The type of scam I want to talk about today has been around a while, but it may be starting to pop up a bit more again lately since it is making news in places like Reno, Nevada.

Here’s how it works: Some criminal (usually overseas) locates a legitimate advertisement for a rental property on a classified site such as Craig’s List. The crook then copies the ad and re-posts it on the classified site with a lower price listed.

For example, a legitimate property owner might offer a home for rent for $1500 per month. The criminal uses the exact same ad but changes the price to something like $900.

The low price attracts people that are looking to rent property in the area that the crook happens to be advertising in. When the potential renter contacts the crook that placed the ad, the crook comes up with some story about how he is overseas for some reason and in order to rent the property, the potential renter must wire a deposit overseas.

Asking for a deposit is pretty typical for a rental situation. In some cases, the owner of the property may want the first month’s rent in addition to a security deposit. The fact that the owner of the property wants the potential renter to wire money overseas is the big, gigantic, glowing red flag that should stop any potential renter in their tracks.

If you are being asked to wire money overseas (particularly if it is Africa) I’d estimate that there’s about a 99% chance that someone is attempting to scam you. Some victims have lost significant amounts of money to these kinds of scams.

Remember, these online criminals probably do little else with their time beyond scamming people and spending a lot of time thinking up new ways to scam people, so they tend to be very good at what they do.

If you’re looking for a place to rent, make sure you are dealing with someone who is actually in the area you will be renting in. Your best bet is to meet face-to-face, but with the temptation of the low prices the scam artists are advertising, people tend to get excited and probably do not want to lose the “opportunity” to someone else.

Although I’ve been pretty fortunate and have never been scammed, I have let my emotions get the best of me in the past and have done things I wish I had not done, so I know how easy it can be to get caught up in things like this.

We all know the old saying: “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” If you are the least bit suspicious about any kind of rental you are considering, go that extra mile to make sure you are dealing with a legitimate property owner.

I’ve got to admit it. I love online banking. The days of writing paper checks and licking stamps seems to be far behind us and it’s a good bet that a whole lot of consumers don’t miss those days!

As is often the case, with the good comes some bad. Cyber criminals seem to be keeping pace quite successfully with online developments and always seem to be on the cutting edge when it comes to stealing people’s money.

Authorities in Germany have recently warned consumers about a particularly nasty bit of malware that may trick online banking customers into thinking that a deposit has been added to their account my accident.

This malware sits quietly on the victim’s PC (this is being reported as malware that runs on Windows) until the victim logs into his or her online banking account. At this point the malware wakes up and starts to do its dirty work.

It informs the victim that the bank has accidently deposited some amount of money in their account and that they need to return the money. The malware is so cleverly-written, that it actually modifies the amount of the victim’s account balance as it is displayed by the victim’s internet browser, making it even more convincing.

If the victim falls for it and follows the instructions provided to return the allegedly mistaken deposit, the money they “return” actually gets deposited into the account of the criminals that created the malware.

Consumers are advised to be very wary of any unusual activity when they log into their online banking accounts. Any strange activity should be met with suspicion and the best idea is to contact the bank directly and ask about anything that does not seem normal about an online banking session.

You can read more about this on Krebs on Security.

Pretty much my whole family has had a bit of a love affair with Costco for quite a while. For those not familiar, it’s a chain of those big warehouse-type stores where you can buy things in bulk.

In most cases, the prices are pretty good and the quality of the products is excellent. However, it seems like things may be changing a bit at Costco, and I’m wondering if they’re starting to lose their edge.

Having lost confidence in the last mail-order pharmacy I had been using, I decided to give Costco a try. I’ve probably been filling my prescription with them for at least the last year and have been pleased with the service. The delivery times seemed to vary a bit, but that wasn’t a big issue for me.

When I received my last refill about a month ago I noticed that the pills were a different color and were just a little big bigger than the ones I was accustomed to. I had never seen this particular medication colored like that before coming from any of the pharmacies I had dealt with over the last three years or so.

Naturally, I was a bit concerned that someone may have made a mistake and sent me the wrong medication, so I called the Costco pharmacy to see what was up.

I was informed that they had simply changed providers for that medication and the woman I spoke with even gave me the name of the pharmaceutical company that they were now getting this medication from.

I then decided to conduct a little research on the pharmaceutical company and was a bit surprised to find that they were located in either China or India. I had found websites using that company name from both countries.

We’ve probably all heard stories about some of the problems that have cropped up with various products coming in from China. In particular, I had heard about pharmaceuticals from China that included ingredients like plaster, paint and other substances you probably would not want to ingest.

I decided to call Costco back to find out exactly where these pills had come from. The people I spoke with were very polite and cooperative and informed me that the pills were manufactured in India.

It was a bit of a relief to discover that they were not coming from China. Beyond the potential safety concerns, aren’t we getting enough stuff from China already?

Although I would prefer to get my medication from India if I had to choose between that country and China, my preference is to get it from right here in the U.S.

The economy doesn’t seem to be doing so well these days despite promises from politicians over the past few years that things are getting better. Getting better for the politicians and their cronies I suspect, but for not so great for a whole lot of other people.

It seems pretty obvious to me that dismantling our manufacturing capability in this country and buying stuff from other nations isn’t going to improve things here. Fresh reports of big layoffs are circulating again which seems to indicate that things are getting worse instead of better.

The real estate market is in the tank and it seems like foreclosures are still going strong, although they may have eased up a bit in the past few months. Maybe that’s because they’re simply running low on people to throw out of their houses. I’m sure all these fresh layoffs will help bolster the supply a bit however.

I found it to be a rather strange time for Costco to decide to start purchasing pharmaceuticals from a company overseas. What made it even more strange was that the cost went up about a dollar over what I had been paying since I started getting my medication from them.

One presumes that they decided to switch to an offshore provider to cut costs, so I was a little surprised to see my cost rise as a result.

I got off the phone with my doctor’s office a while ago. I asked them to switch my prescription from Costco to a local pharmacy. I had already spoken with the pharmacist at the local pharmacy to find out who their supplier is. Since we’re over in that area every week anyway and the cost will be about the same (probably a little cheaper), it won’t be any less convenient for me and I’ll feel better about getting my medication from a source here in the U.S. which is employing U.S. workers.

My opinion of Costco has changed a bit based on that experience. Adding fuel to the fire was something my mother told me about some meat she purchased from Costco not long ago that was nowhere near as good as it usually is. She’s also beginning to wonder if Costco is starting to go down hill.

Costco is in danger of losing their “most favored retailer” status with my family if they don’t turn things around quickly. I‘m not sure what we’ll be able to do if we reach the point when we cannot get anything that isn’t manufactured or grown overseas, but I know I am not alone in thinking that things have already gone too far in the wrong direction and I’m getting quite fed up with it all.

I’ll tell you one thing right off the bat, I wouldn’t! I recently had a conversation with a source inside the company and I was told something that has me seeing red. I’ve heard stories of companies treating their employees like crap before, but this one takes the cake!

We’re talking about a dozen or so employees that work at some level of Putnam’s IT operation. That’s the computer folks for people who may be unfamiliar with the jargon. Many, if not all of these employees have been with the company for a long time – some as many as twenty or more years.

Well, now it’s time for them to get the shaft apparently. Not only are they being laid off, they must stick around long enough to train their replacements from India or they will be denied their full severance benefits!

Apparently, the fat cats at Putnam who get paid big bucks to make decisions like this figured that this story would never see the light of day because the employees being shafted aren’t on the front lines and do not deal with customers.

Now let me make one thing clear before I continue. I’ve got no axe to grind with the folks from India who are making an effort to better their lives. If I were in their position, I’d probably do the same thing.

My beef is with these executives who made the decision to kick these long-time employees to the curb, while rubbing their face in excrement at the same time by forcing them to endure the indignity of training their replacements to get their full severance package. With jobs so hard to find these days, I’m sure many of them have little choice but to go along with the compassionate individuals that came up with this wonderful idea and train their replacements.

This whole thing makes me sick. Personally, I’d never invest a penny with Putman Investments and if I did have any money invested with them, I’d be calling them Monday morning and withdrawing every penny.

If you’re invested with Putnam, I guess you’ll have to make your own choice. What the heck, if you’re a cheerleader for the destruction of the middle class in this country, you may want to invest more!

By the way, if you happen to work at Putnam and happen to be one of the decision-makers involved in this shameful act, don’t waste your time trying to find out who leaked this information. I don’t know a single one of the employees involved, but as I said, I do have a source who is privy to this information. You know what they say about bad news: It travels fast.

In fact, on second thought, go ahead and try to find out. Maybe it will distract you for a while and prevent you from coming up with any new bright ideas that involves throwing long-time employees under the bus.

How long is it going to take for the people in this country to wake up and realize that it’s being dismantled piece-by-piece? If you don’t give a crap now, I’m willing to bet you will when you’re the one losing your job.

I took a look at Putnam’s website, particularly their “Career Opportunities,” section where it states “Putnam expects the best from its employees and in return the company rewards hard work and dedication.”

Tell that to the people about to be thrown out the door so they can be replaced by employees who were imported from India and will probably be paid a lot less than the employees they are replacing.

Way to go Putnam! If that’s the kind of “reward” they reserve for dedicated, long-time employees, some of the other employees might want to consider slacking off a little more on the job. Maybe they’ll let you stick around a while longer.

It’s been a good long while since I’ve seen one of these, and with the lousy economy, I suppose it’s a good time to sucker people in to some sales pitch by dangling a “complimentary” cruise in front of them.

I can’t help notice that it doesn’t say “Free” cruise since that’s a marketer’s favorite word, but the FTC or some other regulatory agency probably decided this particular “offer” did not pass the smell test when it came to the use of the “F” word.

We got one of these many years ago, although I think the pitch that came in the mail was a bit more elaborate than this simple postcard. It was convincing enough to get me on the phone when them and that is when they started talking about the need for a credit card number. That was the end of that conversation.

I’m not going to waste my time making any calls this time, since we have the internet now and it was easy for me to do a little poking around and reading about the experiences of other people that received these post cards and made the call.

Most of them said it involved a requirement to sit through some sales pitch event for time share condos or something of the sort. The wording on the postcard claims it’s not about timeshares, so they must know that the public is onto that one and they must be pitching something else. I dunno, maybe they’re selling off abandoned U.S. manufacturing facilities or something. There must be plenty of those on the market these days.

Anyway, you can bet that only those that sit through their little dog and pony show get a shot at a “complimentary” cruise, but most folks reported that even getting that worked out was a hassle and those that did actually manage to finagle a trip out of these weasels didn’t enjoy the best of accommodations.

It’s interesting that they prominently display the Carnival Cruise Lines logo on the front to lend a bit of credibility to their little scheme. Makes one wonder why Carnival lets them get away with this in light of the fact that so many people reported negative experiences after responding this these postcards. If I ever do consider a cruise, it probably won’t be on a Carnival ship. I have a long memory.

Anyway, here’s the little gem that I’ve been talking about. My advice: Toss it in the trash.

(Click images for a better view)

Interesting to note that these people don’t even print the name of their company anywhere on the postcard. A first impression might lead someone to think this thing is directly from Carnival. Also, grand opening of what? A new mall? Supermarket? Hot dog stand? Who knows!

They sure leave a lot of questions unanswered, but I suppose that’s what the toll-free number is for. Silly me!

Perhaps regular old spam just isn’t working as well as it once did. I recently heard about a Russian mega-spammer getting arrested, so maybe it is becoming harder for shysters like the ones behind TurboATM.com to find professional spammers to do their bidding.

Well, never fear scammers and shysters! We’ve still got the trusty old telephone. Remember how popular telemarketing once was? Well, with just about everyone on the planet carrying a cell phone around, you can imagine the sheer volume of phone numbers available for phone spammers to target!

These “phone spammers” are not your typical telemarketers. They don’t have to hire lots of employees to man the phone lines and sit there making call after call and enduring verbal abuse to boot! This new breed are more like spammers, hence the name. Their calls are pre-recorded and automated. They just sit back and let their machines do the talking!

I don’t receive a huge number of these calls, but they have definitely been on the increase over the last few years. I registered my cell phone on the national “Do Not Call” list and I suspect that cuts down somewhat on the volume of phone spam I receive, but the determined ones like these morons behind TurboATM.com don’t let little details like “Do Not Call” lists deter them.

These ignoramuses had their machine place a call to my cell phone just a short time ago. Since I was out of the room, my son picked it up and brought it to me with just enough time remaining to hear the last few words of the pre-recorded spiel before it disconnected.

Since I was not able to make out the name of the website they were promoting, I simply looked up 206-888-2303 and discovered the TurboATM site. I also called the number back and received a voicemail message instructing me to leave a message. No surprise there. I left them a message just to tell them what I thought about them and their phone spamming campaign.

Here’s a look at the TurboATM.com website. It’s the all-too-typical and thoroughly lame sales letter with opt-in box like those used by millions of other scam artists. The product is yet another set of DVDs with some “course” that will enable you to be a millionaire – or something like that.

Notice all the usual, tired old crap at the top, like the photos of the big house, fancy car and piles of cash? Honestly, do people actually still fall for this crap?

I decided to do just a little digging to see if I could find out who was behind this TurboATM,com site. It really didn’t take too long to find out.

The TurboATM.com domain was registered through “Go Daddy” and has privacy enabled to conceal the name of the website owner. However, since TurboATM.com is just a kind of web “picture frame” and simply displays the content of another website (known as “framing” to web geeks) called MDMFormula.com, all I had to do was look up that domain and discover that some jackass named “Bo Small” is the owner.

Old Bo has racked up a bit of a reputation for himself. Seems the state of Illinois is onto his little scheme and has banned him from calling Illinois residents. Poor Bo. Here’s the cease and desist order from the Illinois Secretary of State. Way to go, Bo! Surely a sign that you and your money-making system are on the up-and-up!

Bo also attracted the attention of the folks over at the Advertising Industry Newswire site, where Bo and his operation were dubbed the “Robo-calling Scum of the Week.” Appropriate title and another “way to go” for Big Bo!

I couldn’t help but notice that the posting on the Advertising Industry Newswire site was dated March 18th. Yet Bo is still at it 9 months later despite the spanking from Illinois. Wow, 9 months is enough time to have a baby, Bo! But I suppose that’s the last think we want creeps like Bo Small doing. One of him in the world is more than enough!

Some details of Bo’s scam and his location information were included by the Advertising Industry Newswire people, so I won’t bother repeating them here, although I did enjoy a good belly-laugh when I read the little gem at the bottom of the TurboATM.com site that proclaims the following:

“We HATE Spam perhaps even more than you, so you KNOW without a doubt
that we will absolutely NEVER sell, trade or give out your name and
email address to anyone – plus, you can opt-out from receiving anything from
us at anytime!”

Oh, please. That’s rich! They “HATE” spam, but more intrusive pre-recorded spam telephone calls to people who are registered on the “Do Not Call” list are just fine, apparently. Shows what kind of scum this guy and his ilk truly are.

Telemarketing calls to my home phone are bad enough, but when idiots start calling my cell phone and leaving pre-recorded messages for their stupid get-rich-quick “systems” on my voicemail, that takes the irritation to a whole new level.

They call themselves the “Kings of Automation,” and if their website is any indication, it’s just another couple of idiots selling the dream of wealth and riches to those unfortunate enough to fall for their unoriginal load of crap.

The website looks like about a million other sites out there that are pitching similar “systems.” It shows the two idiots standing amidst images of fancy cars, expensive houses, piles of cash, yachts and palm trees. It’s exactly what it sounds like: A big stinking pile of crap.

These guys may actually be doing well, and for all I know maybe they do have fancy cars and all the rest of it. The problem is that they made their fortunes by selling wildly-overpriced “systems” to people who are probably desperate to make money. What a lovely thing for them to do in this economy: Sell people expensive systems that they will probably never do anything with, and probably won’t work if they tried.

The website the idiot that called me was pushing was 123YourCash.com, which redirected to the “Kings of Automation” site, so the moron that was responsible for the call to my cell phone was probably an affiliate who will get paid if he steers a buyer into the cesspool of super-hyped content that is KingsofAutomation.com. The caller indentified himself as “Christian and Ray” so apparently to two “kings” provide prerecorded spiels for their affiliates to use in their “phone spam” campaigns.

I briefly followed along with the “tour” of the site and I don’t think I’ve seen a more disgraceful amount of hype and just plain crap on one site in a long time. These guys are hard core, and in my ever so humble opinion, they look like the poster boys for the kind of stuff the FTC should be taking a hard look at.

The question always lingers: If their system is so fantastic and can make you so rich, why don’t they just keep quiet about it and rake in the cash for themselves. Reminds me of that old saying: “Those who can do and those who can’t teach.”

I could only stomach reading bits and pieces of content from their site, but it appears that are offering a “service” where they set up a website for their victi… I mean customers, and then supposedly market the site and drive traffic to it so people can buy stuff and make you tons of money.

There are various levels to buy into this “system” on, the lowest being an “amazing” value at “just” $500, with other “levels” priced at $1,500 and $3,500. The wording of their long-winded telephone sales pitch was a little confusing regarding the pricing, but that’s how I understood it.

Unlike many of these other get-rich-quick sites, these clowns don’t appear to offer an option to order their “system” online. It appears you must request a call back from them, no doubt so they can get you on the phone with one of their slick sales people who will put the hard sell on you.

In closing let me say this. There are ways to make good money on the internet. The key is hard work and perseverance. The best part is that all the information you need – unlike the crap these idiots are selling – is on the internet for free. There are countless blogs about making money online with loads of free information on how it can be done.

To simplify things, and keep you from spending hours searching for the good websites and blogs out there, I’m going to recommend the “30 Day Challenge.”

The guy that runs the 30DC, as they like to call it, is an Australian fellow named Ed Dale. Ed’s a pretty smart marketer and knows how to make money online.

Here’s the best part: The “30 Day Challenge” is 100% FREE. It’s packed with great info and won’t cost you a dime! I should also mention that I do not get a commission or any other compensation for recommending the 30DC. It’s just a great way for people to learn how to make money online, and I think people deserve to know about it and avoid forking over thousands to idiots like the “Kings of Automation.”

Check out the “30 Day Challenge” by clicking HERE.

I’m filing a complaint with the FCC since my cell phone is listed in the “Do Not Call” list and these clowns broke the law (and worse yet, annoyed me!) when they called my phone. I would encourage others to do the same by visiting: http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm

That appears to be the case. I cannot say exactly how I came to possess this particular piece of mail, but all I will say is that it was not addressed to me. Yeah, the economy has been lousy for a while, and we’ve certainly not been living the high life, but we have not quite reached this point yet.

I did think it was rather extraordinary to discover that debt collection agencies are actually offering people gifts to settle their debts. This was new to me and I thought it was worth sharing.

Maybe this is old news, but it made me wonder if these are the new extreme measures collection agencies are taking to collect debts. Is that how bad this economy is now?

Pay your debt and we’ll send you a free gift! Wow.

Anyway, check out the lovely letter and free gift catalog that RJM Acquisitions LLC sent – complete with postage-paid return envelope!

Who knew debt collectors could be so nice?

(Click each image for the larger view)

After all the trouble in the credit industry over the last couple of years, the offers I used to receive in the mail for credit cards almost every day pretty well dried up. The envelopes with “0% For A Year” and similar pitches simply stopped arriving in my mailbox.

With big banks getting bailouts from the federal government and lots of consumers defaulting on their credit card payments, it is not hard to understand why they were not as anxious as they once were to sign up new customers.

It appears that things may be turning a bit now. I have actually received two credit card offers in the mail in the last week. It’s funny because I really didn’t notice their absence all that much until they started showing up again.

The first offer I got was from CitiBank, which was not a welcome sight. Reading through some of the other posts here will give you plenty of insight on how I feel about CitiBank and CitiMortgage and CitiGroup and Citi-whatever-other-names-they-go-by.

The second credit card offer was from Bank of America. I wasn’t all that pleased to see that one either. I was reminded of an experience my brother had with his Bank of America credit card that was not very pleasant. Let’s just say he had to resort to some extreme measures in order to convince them to treat him right.

It’s that kind of hypocrisy that can really tick someone off. You have multi-billion dollar financial institutions that probably have legions of MBA’s working for them, yet they don’t have the sense to keep themselves from the brink of going out of business, but will quickly welcome help in the form of bailouts drawn from taxpayer money?

What happens when a consumer tells one of those big institutions that they cannot afford to make their payments any longer, or that the interest rates are too high? Do consumers get a bailout? If so, it’s something I have not heard much about.

I’m not advocating handouts. What I am advocating is that some of these big financial institutions that were on the brink of bankruptcy themselves not that long ago should be a little more understanding when people who lose their income or suffer other hardships cannot make their payments.

If you are willing to accept a bailout, you should have the decency to extend the same courtesy to your customers and perhaps give them some time to get themselves on their feet again before demanding payment.

They can keep sending their 0% offers and whatever other enticements they dream up to my mailbox. I’ll just keep burning them in my wood stove or feeding them to my shredder. I’d rather not feed the monster that is so willing to accept help from Uncle Sam and less willing to give a break to some poor soul who doesn’t even have an MBA!

Granted, there probably are some decent companies out there who treat their customers better than others. If you are thinking about applying for a new card, I suggest you take some time to do some research and find out which cards have the most happy customers. With all the consumer information available online these days, it should not be all that difficult to find out.

As incompetent as 1&1’s technical support department was, their billing department proved that they are just as bad. I had read horror stories about 1&1 billing and had a feeling that freeing myself from their clutches might not be easy. One might suspect that 1&1 employees are all encouraged to strive to be the worst they can be.

I had looked up my latest invoice and determined when my next quarterly payment was due. Like so many other big companies, they bill in advance, so every quarter, they would charge me for 3 months for the domains I had registered with them and the accompanying hosting package.

I contacted their billing department and told them that I wanted to cancel my hosting plan. Keep in mind that this was before the next billing period started, and I made it quite clear to them that I did not want to be billed again.

My intent was to just leave a domain registration account open with them (which is free) until the rest of my domains expired and were moved to another registrar. I was told that should be no problem.

A few weeks later I got an e-mail with an invoice from 1&1 stating their intention to charge me within the next few days for the next three months of web hosting despite the fact that the hosting account has been canceled!

At this point I could see that their incompetence had no boundaries. I quickly transferred all the domains I still had registered at 1&1 to a new registrar, even though some of them were not set to expire until November of this year! That’s how badly I wanted to get away from 1&1.

Since my 1&1 account was set up to bill me through a PayPal subscription, I simply logged into PayPal and terminated the subscription agreement. That did the trick. I got a message from 1&1 a few days later informing me that they were unable to charge me.

That’s because the idiots were not supposed to be charging me, and I cut them off at the pass, so to speak.

To be sure that they reached me, and made me aware of the money that I owed them that I really didn’t owe them, they sent me a letter via Snail Mail as well. It is posted here for entertainment purposes.

After an exchange of e-mails with their “complaint” department, we reached an agreement. They claimed that the only way to resolve it was to allow them to charge me and then they would refund me. Since I had it in writing that they would issue a refund, I went ahead and agreed to go along with it. I reactivated my PayPal subscription so they could process the charge.

It took them at least a week to charge my PayPal account and a few days later the refund was issued. At that point I terminated the PayPal subscription once again since I certainly did not put it past these morons to try charging me again.

The next time I am not going to be as agreeable about the whole thing and will not allow them to charge me another penny. I’d love them to turn my account over to a collection agency for money that I don’t owe them and then find out what happens.

What is is about these collection agency threats anyway? Is that supposed to have me quaking in fear or something? If they think some idiot calling me on the phone and making bogus threats is going to intimidate me, they are barking up the wrong tree.

Since my separation from 1&1 and their seemingly endless incompetence, I have moved my hosting accounts to HostGator and so far the experience has been very positive. My technical support requests have been dealt with promptly and efficiently. So far so good.