earn wages. Mary, who had been receiving AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) benefits, lost her benefits because income records show her as having a salary.

Jack applied for unemployment benefits, but he was denied because records showed that he was actually working. Apparently, someone in another city had been using his SSN to earn wages in his name. Jack was told that he had to prove that his identity had been stolen.

3. Medical identity theft. Someone steals your identity and either obtains medical insurance in your name or uses your current medical insurance policy to obtain treatment or prescriptions. You can be denied health coverage or lose your current health coverage because of false information placed in your medical record.

An identity thief received treatment for an injury to his hand using a stolen identity. Now, the identity theft victim has been receiving letters demanding payment for drugs and services rendered to the thief.

4. Driver's license identity theft. Someone commits traffic related offenses in your name. When the identity thief fails to appear in court, warrants are issued in your name.

In 2003, Alex's driver's license was revoked because he had another driver's license in another state revoked due to criminal charges. In addition, Alex had warrants out for his arrest in the other state. After about a year of working to clear his name, Alex's driver's license was reinstated.

An identity thief with a poor driving record obtained a copy of Sara's driver's license. Now, because of the identity thief's poor driving record, Sara's license has been suspended, and she is in danger of losing her auto insurance.

5. Credit identity theft. Someone uses your information to obtain loans, goods, or services and does not pay the bills. The accumulating unpaid bills end up going to collection, which can affect your credit.

For over six years, Kate has been a victim of identity theft. Even a fraud alert placed on her credit report has not stopped the identity thief. As a result, Kate can not purchase a home because of bad credit.

An identity thief wrote bad checks and opened several credit card accounts in Erica's name. Consequently, Erica's application to open her own bank account was denied. Erica has had to hire an attorney to clear her name. This has cost her over $4,500.

So, you can see that once an identity thief has your identity, he/she can do just about anything including ruining your life. Don't think you are immune. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, there have been at least 111 disclosed incidents of data breaches since January 2005 that could potentially expose 53 million individuals to identity theft. This number is steadily increasing. Further, according to the FTC, over 27,000 people per day have their identities stolen in America.

Your information is not safe. As long as others (employers, credit card companies, medical facilities, etc.) have your private information, you are always at risk for identity theft. All it takes is for an employer to lose your information or give it away or one person/employee to steal the information. A cellular phone company experienced just that when employees used customer data to create fraudulent accounts. The bogus accounts were used by the thieves and their friends to ring up thousands of dollars in calls.

When it comes to protecting your identity, being proactive is the only practical way to go to avoid the frustration, time, and expense of restoring your identity and name. Some things you can do to prevent identity theft include not giving out your personal information, shredding unwanted mail, and not carrying your SSN card with you. Also, continuous credit monitoring is an easy, effective and often inexpensive way of keeping an eye on your credit at all times to help prevent credit related identity theft.

Nicole K. White, Ph.D. is an attorney and an identity theft consultant. Dr. Kinsey established Kinsey Law Group, PC to provide comprehensive identity theft resources and services to individuals with identity theft concerns. To receive information about identity theft and how you can protect yourself, visit http://www.kinseylawgroup.com/. Copyright © 2006.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nicole_Kinsey
http://EzineArticles.com/?Five-Types-of-Identity-Theft&id=171016

I sent an innocent message to my friends at moneybookers asking if one could use their escrow service in e-currency exchange transactions.  I had noticed the need online for such a service since ordinary people often find the need to make exchanges between e-currencies, but don't know each other well enough to trust each other.  Moneybookers provides such a service for most goods, so I thought this would be a no-brainer.  NOT! 

I was informed that the use of moneybookers to perform exchange transactions was not permitted.  Huh.  I can withdraw money from moneybookers into my checking account, withdraw it in cash, go exchange it for whatever, go back to my bank, and deposit it, then reload it into my moneybooker account.  My bank will charge me a fee for the currency exchange, but it's possible nontheless.  In fact, any reasonable bank or service (including moneybooker) will accept incoming foreign currencies and exchange them to your native currency.  What is up with these policies?  Paypal's is even more restrictive (surprise), including lots of undefined uses of the term "certain ____."  As in you can't do some kinds of transactions for "certain purposes" or for "certain cases" or "certain products or services."   Who is supposed to know for certain (lol) what is allowed or not?

I would think that the government would want these transactions to occur within reputable companies so that they could be traced, tracked, and regulated.  The idea being that most exchange transactions are for innocent reasonable purposes.  If someone is doing something wrong, that has nothing to do with what kind of currency they are using.  By forcing exchange transactions outside the mainstream, there is more opportunity for abuse.  The transactions of concern are going to happen no matter what, it's just a question of whether they will be detectable.

What is completely clear is that this is all about liability of individual companies.  No one wants to be the company raided by the FBI because one of its customers turns out to be a bad guy, financing drugs or terrorism.  This is what happened to E-gold and it has not been a pretty picture.  I'm sure moneybookers realizes that if they don't handle the transaction, it will still happen anyway.

But this just makes no sense to me.  The natural response of the ecurrency businesses is to flee outside the jurisdiction of countries that threaten them.  We now see c-gold which looks like an e-gold knock-off, and while it supposedly has no relationship to e-gold by ownership in common or direct party relationship, I don't think c-gold was created from dust.

One would think that it is in the interest of governments worldwide to keep e-currency companies on-shore where they can be monitored and regulated (if need be).   Certainly keep them close enough so that if need be, a warrant can be served to find out what a particular bad guy is doing.

Of course, this kind of misjudgment on the part of the Bush administration is not surprising.  But Moneybookers is an OFFSHORE (Jersey UK) company, and is itself an e-currency!  Baffling.  Can someone please explain it to me?  Post a comment, please. 

IF YOU PLAN TO IGNORE MY ADVICE AND INVEST IN HYIPs, THEN AT LEAST GET THIS EBOOK !!! It will keep you out of trouble.

If you've done any searching for money-making opportunities on the internet, you may have stumbled across something called an "HYIP."  Hopefully you haven't jumped in without doing some research first.  Start with looking up the term on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HYIP where you'll find an excellent article on the topic.

I've put a little money into a few of them just to test the waters and get a sense for the experience.  There is no end to our appetite for buying false hope.  Not suprisingly my first test resulted in a scam.  I was supposed to get a 6% return in just 1 day, or as the site misstated, a 106% "profit."  6% in one day means an annual rate of over 2000% if I drew the interest every day.  If I invested $1 and then I let it compound every day, I'd be a billionaire in a year!  Cool! I even get 6% per YEAR on a deposit account in the US.  If I could, and I lived to be 365, I could replicate the results of this HYIP.  Hmmm...

Of course that didn't happen.  Instead I got an email confirming my investment, another confirming my withdrawal request, and finally one confirming that they had delivered the funds back to my ecurrency account.  Worked great except that I never received those funds.  Maybe I was just stupid and picked the wrong one.  So I'm trying another one... 
Hmmm....I think I see how this works for the guys running these things

Most HYIP programs are a fascinating combination of two scams (pyramid + ponzi) with the addition of the feel of gambling. When a new HYIP is opened, and the fools rush in, there is sufficient inflow to actually pay many investors the promised return regardless of how the "managed investment" might be doing behind the scenes.  Some of these players know exactly what they're doing, and the rest are newbies and/or fools.  This leads to positive reviews on so-called "monitor sites," and more people invest.  This works great for as long as the membership base grows at an accelerating rate.  As soon as growth slows, it begins to fall apart.  And then the site disappears.

The entertaining thing about this (or the sad statement it makes about human nature) is that it appears that many of the repeat "investors" seem to know exactly what is going on.  They know the "game" and like to play it anyway.  It's kind of like running around filling a paper bag with wet money...as long as you don't try to pick up much, and you don't leave the money in the bag for too long, you're fine.

HYIPs are successful for the people who run them beause the play nicely into some basic human weaknesses.  You start with hope - hope for a free lunch.  You blame yourself, and try again.  You figure it out, and then the gambling instinct kicks in -- it gets exciting!  A game of chicken for money.

Some percentage of you are now excited about HYIPs and will be trying them soon I think.  I'm so sorry for you, best of luck...here is an HYIP that is supposedly paying out  I just put some money in it, let's give it a shot together (KIDDING, PLEASE DON'T).  Make sure you always check some blacklists like this one before rolling the dice.  I also recommend you join this group for a small fee to get a feel for the community.  They have a ton of good info on a variety of make-money topics.  True or not true, believe or don't believe -- but at least KNOW what this community is talking about if you going to venture into it.

If you think this all sounds like shady stuff, it is.  But it also sounds like the stock market when it's riding a hype wave, or the recent failure by many investors to see the risk in securitized mortgage securities.  Maybe these guys are no worse than the financial markets.   Anyone want to invest in a sub-prime mortgage security?  Got a Bear-Stearns account?

If you are currently researching affiliate marketing, multiple income streams, making money off the internet, etc.  please read this post: Ripoff Report - Ivy Capital  I just got a call and wasted a couple of hours on this same guy using a new company name.  Same sales script, almost to the letter.  My "rebuttal" should show up after midnight in support of the original report.  Be careful out there.  Don't get pressured into making an investment when you don't know the facts.  Do your research.  If money changes hands, there better be a signed contract that spells out what you are owed for your money.

Really their pitch is good.  It makes great sense to hire a coach to help you do something new.  But how would a real coach work with you?  Charge you by the hour for their valuable time, have a contract, list a REAL COMPANY with corporate information on their website...for starters.  To be fair, I should make it clear that I was not scammed by these guys.  Maybe that RipOff Report was a one time deal and there are others out there that have succeeded with them.  Had I gone forward, who knows.  But is it worth losing 10-12k to find out with so many warning signs?  Nope.