Don't Become A Victim of Online Fraud

Author : Chris Theberge
When it comes to online fraud, I take it personal because I was almost a victim. Looking back, I was very susceptible because I did not have the knowledge that I do now. It is not necessarily "knowledge", but more along the lines of "cautionary measures"; however, if I never took these, I would have been scammed again. It is not that I fall for anything, it is that scams are getting better and much harder to identify. This article is intended to prevent you from becoming scammed.The story is very similar to many others who have gotten scammed. I had a car to sell, so posted on many classified ad sites (mostly all free) and put the asking price, with some room to negotiate. Within the next two days or so, I received an email from a guy named Prince Muhammad in United Arab Emirates who wanted to buy my car for his son. After sending a few pictures of the car, he emailed back with intense
interest. He wanted to get it for his son's birthday and was willing to pay $500 more than my asking price of $5,000. During those couple days of corresponding with Prince Muhammad, I received another four or five emails from others in outside countries very "interested" in buying the car. Each person had
a different story, mostly "auto dealers" or "agents" who had clients interested in the car and willing to pay the asking price, sometimes a little more. In the end I decided to sell to Prince Muhammad because he was the first to contact me and it would be nice to help him get his son a birthday gift like
this.

Prince Muhammad was currently working on an oil field and was unable to travel to the US to get the car, so he proposed something else. He had a client in the US who owed him $11,615, so just have that client send me a cashier's check with the full amount and I would send the remainder via Western Union,
after deducting the price of the car. Prince Muhammad even called me two times to set this up, although I could not really him very well over the phone.

After three days, I received a BankOne check sent from somewhere in New York for the amount of $11,615 endorsed
to me. The check looked very real. Wow, I thought, this is really going to happen. So I deposited the check and waited for it to clear before I would send the money via Western Union. My bank usually clears a check in three days max. A day after depositing the check, Prince Muhammad wanted me to send the remaining money. I told him not until the check clears, which he reinforced to send the money as soon as it does.After four days, I called my bank to see why the check
had not cleared yet and they informed me that it was possibly fraudulent. So I contacted Muhammad to let him know about the check but he was nowhere to be found. I received the check back in the mail with a big fraudulent stamp on it
and a $50 fee from my bank. Thankfully I did not have to pay the $50 fee, but even more thankfully, I did not have to pay back $6,115.

When reading this story, most people will probably be thinking, how could anyone fall for this? Well it is quite easy, especially if you had never heard of this scam before. This happened back in 2003, when people started to report that they lost thousands of dollars after selling cars and items overseas. I might have read a small blurb in a local paper before this happened, but never really saw any real media coverage on the issue. It was not until I did more extensive research by reading forum posts and listservs from others who experienced this. There is now a little more awareness
of this scam; yet, it is still happening on a daily basis. To this day, I still receive emails from scam artists trying to buy my car.

In order to prevent being scammed yourself, you must be able to identify a scam on the spot. Things to watch out
for:1. Proper grammar, English, and sentence structure
2. Proper name stuctures (i.e., Pierce Edward vs Edward Pierce; Woodward Stuart
vs Stuart Woodward)
3. Obvious copy and paste
4. Outside buyers that are clients, agents, car companies that have ties to the
US
5. Emails from yahoo.com, excite.com, and other free services
6. The word cashier's check
7. Willingness to send more than the car is worth for you to return the
remainder. If you think about it, who would be so trusting?
8. NEVER send something until you have the money in your possession. ALWAYS wait
for funds to clear.
9. Are these people really from where they say they are? In order to find this
out, please continue reading for how to determine that.Below are two real emails that I received within the past month:Hello,
My name THOMAS BACON i`m interested in purchasing your advertised car and the price $500 is okay with me,And i will like you not to worry about the shipping, I contact a friend in the states so he said he can organize an agent in the Europe who would be on ground to pick up the car as soon as we seal this transaction and i will like you to know that my mode of payment is by cashier's cheque drawn from a US bank . It is a
very good car.I Iook forward to hear from you soon. Respond asap if this is ok by you.
Thanks
Thomas
Good day, I am Paul woodward,the sales/purchase manager for OASIS AUTOMOBILE CORPORATION.We are specialised in the sales/purhcase of vehicles.A client of ours came accross your vehicle & informed us of his interest in your vehicle we will like to know if it is still available.Please contact us,the price of the vehicle&send the pictures of the vehicle along with the reply to indicate your willingness.
Paul WoodwardPhishing Scams
The latest scam threat is something known as Phishing. Phishing is a real problem because the emails appear authentic to those who receive them. Phishing emails are usually from bank companies, eBay, Paypal, and other institutions that have personal information. A phishing email is not very obvious because they will be addressed to your full name and the email will look like emails you have received from these companies. Although many say it is hard to spot a phishing email, it
really isn't if you know how to do a few things. Below are some strategies to prevent yourself from being scammed.NEVER Click on a link or log in to something through your email
A good example would be an email from eBay asking you to update your account. The email will have your full name and have the logos, etc.. It will look legit. Think about it this way: How long have you been a member of eBay or your bank, and how often have you received emails from them? I have never received an email from my bank and only one from eBay after using it. These companies know of these scams and will purposely avoid sending emails to you like this. What is the real need to update anything? Most sites do that for you automatically. If you have not used eBay in 2 years, what are you going to update?NEVER Click a link without knowing where it really goes
This is a little example to show you how easy it is to scam someone who never looks at this. When you put your mouse
over a link, the path will be displayed on the bottom left corner of your browser (above Start button). This is for internet explorer/Outlook, etc.., but other browsers might show it elsewhere. I want you to try it. Put your mouse over this link (don't click it): EBAY.
Now you should see http://www.ebay.com show up on the bottom left of your browser.

I am now going to do the same thing again, and this time I am going to show you what a phishing link will look like:
EBAY. When you highlight over that, you should have seen http://66.231.590/xxx/www.ebay.com/. I just made this link up so it will not go to the login page, but a real phishing
link would. When you log in to a phishing link, you have just sent your personal information to the scam artist. They can then do what they want with it, like draining your bank account.
WHERE is the person sending you an email really from?
You can find out where someone is from by looking up their IP address. When you get an email, you can view something known as headers and footers. I use Outlook Express, but other
programs will have this information. I am going to just explain this for Outlook users, but the principles are the same.
In Outlook, right click on a received email and select Properties at the Bottom. Next click Details.
You should have a Return Path, with an email address in it, and below a Received from with an IP address [numbers]. You may have a couple Return paths because of exchange servers, but you can get the gist of where they are from by checking
both. To check go to WHOIS and copy and paste the IP into the box and hit enter. The server should come up. Now, this is not the exact address, but you can get the country pretty accurately. When it comes
to free email systems like yahoo and hotmail, tracing is virtually impossible, but you can still get some sort of information. That is why scammers like them
so much.
In the end, I hope you learned something and can become a more cautious web user. Please send this article to all you know so that we can stop supporting terrorists and scam artists.Chris Theberge is the founder of the Nutrition and Food Web Archive, NutriWeb Designs, and Dietitian Designs. Visit http://www.nafwa.org for free nutrition and food-related resources.
Category : Business:Security

Business Competition Best Practices: Win Loss Research

Author : Celeste Bishop
Frequently I am asked "how do you get information about the competition?" Most people are surprised when I tell them that getting useful competitive intelligence is actually the easiest part of managing successful business competition. One of the best methods to gain valuable competitive intelligence is so simple, straightforward, and productive that I have put it on my list of Business Competition Best Practices: Win Loss Research.The benefits that Win Loss Research routinely delivers include:* Increasing your rate of successful wins in competitive sales situations* Enhancing your product management and development initiatives* Reducing the level of uncertainty involved in sales forecasting* Strengthening top and bottom line results for your business* Improving the efficiency of your sales cycle process* Setting the stage for future business growthWin Loss Research is a succinct, guided discussion with decision makers and influencers who have been involved in your recent win and loss sales decisions. The goal is to learn what key distinctions they saw between you and your competitors, the importance of those distinctions and the value they assigned to each competitor. While the focus of this research is on gaining insight into how your competitors operate and how you fare in comparison, it is inevitable that you also gain valuable customer information in the process.Win Loss Research drills down beyond standard pricing issues and gets into territories such as: decision process, sales team approach and professionalism, company reputation, product attributes, service issues, and handling of proposals. Although pricing information is involved, it should not be the centerpiece of the research unless it becomes apparent that it really was the key issue that drove the decision. The goal of Win Loss Research is to provide you with competitive insight you can act upon - actionable competitive intelligence - for sales process improvement and better results.Typically this research is conducted either over the telephone or in a face-to-face interview. The latter is more common in places and cultures where that is the preferred communication modality. Getting the results that you want out of Win Loss Research is a combination of art and science; art being the skill of the researcher in eliciting the intelligence that you need; science being the development of a research guide that facilitates the discovery of actionable competitive intelligence.As with almost anything worth doing, focusing on Critical Success Factors (CSFs) increases the likelihood that you will get what you need. For Win Loss Research, focusing on the following CSFs will greatly increase your likelihood of obtaining productive competitor intelligence:1) Use professional competitive researchers who are skilled in drawing out actionable competitive intelligence. They will also be perceived as unbiased, thereby ensuring candor.2) Selecting the optimal mix of win and loss opportunities to research is a reasonably complex task which must be done correctly to ensure that you are gaining insight from the target markets that matter most.3) Development of a stimulating research survey that operates as a guide rather than a questionnaire is the backbone to outstanding results.Surprisingly, the tone and quality of the initial research request can make or break your ability to get robust participation.A common pitfall among companies that report doing Win Loss Research is that they have their employees, typically the sales representatives, perform the research. You do need to have your sales people find out what happened. This should precede Win Loss Research which goes beyond the limited conversation from your sales reps' debriefing. Also, it defies human behavior to think that the customer will feel comfortable being candid with a sales rep who has not met their expectations or that the sales rep will be candid in passing along information that may be construed as unfavorable to them.An extraordinary thing about Win Loss Research is that any size or category of company should be able to implement this as an ongoing business practice and see steady gains in their customer acquisition and sales. This form of research is not particularly costly or difficult to do, yet it does take a certain willingness to expose yourself to news that may make you uncomfortable at times.One of the most frequent comments our researchers hear is a compliment to our clients for taking the time to learn and improve from their experience. Once you establish a practice of doing Win Loss Research routinely and take action on the results, your company will realize the benefits of implementing this business competition best practice.(c) 2005. Bishop Market Resources. All rights reserved. Permission to reprint granted provided the article and byline are printed intact with all links made live.Celeste Bishop is President of Bishop Market Resources a Competitive Services Agency that provides a breadth of traditional and online competitive intelligence services, including business research and sales process improvement research. For more learning resources check Brain Food at: http://www.bishopmarketresources.com/competitive-intelligence-brain.html
Category : Personal Finance

Revenge of the Tiamat [Ch: #2 'The Lost Temple']

Author : Dennis Siluk
Chapter TwoThe Lost TempleIn Yort we had many temples behind our city-state fortress, to include the Tiamat’s temple, which she had one stationary here for many years (inactive for the most part, but not completely), it was close to Marduk‘s temple, and the One God in Three temple. In the One God Temple [OGT], we had the Mesopotamia Stone; it had our written laws on it, my father along with King Thesas I, took it during a battle in the dry country of Mesopotamia, some years past. We have had many battles in this area of the world to speak of for eternity it seems; I myself have witnessed them, and chased and out-rooted the enemy from this region. The flat lands of Mesopotamia were also a war zone to many other countries in the past. In battle we mostly fought naked and cleaned shaven so the enemy would not pull our hair or beards. We had only a groin cloth covering ourselves.Someday the Tiamat would come to get the stone back I am sure of that, “…for revenge,” my father used to say, adding “…she is just waiting for the right moment.”Among the temples within the fortress grounds, our city of Yort was the temple of the First World, or better known as the Lost Temple: the followers include the priests whom do not know the name of their god. Quite amazing I thought, praying to a god you had no name to call him by, kind of like saying: hello sir, whomever you are, help me kill the enemy in battle. This would seem to me, more of an insult to their god, had I been their god: and perhaps I’d kill them.Let me make clear this further: my stepfather told me, and I do heed his words as being true to the letter, that we were, or we are living in the time of Leo, which is the constellation in the heavens, I am talking about. Well, right after the great rains destroyed the great city of Atlantis: to my understanding some 3,000 years ago, at that time many of the Watchers, (the ancient Angelic Renegades) were cast into the pit (or the abyss), an area underground locked by the Lord, the One God, in which I belong to His temple. In all respects, He has an angel watching over it I understand, over this underground Abyss. And deep in its bowels are these evil spirits of sorts: locked and chained to its walls. I hear that it stinks with the worst smells and slime every created in the whole universe, or body of stars we can see in the heavens. They left us a legacy of demigods here on earth, and giant sons, and other sorts of evil spirits. I have seen some of this myself, and so I know this part of the legend to be so.In any case, this is the 4th world order; there will be another one called Aquarius, possibly; I dare not want to live in that one, in that time, for it will end in fire my stepfather told me; a time of which is also called the End of Days. My world, my stepfather said will end in a flood, or winds: how he knows this I don’t know, perhaps he has second sight; I seem to have something of that nature. The world before us ended in man-eaters, hence, dominating the world; and before that, storms and winds destroyed the world. Oh yes, we have been down this road before, mankind that is. So today, Leo is our constellation, tomorrow who knows.But what I’m trying to say with all this is: we have lived in a cycle of time that will have five worlds, which consumes about 125,000 years. Before this time, was another time, and I do not know much about it, except for one thing, the One God, for whatever reasons, bound an angelic forces into a Prison House out in the heavens, some place. There they are imprisoned forever I think. And so you see, we have a rich history, mankind does. We just do not know much about it.For some odd reason, we have a temple, a very old one, one that has outlasted all the other temples at Yort; it was the first one built I am told in Yort: it sits at the end of the fortress, the so called, Lost Temple, and its priests think it was from, built during, the First World Order, of which there are five; also, that their god came from this time: making them the oldest of all the temples, even outside of Yort.Only a few people attend this temple, not like ours, where we have over forty and sometimes up to sixty people at one gathering. Their temple, “The Lost Angelic Temple,” only the priest exist, meaning: they have no followers only a few priests left, plus, nobody has ever seen the one godlike being they pray to, as I had mentioned before; I think it is a one god figure. But all the other temples have demigods, or their followers to pray to. Some say, their temple is no different than the One God temple, for no one has seen my God either. But in their case, no one even knows his or her name, thus, they pray to a no named-god. Unlike our God, we know His name.But I am told the Tiamat, whose father was a Titan, or Watcher, I think that they are one of the same, I am not sure, but it is one or the other, both known as an Angelic Renegades, whom were commissioned to watch over earth by the Lord, my One God that is, but instead left their post, all two-hundred of them, and had sex with the human race, that is to say, they cohabitated with flesh, when they were spirit for the most part, but somehow could manifest themselves to be clothed in flesh. Accordingly, the Tiamat’s father knew of these beings, for he was the son of a Watcher. And when the holy angel named Ura’el came, that ended the empire of the Renegades.But back to the Ura’el, for I am told this holy angel also knew the angelic force, or being: that the Lost Temple priests pray to. That is to say, the one angelic leader no one seems to know the name of. By the way, somehow the story seems to go somewhat like this: the Tiamat found out from Lucifer that these angelic forces were imprisoned in a great sea of fire, flaming and burning the air that it lit up. The place extended a great distance in the heavens, and looked like great pillars of fire from a distance. He said [he: being Lucifer] it was so great he could not see the end of it: the end to the region of fire, nor could he estimate its beginning. And the Tiamat became frightened, horrified at the sound of this terrible place, it was even worse than the pit or the abyss, or the underworld, so it was said. It was called: the Prison House for Angels. The temple priests prayed to these angelic forcesâ€"or force [meaning one being, possibly], why I’ll never know, but they did nonetheless. And they offered to any man notwithstanding, who could come up with the name of the leader of this angelic force, and prove it beyond a doubt, or belief, beyond reservation, one hundred times his weight in gold; a handsome price for any kingdom, let alone one person.Sinned’s GoldSaid I, I’d like to get that gold I had told myself several times this. I’m not sure what I’d do with the money, but it would be fun spending it. Semas, our male servant, who my father took while on an island in the Great Sea, has served us well; I think I would reward him, yes, that is one thing I’d do with a part of the money. And buy my mother more dishes, and things like that, oh yes, oh yes, she has had a hard life, and the things the gold could buy would serve her well. And for my stepfather, I’d buy more orange trees to plant along the cannel of Yort. I liked that, it is what my real father and I used to do, we planted the trees. We had fun doing that when I was eight years old. But I am not sure why I am thinking like this now, I am a soldier on leave, simply a soldier resting in my stepfather’s house, in 90-days I must put back on my armor and go back to the military life I have chosen; as my real father and stepfather both had chosen before me. I hear we will be having a campaign in Germania; it will last about four-years; all these campaigns last so very long. And so I will not be home for quite a long spellâ€"it would be fun to see if I could earn this gold, if not so, so be it: if so, I will have my adventures twofold, on my next voyage.See Dennis' web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com
Category : Auctions

Saying No to Customers

Author : Cathy Stucker
It happened again, just the other day. Someone called, ready to order a product from me--and I talked her out of it. Does that sound crazy to you? Maybe it is, but I think it is a good business practice, and it is the honest and ethical thing to do in some circumstances.In this case, the product she called about wasn't right for her. I would rather not make that sale than have a customer who is unhappy with her choice to buy from me. Will she return and buy something else someday? Maybe. And if she does, she knows that I will be looking out for her best interests--not just to make the sale.Although I don't want to give the impression that this happens all the time, it has happened before. Sometimes I recommend an alternative product or service, such as suggesting that a class might be more beneficial than a consultation. Other times, simply offering honest answers and information helps the customer decide whether or not a purchase is right for them. I won't refuse to sell to a customer, but I will always be honest with them.What reputation do you want to have--that of the person who will sell anything to anyone, or the person who will make an honest effort to best meet the needs of your customers (even if that sometimes means not making the sale today)?Copyright Cathy Stucker. As the IdeaLady, Cathy Stucker helps authors, entrepreneurs and professionals attract customers and make themselves famous. Get resources such as free articles, online courses, marketing tips and more at Cathy's Web site, http://www.IdeaLady.com/
Category : Business:Ethics

Intercultural Team Building

Author : Neil Payne
Internal business structures have been radically transformed over the past few decades. Changes in areas such as communication and transportation technology and shifts towards global interdependency have resulted in companies becoming increasingly international and therefore intercultural.In addition, the need to ‘go global’ and to cut outgoings is demanding that companies combine protecting international interests whilst keeping down staff numbers. The solution in most cases has been the forming of intercultural teams.As with all businesses, success depends upon effective cooperation and communication within teams. The intercultural dimension of today’s teams however brings with it new challenges. Successful team building not only involves the traditional needs to harmonise personalities but also languages, cultures, ways of thinking, behaviours and motivations.Intercultural teams have an inherent disadvantage. Cultural differences can lead to communication problems, unpredictability, low team cohesion, mistrust, stress and eventually poor results. However, intercultural teams can in fact be very positive entities. The combination of different perspectives, views and opinions can lead to an enhanced quality of analysis and decision making while team members develop new skills in global awareness and intercultural communication.In reality this best case scenario is seldom witnessed. More often than not, intercultural teams do not fulfil their potential. The root cause for this is that when intercultural teams are formed, people with different frameworks of understanding are brought together and expected to naturally gel. Without a common framework of understanding, for example in matters such as status, decision making, communication etiquette, this is very difficult and thus necessitates outside help to commix the team.Intercultural or cross cultural training is one method of helping to blend a team together. Through analysis of the cultures involved in a team, their particular approaches to communication and business and how the team interacts, intercultural team builders are able to find, suggest and use common ground to assist team members in building harmonious relationships.Intercultural training sessions look at helping a team to realise their differences and similarities in areas such as status, hierarchy, decision making, conflict resolution, showing emotion and relationship building. These are then used to create mutually agreed upon structures of communication and interaction. From this basis, teams are then tutored how to recognise future communication difficulties and their cultural roots, empowering the team to become more self reliant. The end result is a more cohesive and productive team.In conclusion, for intercultural teams to succeed, managers and HR personnel need to be attuned to the need for intercultural training to help cultivate harmonious relationships. Companies must be supportive, proactive and innovative if they wish to reap the potential benefits intercultural teams can offer. This goes beyond financing and creating technological links to bring together intercultural teams at surface level and going back to basics by fostering better interpersonal communication. If international businesses are to grow and prosper in this ever contracting world, intercultural synergy must be a priority.Neil Payne is Managing Director of Kwintessential Ltd.
For more information please visit http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/cross-cultural/training.html
Category : Taxes

Rain Barrels

Author : gutterhelp

Did you know that rain barrels are a great way to collect rain water from your roof. The newest rain barrels not only collect rain water they also have a hose spicket attached for ease of watering. You can build rain barrels from scratch or purchase them already made. They come in all different sizes, colors and shapes. Generally water barrels can hold anywhere from between 35 to 55 gallons. For greater capacity you may connect unlimited barrels together. Rain barrels don't take away from the beauty of your home they can enhance any home depending the quality and design you choose.Also rain water is much better for your plants then common tap water any day of the week. Using rain water to water your plants around your home will make them to grow as if they where still in the wild. So the next time you water your plants you won't have to watch your water bill go up. Instead you will save on your water bill plus help grow your plants in a more natural way. Plus add appeal and beauty to your home. Its really a win win solution! To see some great water barrels please follow this link. http://gutterhelp.com. Best Regards,http://gutterhelp.comhttp://conductor-heads.comhttp://collectorheads.com

Category : General Home Improvement

Five Money Saving Tips for Selling Your Home

Author : Julian Smith
Your home is undoubtedly the most valuable access for the vast majority of us and selling it will cost thousands. Below are money saving tips and hints which should reduce the cost of moving home.Estate Agent fees vary, so shopping around and don't forget to haggle and pay one off against the other. You should aim for 1% commission, also push then to limit the tie in to no more than 6 weeks, this gives then enough time to sell the house, but if they can't you can move to another agent without going "multi-agent" which will increase the fee to about 3%+, a big no-no! Ensure you get a fair valuation, never tell an estate agent what other agencies have valued your house at. They will use this to manipulate its offer, often resulting in wide distortions.It is false economy to go for the cheapest solicitors, so get recommendations from all the estate agents you speak to and remember to ask for the name of specific people, rather than just the legal firms. Give them a call and ask their charges, also note whether they are they friendly, helpful, and most important efficient? Fees are negotiable so haggle! Play off each one against the other to get yourself the best service at the best price. Expect to pay about £400.Selling your house privately can save thousands. One in twenty vendors are now taking the DIY route which could save you on average £4,000. That is a massive money saving tip, but there are a couple of downsides, basically "time and effort".You could consider newspaper advertising, flyers and signs. Newspapers usually charge per line or per word so try to keep your advert as brief as possible without making it uninteresting.The simplest way would to sell your house yourself is to use one of the many online house selling service. For example, www.HouseWeb.co.uk , an internet-based property broker, lists details of properties for sales on its website for as little as £47.Obviously it is best to sell your house when the market is strong and demand is high, so keep an eye on the local property market. Generally, the market tends to be stronger in early and late summer than the rest of the year, so aim to sell your house then. Also avoid completing with your neighbours so if there are already a few "For Sale" signs on your street, it might be better to wait a bit.The average house is now worth over £200,000, so if you lose 5% of the value because the house needs a little TLC you could be losing £10,000! So get as much advice on money saving tips from website such as Maxxsave and Money Saving Expert.Research has shown that £100 spent on presentation can be more effective in selling a property than reducing your property price by £1,000. That is a lot of money, so get your paint brushes out, give your home a lick of paint and finish all of those DIY jobs which are outstanding. Also talk to the estate agent about adding value to your property it maybe worth spending a bit of cash to make some more. However, be careful not to over spend, you might not get your money back, so talk all planned improvements through with your estate agent.Julian Smith works for Maxxsave.co.uk – Free Money saving tips a website which provides free impartial advice, reviews, buying guides, and money saving tips on personal finance, household bills, insurance and electronic products,
Category : Finance:Real-Estate-FSBO