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Thursday, December 03, 2009

Get Motivated Seminar and Wealth Magazine Investools

Yesterday I attended in San Antonio the Get Motivated seminar at the ATT center. Its basically gets some well known people such as Colin Powell, HP former vice president, and one of our very own San Antonio Spurs. They gave outstanding speeches and worth seeing. That being said they move onto another speaker which if your not really paying attention you think its a motivational speech but it turns into a sales pitch. The speaker I was referring to is a represenative from Wealth Magazine Investools. From time to time you will see an infomercial on them on the weekends or late at night.


There was this one guy who talked about investing strategies and went through Warren Buffetts methods of using the stock market to make money.  Good information at first but it smelled all to fishy when the presenter starts telling the audience you need a certain analytic tool to make wise decisions in the stock market. (You would think if all stock brokers had this tool the market would of not have crashed right)

Towards the end he tells everyone these tools are worth $3000 dollars.The presenter then tells his audience that he was able to talk investools to lower their price to 99 dollars for 2 days of training plus you get a dvd video of other training.
Now he tells you that the deal will only last during the presentation meaning it won't give you time to research the investment tools program to see weather the program is what worth purchasing.



Sounds good for the price but from what I have been reading there has been many disappointments with the program after the 2 days of the investment tools program. It seems more of more sales pressure to buy more and more training more tools so in those two days your really not learning anything but hype and more sales pitch.

If you don't believe me here are what other people are saying on this website.  After all the dreams of making the big money I was left wondering why so many people signed up without thinking about it and doing their research. I mean if you know how to do stocks then I'm sure this program is good for you but if your not I would not suggest this program unless you have the money to fork out.

Bottom line if your thinking of doing this as a business and have little to invest in then the program may not be for you. If you got money to blow on a 1000 to 4000 dollar program then go for it.

Its buy or beware.With that much money I would just open an account with sharebuilder and buy some index stocks and be done with it.

Here are what others have said about their experiences.
http://www.xomreviews.com/investools.com

http://blogs.artvoice.com/avdaily/2009/08/19/get-motivated-and-get-out/

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Black Friday Scam prevention tip

A few more days before black Friday and you know everyone has some sort of plan on what to buy.

Lets talk about gift cards. You know the plastic card that has magic money you can used for that particular store. Word on the cyberstreet is when you used one of these cards at an automatic cash machine, some dishonest cash tellers are pocketing some of your earnings.

If your asking how do they do this. Follow me on this. Lets pick on Home Depot as an example.

Lets say you just bought yourself a cool looking hammer for 20 dollars and your gift card has a total of
50 dollars. So doing the math after taxes you have around 28 dollars left. So you go to this automated line
where you swipe your the hammer on the scanner. Click the method of payment and go through the ritual of
buying your product on this automachine. So now you finish and you get your reciept job complete right?

Did you really cover your corners? Well what a teller can do from his computer is override the transaction and get cashback. So the 28 dollars you though were sitting safely to be used for another day is no longer there.

So my holiday tip is save your reciepts after you pay for an item with a gift card. The last thing you need is to have an empty plastic card you can't use because some greedy teller decided to reward themselves with your money.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

12 Scams of Christmas

If your a yahoo user then you may have seen this article called the 12 Scams of Christmas list.  If you haven't then you may want to check it out. Its an easy read and its the common and not so common online scams.

Now you know that Black Friday is just around the corner so here is a little holiday tip before you set off on your road trip if you happen to be traveling.

A friend of mine told me when she used her credit card to pay for her gas it went through all the proceedures but she did not wait until the screen cleared.  You may asked did she recieve a reciept? Yes she did so you think the transaction on her hard has ended right? With most gas pumps this is the norm but with Shell Gas stations its not so. So a rule of thumb is to wait until the beginning screen comes up again before leaving. This way if someone pulls up behind you they won't get free gas at your expense.

Stay tune for tomorrows Black Friday Scam prevention tip.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

5 Facebook Scams

This is a must read if your a facebook user. You just got to wait or click the skip add button to get to the article. Worth a read. Many are the classic email scams now reinvented on facebook.

If your a big fan of widgets such as finding out who your secret crush is you may want to read this article.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/022709-five-facebook-scams-protect-your.html?page=1

Monday, November 02, 2009

Craigslist motor car scam

Craigslist buy or beware especially when it comes to car purchases. I saw this story on my local news of this woman who found a car online on craigslist where the car was located in another state.

The car was a lexus and the selling price for this car was 6000 dollars with low miles.
The owner of the car told her he needed to close the deal so he can move this car as soon as possible. He assured her the title on the car was clean and all she needed to do is pay with a wire gram and she can pick up the car. The last part is if a deal looks to good to be true it probably is too good to be true.

The owner of the car sent her to a fake ebay motors website where she wired the money to Veronica Martinez.

To make a long story short she never got the car and the online scam artist made off with her money.

What made this transaction fishy in the first place is that the car was in another state. This is the first clue. The second clue is how the money was transfered. Anytime you deal with an ebay auction you want to make sure you pay with something more secure.

The moral of this story if your going to buy a car, buy local unless your willing to go and pay directly with that person. Never wire money since almost 75 percent of the time these are online scams.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Fake Scam Security Software

A while back I posted about certain websites that will open in your browser claiming your computer has been infected.

I'm sure you have seen these which is a pop up banner asking you to download the software without letting you exist out of the window.

I found an article on yahoo which talks about the fake security software out there. The article is worth a look.

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/us_cybersecurity_symantec

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

The Most common Online Scam - Online Auctions

Yes buy or beware but the most classic online scam online is your online auction such as what you sometimes find on Ebay.


It pretty much takes place like this, you place your winning bid. You send your money to the auctioneer and you get nothing in return.


Then the auctioneer will threaten to leave a nasty comment on your feedback page explaining that you never paid and so on.

The second example is when the auctioneer sells a replica product at a reduce cost lets say for example your Dooney or Coach purse. After examining your winning you find out your purse is a fake.

Second is not so oblivious are information product that has no value and only sends you to a website where you can purchase this product. These products normally resell products are about 75 percent of the times junk.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Xbox Player's beware of your account

According to a yahoo article I read today apparently Hackers have taken aim at those who have a high score.

What this may tell hackers is that not only are you an avid player but your the type of user who may or may not have a credit card information stored on your game console.

Apparently these types of accounts are being sold on the black market.

Anyway dont take my word for it.

Read on.

http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/plugged-in/hackers-targeting-xbox-live-players/1361739

Sunday, October 04, 2009

Cash4Gold whats behind the informerical

If your a late night person like myself. then you may have seen this commercial where a lady sends in her engagement ring to get a certain amount of money for a reasonable amount.

I've never been tempted to do this but I always wondered if you could send it in as a test and see what this company would offer. Well look no further, there was an article written by Christopher Null who is a blogger on yahoo and did the same test as I described.

They did a comparison with a local pawn shop versus the Cash4Gold claim. The pawn shop offered a bit of 198 for the gold vs Cash4Gold's initial offer of 60 dollars. After asking for their gold back they then did a counter claim of 178 which compared to the pawnshop is 25 dollars below the value.

To read more on this little scam click here Cash4gold

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

SBA letter scam

The SBA has issued a letter to all small business owners of a direct mail letter scam using the Small Business association letter head.

Remember anytime you recieve a letter asking for any type of senstive information such as social security information, bank information ect chances are if your not aware of the company or organization that its a scam.

If you do get a letter like this call your local SBA for more information.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Wardriving or sniffing wireless networks

A few years back my mom had purchased her first laptop and activated her wireless connection with a click of a button. What she didn’t know at the time was that she had accessed someone in our neighborhood to their internet access.

She accessed this person's network by accident thinking she was connecting to her wireless router which was not the case. When I viewed her settings I realized that her wireless was pointing to a neighbors router who's access was open to the public. I'm sure whoever set this router was not aware of setting password protection.

Anyway I bring this term called war driving because it is something that people have done to steal your wireless bandwidth if you happen to notice your high speed slowing down.

Some steps to secure your wireless router is to first change the password on the router factory password. This is important to change this because anyone who can see what type of router you are using is able to access your router with the common manufacturer's password.

Make sure you use a k sensitive password. Second make sure your router is able to block the SSID which is what tells other computers how to access your computer. Most good routers will have that in the wizard program in installation.

So when looking for a good router make sure its got good security features to deter the wannabe hackers from accessing not only your bandwidth but also your files.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Careful who you let follow you on twitter account

Recently I set up a twitter account as a test and soon found that if you leave your account open, individuals can follow your tweets. No big deal right?

I then notice my followers on my twitter account increase and you could say hey im pretty popular right?

As I looked at my list I noticed these followers were bots who have latched onto my twitter account since it was not set to private.

So I looked at deleted these bots off my twitter account only to find that deleting these bots is not as easy.

The Solution:

Set your account to private allows you to take people off your account. Which is what I did with the bots who have subscribed to follow. I did notice that some of these bots posed as a local twitter from my area sending tweets that look like real news from my region. Luckily my virus protection blocked the website from infecting my computer.

So simply put if you want these fake twitter users off your account, set your account to private. Then go to your follower list, click remove user, and thats it. Then set your profile back to public.

I wish twitter would allow a twitter user to do this even with an open follow account. Oh well I guess its better then nothing.

Until the next blog.

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Facebook Scam

With so much social networking going around hackers eventually have to target facebook in one way or another. It's happened with myspace so now facebook is now under fire.

Social engineering is when a hacker compromises someones user account and then poses as this person to gain information or to get some type of financial information.


If your a facebook follower check the link below. It talks about how hackers use a virus that uploads onto your computer and then posts on your friends list a message to spread itself onto other computers.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=49764715934

anyway I'm tired so I just though Id share this with you.

Goodnight and stay safe. Remember if you get a message in your email box to click on a link for a facebook user, open a new window and login as you normally do.

This way if its a real message you will know it is someone you know who is trying to add you verses a phishing email.

Friday, May 01, 2009

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Conflicker Virus Alert

According to my local news the conflicker virus is suppose to set off tomorrow on April 1 " April Fools.

The virus is a program the downloads any passwords you have on your computer and sends them to a database and used for other means.

They provided a link to the Home Land Security for updates on how to update your computer.
http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1238443907751.shtm

I also found an article on yahoo that explains what the virus does and means to scan your system.
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/132464

Norton Scanner Removal program
This link provides instructions on how to remove the worm if your computer is infected.
http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2009-011316-0247-99

If you havent downloaded a firewall because you dont have the money then you may want to go to google and do a search for zone alarm. They offer a free fire wall. If you need a free antivirus google as well avg. Comodo is another good firewall which is also free.

My best advice is instead of googling these softwares go to download.com and do a search for these software programs. This will save you the headache of downloading the wrong program.




Good Luck and be safe

Monday, March 16, 2009

HSBC lowering credit limits.

It seems that HSBC and American Express are trying to reduce their credit liability with customers who use their credit cards.

If you have one of these cards you may want to look and see if they reduced your limit because it may cause you to over draft. If I see a scam this one is a big one.

So lets say you have a credit limit of 1000 and you have about 900 dollars charge to that account.

What these companies are doing without notice is reducing your credit limit without any notification. I had a friend of mine tell me that his HSBC credit card had been reduced and over drafted.

Amercian Express on the other hand is trying to close out accounts with large balances which is bad for the consumer. If your account gets closed it will reduce your credit score.

Anyway hope something is done about these cut backs.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Chase ATM system not worth using

A few days ago my wife wanted to deposit some money into my Chase account at the ATM.

Chase bank has a new atm system where once you type in your pin you can then deposit

your cash by sliding the money into the machine. Seemed simple enough right? First time using

the system by the way. Well she told me the system asked her if she wanted a receipt and

luckily she did for my records. The next day I checked my account but the cash had not been

posted. I figured this was a little strange since what was deposited was cash so most if not all

banks post it right away or at least tell you on your online banking that the deposit is pending.

So I called Chase bank to inquire about the ATM deposit and can you believe they had no record

of a deposit in my account? Luckily we had the receipt that tells the Chase Claims the routing

number. Still they could not trace the deposit even with the receipt! Well after my bitching to

them I finally got my deposit within 15 mins after they "did further investigation'. What a load of

crap. It would of really sucked if I had not had the deposit slip. i would of been out 100 bucks.

Oh well lesson learned. Deposit in person and never use their ATM system to deposit. So much

for convenience.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Walmart Gift Card email scam

Seems like walmart is getting their name smothered all over the news again. Seems scammers are now targeting our email boxes with a age old technique of sending an email offer. The dead give away is the email ask for credit card information.

If you fall victim make sure you contact the federal trade commission and report your loss. Anytime any email asking for confidential information such as a credit card 99.9 percent its a scam.