It’s been a while since I’ve received anything in the mail that screams out for attention more than this latest “pink nightmare.” I encountered my first instance of this type of attention-getting tripe when I received a “OFFICAL NOTICE” from a sleazy outfit known as National Magazine Exchange some years ago.

This time, however, the message printed on the pretty pink paper was far more alarming. If one is inclined to take something like this seriously that is. This thing looked like junk mail right off the bat, so despite the ominous nature of the message, I was instantly skeptical.

I should point out that this particular notice was addressed to my wife. I was sitting quietly in my home office a couple of days ago when she came in and showed it to me and asked me what I thought about it.

The tactics employed by the sender of this notice are quite familiar. The envelope is made to look as official as possible without crossing the line that would put the sender in trouble with the law. This probably goes along way towards achieving step 1, which is simply getting the recipient to open the envelope and see what’s inside.

The single piece of paper inside is colored pink – no doubt a way to convey the urgency of the message and to create concern on the part of the recipient and try to make them believe that this is serious business!

As you should be able to see by clicking the images below, this notice is a “Tax Lien Revision Notice” which states that some kind of tax lien has been levied against my wife. This in itself is unusual, since all our taxes are filed jointly and all the property we have owned was also owned jointly. Anything to do with taxes or property always includes both our names. This was an immediate red flag.

It was obvious immediately that this was not any type of official notice from a government entity despite the sender’s best attempt to give that impression. The disclaimer in tiny print at the bottom of the notice concedes  – reluctantly I presume – that fact.

I’ve seen advertisements from tax attorneys and other businesses that claim they can help you negotiate much lower pay-offs for tax debt, credit card debt and so on. What I had always presumed was that any organization that would send notices like the one addressed to my wife would be backed up by reality. These kinds of companies normally troll through public records looking for people who have significant tax or other kind of debt. That’s what made this particular case so baffling.

My first action was to see what I could dig up on “Ideal Tax Solution.” What I found right off the bat was not terribly surprising. The individuals behind this company had a shady background according to that little tidbit.

This raised my suspicions further that this notice wasn’t legit. I wondered if it was some kind of scam, although it would be a pretty bold one if it were!

Still, I figured there would be no harm in checking this out to make sure someone at the IRS or other government agency hadn’t made a mistake which resulted in a lien being levied against my wife.

My first call was to the IRS. When it comes to liens and things of that nature, they’re the 800-pound gorilla of the group so it seemed prudent to make sure they were not upset with the Missus. I spoke with a fellow at the IRS who took all the appropriate information from me and informed me that they have no lien or any other pending action targeting my wife. Despite my skepticism about this whole thing, I’ll admit it was a relief to hear that!

I then decided to try to get some information by going right to the source, you know – right from the horses mouth, or perhaps horses ass in this particular instance. I dialed up “Ideal Tax Solution” at 866-923-5610 and got a pleasant sounding-receptionist on the phone whose name I do not recall. She asked me what I was calling in reference to and I told her about the notice my wife received in the mail. She then directed my call to another woman whose name I do not recall. I’ve got to start writing this stuff down when I’m on the telephone!

I told the woman about the notice and I that I wanted to find out what it was all about. What I found a bit odd was that this woman seemed to have no interest in soliciting my business whatsoever. There was no sales pitch or offer to “help” me in any way. I asked her if she could tell me what entity was responsible for this lien and she informed me that they get the information from public records and there was no way she could tell me which one it was and that I should contact my county clerk to find out.

Before I could even say another word, she said goodbye and hung up. The whole conversation was quite hurried as if she was quite busy with other matters and didn’t have time to talk to me. Perhaps they were all preoccupied with shredding documents or something innocent like that.

I couldn’t help but wonder about their expertise in the area of negotiation with government entities if they could not even tell me which entity was responsible for the lien! How would they even know who to negotiate with?

The next day I called our county clerk and was given the instructions that would allow me to check for the presence of a lien online. Since I had already done that and found nothing, it appeared that there were no liens on file with them either.

The only other thing I could think of was that the lien may be a result of something that happened when my wife had been living in another state for a few years before we met. Luckily, the county she lived in also had records online and I was able to search them for any liens with her name attached. Again nothing.

This leaves me wondering if the people at “Ideal Tax Solution” are just making stuff up or whether there is someone else with the same name as my wife who owes some government agency a nice chunk of change. That seems quite unlikely, however, since my wife has a very uncommon name – one that is probably shared with fewer than a half-dozen other individuals in the country (we’ve checked).

Given the background information I dug up on the people behind this outfit, I cannot help but think that this may indeed be some kind of scam. Since I was unable to come up with any record of a tax lien anywhere, it seems like this notice is either the result of fabricated information or some kind of mistake on their part.

I suppose it’s obvious at this point, but my wife has never received any notification of any kind concerning a lien prior to this notice from “Ideal Tax Solution.” Therefore, I strongly caution anyone else receiving these notices to view them with a skeptical eye to say the least. Something smells rotten and it’s not in Denmark in this case!

Click the images below for a better view.

There are thousands of scam artists with thousands – if not millions – of websites out there promoting various “systems” that they claim will make you rich. I normally don’t seek these websites out to write about them here, but when someone calls and leaves a message on my voicemail promoting a get-rich-quick scheme, I’m willing to go out of my way and take some time to share my opinion.

To give you an idea how much of this crap is now invading the voicemail boxes of consumers, I had a total of seven voicemail messages waiting for me. I admit I only check it once every couple of months since it’s the voicemail for my cell phone and I really don’t use it that much. It’s very unlikely anyone I actually want to talk to is calling me on my cell phone. In fact, most of the time my cell phone is shut off. I use it only when I go out somewhere. But it does get annoying when I turn it on and it starts beeping and says I have new voicemail messages that turn out to be from various people trying to sell me stuff. One guy calling himself “John Richards” even apologized twice for leaving the message on my voicemail. That and his charming southern twang just drained all the irritation right out of me!

Anyway, I didn’t get just one call from a woman calling herself “Li Ann,” I got two calls from her. What a treat! The call was obviously automated and featured “Li Ann” with her sales pitch that promised big bucks if I would just call the telephone number she left for me so I could get all the details of the “Automated Millionaires Marketing System.”

Even though she warned me that the recorded spiel I would have to listen to in order to get all the details was 15 minutes long, I decided to take the plunge and find out exactly what she was promoting. The number, for those who are curious, was 618-355-1902. What was a bit odd was that the first time she called she left me a different number, 618-355-1510 which did not seem to be in service any longer.

So, what’s “Li Ann” promoting? In a word an MLM system with varying amounts of internet marketing “training” thrown in depending on which level you decided on when you join up. At it’s most basic level, it sounded pretty much like typical MLM garbage. Your task would be to make annoying calls to people and try to sell them on the “Automated Millionaires Marketing System” just like “Li Ann” is doing.

The 15-minute pitch was full of all the usual crap you would expect to hear from someone pitching yet another get-rich-quick scheme. There was the usual “limited time offer” and “bonus” crap to create that sense of urgency on the part of the victim, er, I mean, potential member.

What really sickened me was the amount of money they want from people in order to get in on all the big money that’s being made by their other members. Uh huh.

There were six levels of membership available, each one promising more than the next lowest one of the lot. Even at the highest level, it sounded like a lot of internet marketing courses I’ve seen for sale for a lot less all over the internet and I’m willing to bet this stuff is no better than any of the others.

Here are the various membership levels and their price of entry:

• “Bronze” membership for $695
• “Silver” membership for $2,196
• “Gold” membership for $3,697
• “Platinum” membership for $6,748
• “Diamond” membership for $12,298
• “Elite” membership for $20,485

Selling some internet marketing course on line for $497 is one thing, but whoever is behind this “Automated Millionaires Marketing System” has some seriously big ones!

Quite frankly, it disgusts me to see people who are willing to try prying this kind of money out of people’s pockets. Especially in this economy! Naturally, the more you spend, the more they claim you will make.

My opinion is that this is just another get-rich-quick scam and unfortunately, some people are probably finding that out the hard way. And since “Li Ann” is obviously making a lot of phone calls in an effort to spread the word about this wonderful program, I figured I’d help her out.

People like “Li Ann” need to realize when they decide to start annoying people with telephone calls, some people aren’t going to like it and won’t be shy about sharing their opinions right here on the old interwebs for anyone to see.

By the way, all the stuff “Li Ann” was promising for the various levels of membership is quite likely information you can find online for free. There are numerous blogs written by successful internet marketers that have tons of useful information that can be put to good use by people who are motivated enough to follow through.

Between the blogs, YouTube videos and free courses available out there, you can learn all you need to know to get started making money online without forking over hundreds or thousands of dollars for yet another “system” that most people will probably never even implement after they shell out all that dough.

Hit the search engines and look for blogs or videos about making money online. After a while you’ll be able to tell the hucksters from the genuine folks who want to help people learn how to make money online. The information is out there and it won’t cost you anything beyond what you pay for your internet connection, all you have to do is go find it.

I’m quite accustomed to seeing the little advertisements at the end of e-mail messages I get from various folks who use either a free e-mail service or one that they pay for that is obnoxious enough to include these advertisements in each e-mail message that their customers send.

For example, our real estate agent carries some kind of small tablet device just about everywhere she goes, which is great when I want to get in touch with her, but what a find a little obnoxious about the service provider that connects her device to the rest of the world is that they have to stick an advertisement in the e-mail messages she sends.

In this particular case, what I see at the end of her e-mail messages is “Sent from my Verizon Wireless Device.”

It’s pretty obvious it’s just a blatant advertisement that they are tacking onto the e-mail messages of someone who is paying to use their service. The darn thing isn’t free to use and therefore, I don’t think Verizon has any right to be injecting advertisements into users’ outgoing e-mail messages.

Giving Verizon, the benefit of the doubt, perhaps there is a way for users to shut those little advertisement off, but since I don’t have one of those devices, or any other Verizon mobile device, I don’t know for sure.

Taking the obnoxious meter up a notch is an outfit called Text’nDrive that offers an application for mobile phones (and perhaps other mobile devices) that allows users to hear their incoming e-mail messages read aloud by the application rather than having to read the messages on the device’s screen. On at least some devices, the application can read text messages aloud and also allow users to send e-mail messages and text messages just by speaking.

The capabilities of the application depend on whether or not someone simply downloads the free version or purchases the “Pro” version.

As the company’s website points out, this is a pretty good idea that should help users operate more safely when using the application while driving.

Sounds pretty cool so far, right?

Well, what I don’t find so cool is that this application spams people who send and e-mail to someone who uses this application. I have no information on whether it’s just the free version that sends out e-mail spam or if the “Pro” version does so as well.

This is how it all started: I’ve got a website where I sell some low-priced products. It’s not a big money-maker by any means, but it provides a little extra income here and there.

When someone orders something from the site, the customer receives an e-mail which confirms their order and provides other information regarding the delivery of the product they ordered and things like that. That’s pretty typical of any website your order something from.

The other day someone placed an order and a few hours later I got an e-mail message from the customer. I could tell it was from a customer since the subject line read: “RE: Your Order Details.” I immediately assumed that the customer had a question about the product or ran into some kind of problem while placing their order.

I was a little bit surprised when I opened the message and found this:

As far I’m concerned this is spam. This Text’nDrive application grabbed the e-mail address that was used to send order details to our customer and then generated a new e-mail message advertising their product. To some of us, that’s a pretty obnoxious way of promoting a product.

As I pointed out earlier, this may actually be a pretty good product and it’s great that they have a free version. Despite the fact that this may be a great product, spamming me with an advertisement for their product is a big turn off.

I don’t care how cool or useful any given product or service is, spamming is not the way to promote it. If our customer had sent us an e-mail and this application tacked a little advertisement on the message like the Verizon device our real estate agent uses, it would not have been an issue, but this application appears to have spammed me without any action on the customer’s part, making me believe that it was an actual message from a customer.

I would suggest that Text’nDrive explore other ways to promote their product other than spamming people. I’m no lawyer, but I wonder if their tactics are in violation of the CAN-SPAM act. I did not contact the company and I can’t imagine that any judge would consider my message to my customer as an action that would constitute the creation of any kind of “relationship” between myself and Text’nDrive.

Although it has not been officially reported by the company, a Wall Street Journal report says that Bank of America had decided to drop its plans to impose a $5-per-month fee on customers for using their debit cards.

A $5-per-month fee may not sound like a large amount and many customers may just shrug it off, but when you consider that Bank of America is one of the nation’s largest banks and reportedly has almost 60 million customers, collecting $5 from every month from every customer with a debit card probably represents a huge cash windfall for the bank each and every month.

As I’ve pointed out here before, debit cards and ATM machines save banks a lot of money. In the old days a worker would get paid, head down to their bank, cash their check and then use cash to pay for the majority of their purchases. When I was a kid I can remember my parents paying cash for just about everything. From gasoline to groceries to clothing, it was all paid for in cash.

Today, we just whip out our credit or debit cards to pay for just about everything. I’m as guilty as anyone else. I use my debit card in just about every place that can accept it as a form of payment.

All of the income we earn in my household is all delivered directly to our bank accounts electronically. If you think about it, automation has to have reduced the number of branches that banks need to be operate as well as the numbers of employees the bank needs to keep on the payroll. Just think how busy your bank would be if it was like the “old days” with people lining up to cash their paychecks every week.

That’s what was so outrageous about a ridiculous decision by some executive or executives at Bank of America to impose a $5-per-month fee for customers who use a debit card. Banks are generally bad enough to begin with due to all the extra fees they impose on customers.

Apparently the backlash from customers as well as moves by other banks who have decided to nix plans to impose new fees for services such as using debit cards has caused Bank of America to back down and drop their plan to gouge customers with the ridiculous debit card fee.

There are, however, other banks that are imposing new fees and restrictions on their customers. My wife and son, who both have accounts at TD Bank recently received letters informing them that their checking accounts must maintain a daily balance of at least $100 or they will face a $15-per-month penalty fee.

Since my wife uses her TD Bank account as a kind of secondary account where she deposits small amounts of money she makes online in her spare time, keeping a daily balance of $100 could become be a problem for her. I’ve encouraged her to close the TD Bank account and open an account at a local credit union. She doesn’t always listen to me, but I remain hopeful.

I stopped using banks many years ago since I finally got sick of being charged a fee for every check I wrote and other “service fees” that they seemed to impose just because I happened to have an account.

Since I started doing all of my banking with a credit union, I pay no fees whatsoever. The only time I would face a fee would be if a did something like overdraw my account or bounce a check.

The arrogance of big banks like Bank of America is quite disturbing. I’m guessing that their arrogance may have been dialed down a notch or two in light of this news that they have decided against the new debit card fee. Angry customers must have made a real impact on the decision-makers at Bank of America; not something we see every day, but quite refreshing when it does happen.

This move by Bank of America will probably allow them to hold on to a lot of customers who were planning to close their accounts due to the new fee. I would suggest that customers in that position take a close look at their account statements and see what other fees they are already imposing on them. There still may be many good reasons to close your Bank of America account.

Beyond the issue of fees, Bank of America customers may want to consider other factors such the bank’s plan to dump a bunch of lousy mortgages on American taxpayers. Surely, the politicians and bureaucrats that are collaborating with the big banks on deals like this are equally to blame but I suppose that’s a topic for another post.

Congratulations to all the Bank of America customers who complained loudly enough to make the banking giant back down. My hope is that many of those same customers will decide to close their accounts despite the bank’s decision. Giant banks that are “too big to fail” don’t benefit consumers. Competition is a good thing, so take a few minutes to check out your local credit unions or maybe even your local small bank that will likely free you from ridiculous fees as well as provide better service.

I guess I’m not the only one that is fed up with the proliferation of these automated phone-answering systems that just about every big company is now employing. “Press 1 for billing,” “Press 2 for customer service,” “Press 3 for technical support.” You know what I’m talking about.

One of the biggest problems I have with these phone-answering systems is that much of the time, the choices that I am offered by the system do not match up very well with he reason for my call. That leaves me having to guess which option will get me closest to the people I need to talk to in order to answer my question or solve my problem.

It’s bad enough that we have to deal with these robo-operators when we contact major corporations by telephone, but now smaller businesses are starting to use these systems as well.

My mother related her recent experience contacting her doctor’s office by phone and being greeting by one of these robo-operator systems. My mom is 77 years old and is not terribly comfortable with things that require her to press buttons – computers and TV remote controls are good examples.

To say she was infuriated by her experience after dealing with the robo-answering system at her doctor’s office is an understatement. After the system lead her through a series of pressing buttons, the system began to ask her questions like her name and date-of-birth. It was at that point where my mom lost her patience and somehow figured out how to get a real live human on the phone.

Just today a read about another frustrated consumer who had a bad experience with a major pay-TV company. The fellow needed some technical help with his equipment and after calling and jumping through all the hoops the company’s robo-operator system demanded of him he was disconnected by the system at least three times just as he was (supposedly) about to be connected to the technical support department. Each time he had to wait on hold for 10 or 15 minutes just to get to the tech support department only to be disconnected just as he thought he was about to get a technical support specialist on the line.

A little trick some people recommend is to press the “0” (zero) button repeatedly when you are on the line with one of these robo-operator systems which may result in your call being routed to a real person. I’ve used this trick myself and have had some success with it in the past.

Some of these robo-operator systems have voice-recognition technology and allow you to say things like “billing” or “technical help” in order to get your call routed to the department you want to talk to. One company I deal with also allows you to say “representative” if you want to be connected to a person and I’ve had success saying that word repeatedly during my call.

I can see the value of these robo-operator systems for big companies that handle a lot if incoming calls. I’m sure they save the company a lot of time and money in the long run since many of these systems allow customers to retrieve basic information without having to take up the time of one of the company’s employees, and let’s face it, some people are not terribly bright and are calling to ask very simple questions that can be answered by a robo-operator.

I’ve actually had positive experiences with robo-operator systems when I’ve wanted to do something such as checking my account balance. I’d much rather make a call and press a few buttons to get basic information like that than talk to some customer service representative that is going to ask me my name, address, phone number, birth date and God-knows-what-else.

On the other hand, these robo-operators need to make it very easy for customers to get to a real person quickly. I’m sure there are companies that are doing it right already by making the system announce the method a customer can use to get to a real person at any time during the call. You know, “Press zero at any time during this call to talk to a customer service representative.” That kind of thing.

Putting a message like that in place would greatly reduce frustration for people like my mom who does not like talking to machines. Companies need to realize that not everyone is an iPhone-carrying, Facebook-loving, web-surfing 21-year-old. My mom comes from a generation where a real person always answered the telephone no matter how big or what kind of company was being contacted.

Although I’m no spring chicken, I was immersed in the world of technology when I was hired by a major computer company right out of high school some 30-plus years ago. As a result, I evolved along with technology as it progressed through the decades and I am very comfortable with it. Companies need to realize that is not the case for everyone and people like my 77-year-old mother aren’t interested in listening to a machine tell her to press a half-dozen buttons and provide all kinds of information before she is allowed to speak with a  real person.

Before you jump to conclusions and assume that headline has anything to do with the current “Occupy” protests, hang on a second and see what I’m talking about.

I’m actually suggesting that you “occupy” your local credit union with your money! In other words, if you are doing your banking through a traditional bank, I think it’s a better idea to move all your banking business to a credit union.

I suppose there are still some small, local banks around that may actually be pretty good, but in this case I’m thinking more about the huge banks with names that are recognized just about everywhere in the nation. You know the ones I’m talking about. CitiBank. Bank of America. Wells Fargo. Chase.

Some of these giant banks have recently announced ridiculous new fees for things like using a debit card. In my experience, banks are well-known for imposing fees on customers. Granted, it’s been a long time since I did business with a traditional bank, but when I did I can recall paying fees for writing checks and other seemingly pointless fees paid on a monthly basis just for keeping the account open.

With the introduction of ATM machines back during the 1980’s (if memory serves me correctly), you would think that the banks would have cut expenses significantly by reducing staff and closing branches. With ATM machines in such widespread use these days, it is not hard to reach the conclusion that the banks require fewer tellers and branches to service customers. We all know that machines never take vacations, get sick or need benefits like human employees do. One would think that translates into big savings for banks.

Debit cards also reduce the number of people coming into banks these days, which you would think would further benefit them, but still their greed seems to know no boundaries and now some of them want to impose fees on customers for using their debit cards, which are already saving money for the banks to begin with!

I recognize the rights of big banks or any other business to run their operations the way they want and charge whatever they see fit. That’s the way free enterprise works and I’m not advocating any draconian regulations to control how people run their business, and that brings me to my next point.

Free enterprise also means that consumers can vote with their feet. There are numerous credit unions that would be happy to bring new customers on board. As someone who has been a credit union customer for more than twenty years, I can tell you I am quite satisfied with my experience and would recommend it with no hesitation.

I pay virtually no fees as a result of doing my banking with a credit union. The only fees I can think of are the ones imposed for writing a check the bounces or overdrawing an account. I’m sure there are others, but my point is that I pay no fees as long as I keep my account in order. I also don’t have to worry about minimum balances or any of that nonsense. I can take my checking account down to a penny and as long as I don’t overdraw, I don’t have to deal with any fees whatsoever.

If you’ve been doing your banking at one of the big banks, or even a smaller bank that imposes excessive fees, you might want to seriously consider switching to a local credit union. I suspect it will save you money as well as sparing you the frustration of dealing with a bank that treats people like numbers despite what their slick television commercials claim.

I’m not sure what to call this brand of annoying idiots other than “voicemail spammers.” I’m not a big cell phone user, so most of the time my phone is shut off and sitting on the shelf which causes the vast majority of calls that come in to go to voicemail. Friend and family have my home phone number, so usually when someone calls my cell phone, it’s not someone I want to talk to.

When leave the house I will most often bring my cell phone along and when I was going out a couple of days ago my phone beeped after I turned it on, indicating that I had voicemail or text messages waiting. I was a little surprised to see I had a total of five voicemail messages waiting. I had been out only a few days earlier and did not  have any voicemail messages, so it seemed like someone was anxious to get in touch with me. I had a good idea who it might be.

Today I finally got around to listening to them and of the five voicemail messages, four of them were from two voicemail spamming morons. The fifth one was just dead air, which was probably another voicemail spammer whose robo-dialer didn’t work right or something.

What was interesting was that the first voicemail spammer started out by saying something like “I’m sorry to bother you on your voicemail…”

I thought that was interesting since it suggests that the robo-dialers these idiots are using must be a bit more sophisticated now and can determine when it has reached someone’s voicemail instead of a live person.

The first ignoramus identified himself as “John Richards,” and was pitching the usual get-rich-quick crap. The website he was advertising was “ReachMomentum.com.” A site I would highly recommend you do not waste your time visiting. In my opinion, this character is just another get-rich-quick scam artist.

Apparently, John did not think one phone call was enough and decided to leave me another voicemail message pitching his crap again. This time the message was a little different and he (in his best contrite-sounding voice) emphasized just how sorry he was to have bothered me by leaving a message on my voicemail. Sure, John, I’m really buying that. Have you considered a career in politics?

Next up we have a woman who calls herself LeAnne, I cannot be sure of the spelling since she did not take the time to spell it out for me. She was pushing yet another worthless get-rich-quick scam called “Magnetic Millionaires.”

LeAnne did her best to convince me that this was something that would change my life for the better, but she sounded just like all the other get-rich-quick scam artists. The first time she called, she tried to convince me to call 618-355-1902 and the second time she called she changed the number to 618-355-7372.

Both of these callers had distinct southern accents, although the 618 area code serves parts of Illinois. Probably doesn’t mean much as the annoying idiots have probably signed on with some kind of get-rich-quick scheme themselves which involves calling others and trying to convince them to buy into the same scam that they bought into. That seems to be how many of these scams work.

I find this telephone spam quite annoying, and can imagine how much more annoying it is for people who keep their cell phones turned on all of the time.

I was pretty sure I had registered my cell phone number with the “Do Not Call Registry,” but was unable to find any confirmation of that so I went ahead and registered it. Hopefully that will put a stop to these idiots.

Not much of the content in this article from the Los Angeles Times surprised me, but it did serve as a nice reminder of the massive surveillance grid that has grown steadily over the years thanks to our addiction to electronic devices and all the fun and convenience they bring to our lives.

First off I want to point out that I’m no luddite, nor do I advocate taking on that type of attitude. I was thrust into the world of high-tech long before it was so fashionable when I was hired fresh out of high school by a large computer manufacturer. That was during the late 1970’s when most people envisioned giant, room-sized behemoths with spinning tape drives when the word computer was mentioned, and at that time, that wasn’t far from being accurate.

Technology has raced ahead at break-neck speed since I mounted my first magnetic tape on a tape drive back in the day and to make the comparison to what we have available today to what was available then is like comparing a go-cart to an F-35 fighter jet.

The downside to all this technology is that many of us have placed virtual electronic collars around our necks. Just about everything we do that has anything to do with computers or smart devices allows the companies behind those devices to track us. I don’t know about you, but the idea of being tracked doesn’t make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Not long ago we talked about how GM’s OnStar feature was being used to track the movements and various behavior of drivers with vehicles so equipped. Well, that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, folks.

The article from the L.A. Times examines how technology is helping companies track various aspects of the lives lead by the Hartman family. Digging a little below the surface of what happens when they use their electronic devices reveals some tidbits of info that might make some of us squirm a bit in our seats.

The article describes how the iPhone that Eric Hartman (man, I bet that poor guy hears a lot of bad South Park jokes!) carries around with him silently tracks his location and sends the data back to the Central Scrutinizer at Apple, Inc. AT&T, the company that provides the voice and data service for his iPhone may also be collecting and storing his location data, but the company seems a bit tight-lipped about that.

Then there’s the online world – a virtual landmine of websites, applications and games that also want to track your surfing habits in order to serve up advertising that’s most likely to align with your interests.

Of all the privacy threats on the web, Facebook has to be the 800-pound gorilla of them all. The information Facebook users post on their pages boggles the mind. How do some of these kids think that a photo of them in a drunken stupor at a house party is going to do any good for their future? These are the kinds of places employers are looking these days to get the skinny on potential employees, and in many cases they are discovering a gold mine.

I’ve got an easy answer to the whole Facebook thing. Stay off it. I flirted with Facebook a little a couple of years ago and although I used my real name, most of the other data I put in my profile was fabricated. I’ve since deleted the account, which really didn’t have much of anything on it anyway. I don’t plan to sign up again, but if I was someone that just had to have a Facebook account, I’d sign up with a fake name and be sure just about everything else in my profile was fabricated as well. As long as my “friends” knew what name I was using, they should have no problem communicating with me, but again, I’d rather just avoid Facebook entirely.

I realize that providing Facebook with false information is probably against their “Terms of Service” or whatever, but frankly I couldn’t care less. What are they going to do, delete your account? They’d actually be doing you a favor in my opinion.

The article then goes on to talk about set-top boxes. You know, those nifty devices you get from Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner, DISH Network, DirecTV and other pay-TV providers that allow you to get hundreds of channels of TV entertainment.

The very day I connected my DISH Network DVR to my broadband internet connection, I knew there was a possibility they would be collecting data about our TV-viewing habits. Hell, before we had the broadband connection it was connected (and still is) to a telephone line so that the system could – as the company claims – verify that we were using the equipment at an authorized location, in other words, our home. I guess they don’t like people taking their DVR to their vacation home.

Now that we have an idea of some of the companies that may be tracking our physical movements, internet habits and television-viewing preferences, I’ll tell you how I deal with these issues.

As far as cell phones go, I have one but I use it rarely. It spends the vast majority of its time sitting in the shelf with its power switched off. I take it with me when I go out in case I need it for an emergency, but even then I sometimes leave the power off unless I want to make a call which is hardly ever. That should prevent them from tracking my movements.

We’ve already talked about the privacy nightmare that is Facebook. I don’t use it. End of story.

I do however use Google. A lot. And Google isn’t known as a great protector of privacy by any sense. They have the ability to see every search you ever typed in and store it in a database if they so choose. My solution to this problem is something called Google Sharing. It’s a free add-on for the Firefox browser that annonymizes all of my Google searches by mixing them in with all the other users of Google Sharing so that Google cannot tell who actually conducted any particular search.

There also Scroogle, which is a site that takes your Google queries, forwards them to Google for you and then delivers the results by way of their website, which also keeps Google from determining that the search came from your computer.

Things brings us to set-top boxes, which I have to admit, I do not have any good answers for. Compared with the other privacy issues outlined here, this is the one that probably worries me the least.

Do I care if DISH Network knows that I like to watch Deadliest Catch or Mythbusters? If I had a choice, I’d probably prefer that they didn’t know, but for now I don’t have a good solution for this one. I suppose I could invest a bunch of time trying to sniff the outgoing traffic coming from my DVR that is destined for DISH Network servers and attempt to decode it, but I don’t envision taking that on any time soon.

I’d be far more concerned about doing something like confessing to stealing my neighbor’s power tools (no, I didn’t actually do that) to a friend on Facebook or having Google store my search on “how to get away with murder” (no, I didn’t actually search for that) than I would be about the possibility that DISH Network knows that I like to watch The History Channel.

This is certainly not intended to be an exhaustive list of measures one can take to stymie the privacy invaders by any means, but I hope that it will at least get a few people thinking about privacy and how they feel about what’s going on out there in that vast digital world we all seem to be plugged into these days.

I filter through a lot of news on the internet just about every day as I look for ideas on what I should be writing about. Sometimes I’m looking for news on a particular topic and a totally unrelated news item or article pops up, catches my attention and the next thing you know, that becomes the topic I have decided to write about.

It’s been a while since I have written about penny stocks, but trust me when I tell you I’ve paid my dues where this subject is concerned.

Back around 2000 I was hearing a lot of the same hype about penny stocks that is still being used to promote them today. I had been wanting to try my hand at trading stocks for quite a while leading up to that time and since I was not a rich guy, I decided that penny stocks would be a great way to get started. After all, I could be thousands and thousands of shares of stock, while I found myself quite limited when it came to trading “real” stocks since they were priced much higher.

I made the mistake of frequenting penny stock forums online where various traders were claiming that they were making all kinds of big money on penny stocks. In retrospect, most – if not all – of them were probably just there attempting to manipulate the prices of the stocks to their advantage. I even bought a book by some guy that claimed he made a fortune trading penny stocks. I cannot recall his name right now, but he was probably just another crook.

Not every penny stock I bought resulted in a loss for me, but I’d say about 95% of them did. Even when I reflect on those that made money for me, the amount I made was not all that impressive.

Penny stocks are often promoted by shady individuals who are looking to exploit a penny stock by driving up the price and then selling off their shares before the price comes crashing down again. This is known as a “pump and dump.”

I used to get a lot of penny stock spam, but I have not been seeing it for quite some time now. Penny stock spam was one of the major tools used (and probably still is)by these pump and dump scammers who would send out massive amounts of spam in an attempt to convince potential buyers that the stock was about to “explode” or “go to the moon” which would make buyers a fortune.

Most penny stocks are trash. It’s really that simple. These stocks are priced so low because they reflect the value of the company that issued the stock. It’s really pretty simple when you take some time to think about it. If a company has a bright future and they are on the up-and-up, the stock’s price should reflect that. A stock selling for 5 cents a share tells you that it’s a company that hasn’t proven that it’s going to be much beyond a flash-in-the-pan. Sure, there’s a chance that some pump and dump operators might manage to jack the price up to 10 or 20 cents or more, but if my experience is any indication, that’s a very rare occurrence.

The article I stumbled upon that inspired me to write this was written by a guy named Cody Willard. I guess he is some kind of financial guru with a TV show or something. I never heard of him, but I got totally away from the stock market years ago, so that’s probably why. Anyway, what he says about penny stocks is right on as far as I’m concerned.

I know it’s human nature to believe that you might be the one that gets lucky and buys into a penny stock just before the price takes off. I’m not saying it can’t happen, but I’d guess that the odds are on par with winning the lottery.

If I had a choice between buying a penny stock and going on a daytrip to the casino with my wife, I wouldn’t have to think about it very long. Look for me somewhere among the slot machines. I’ll be the guy whose probably sitting there with an unhappy look on his face as the machines eat my money and give very little back. At least I know I’ll only lose a hundred bucks or so (we never go to a casino without setting a spending limit) and I won’t have to endure weeks, months or years of pain as I see a penny stock “investment” swirl its way down the toilet.

Are you getting the feeling lately that you are being watched these days? Recently there were reports that said General Motors’ OnStar service was tracking motorists and now we have a new report that says Facebook has been tracking its users as they visit other websites around the internet.

A security researcher (gotta love those folks!) discovered that Facebook had been depositing “cookies” on the computers of its users that could allow the social media giant to find out what other sites they are visiting.

Cookies are usually harmless little bits of computer code that are placed on the hard drives of users visiting web sites. They are usually very tiny and take up very little space on a computer’s hard drive.

Normally, cookies store information that relates only to the site that deposited it. For example, a cookie can be used to keep you “logged in” to a particular website for an extended period of time so that you do not have to type in your username and password each and every time you visit the site. In this way, cookies can be quite convenient for users.

There are numerous other harmless purposes for which cookies are used, but they can also be used for more sinister purposes as well. It all depends who’s writing the code the deposits the cookie.

Tracking users as they visit other websites on the internet can be enormously profitable for web site operators. Although we’re all accustomed to seeing advertising on the internet, most of us assume that the advertising is not delivered to us based on our interests. Obviously, visiting a site about cats is probably going to result in a surfer seeing a lot of advertising that relates to cats. That’s kind of like erecting a billboard advertising luxury cars in an upscale neighborhood.

On the other hand, if the operator of a website knows what your interests are, they can target you with advertising that is more likely to be interesting to you no matter what the site happens to be about.

For example, if a website operator knows you have visited a lot of sites relating to the television program American Idol, they can display ads that might advertise apparel, tickets or other products that relate to that program. When an advertiser knows what your interests are, they have a much better chance of selling you something. Why do you think they advertise shaving products and fast cars during “action” programs on television and beauty products during a Lifetime movie?

This is what makes the kind of data Facebook is accused of collecting so potentially valuable. Facebook is huge. The latest figures I have heard state they have 750 million users.

This certainly provides a powerful incentive for a company with that many users to collect data about the things their users are interested in. I guess it’s up to each individual user to decide whether they believe Facebook’s claim that the tracking data was being collected due to an error or whether something a little more sketchy was going on.