Eye on Handheld News

This past March 2005 might make history as the apex of identity theft disclosures. Credit card and other banking details, names, addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, and dates of birth have fallen into the hands of potential identity thieves. The news could not be worse.

In March 2005 alone:

California State University at Chico notified 59,000 students, faculty, and staff that their details had been kept on a computer compromised, Boston College notified 120,000 of its alumni after a computer containing their addresses and Social Security numbers were compromised by an intruder.  Shoe retailer DSW notified more than 100,000 customers of a remote break-in of the company's computerized database. Privacy invasion outfit Seisint confessed to 32,000 individuals that its Lexis Nexis databases had been compromised.

Privacy invasion outfit ChoicePoint confessed to selling the names, addresses and Social Security numbers of more than 150,000 people to criminals, while Bank of America confessed to losing backup tapes containing the financial records of 1.2 million federal employees.  George Mason University confessed that a remote intruder had gained access to the personal records of 30,000 students, faculty, and staff. And in the news, cell phone provider T-Mobile admitted that an intruder gained access to 400 of its customers' personal information, including one Paris Hilton.

While this is nothing new, there is an important observation here that's worth emphasizing: none of these cases involved online transactions.

Many people innocently believe that they're safe from credit card fraud and identity theft in the brick and mortar world. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The vast majority of incidents can be traced to skimming, dumpster diving, and just plain stupidity among those who "own" our personal data.

  Shield your system!   Zone Alarm Personal sets up an internal firewall that alerts you when a program attempts to access the Internet.  It knows about browsers, email apps and such, but will inform you even if a commercial program attempts to 'call home'!  You will be surprised how many software packages send data to their manufacturers, often without telling you!  Zone Alarm gives you the option of saying "NO"!  If you are a company using a local network, you can specify a range of your internal addresses (192.168.1.1..255 for LinkSys) so your computers can still share files and peripherals. 

Click here or on the FRAUD WATCH logo for our summary of the best FRAUD WATCH articles!

T-Mobile Sets Up iPAQ h6315 Exchange.  Last week, it became apparent that T-Mobile, still the only mobile operator in the U.S. to support h6315, had stopped selling the once highly touted handset. It no longer appeared on the carrier's Web site or, many report, in T-Mobile stores.

PhoneMag reports it has seen an internal T-Mobile memo that confirms the carrier's knowledge of these problems plus the new handset exchange option. Customers must ask about a swap, however, as it appears the operator will not be informing them about the program itself.

Subscribers can exchange the unit for palmOne's Treo 600 -T-Mobile doesn't offer the Treo 650 yet.

A Treo 650 for only $329??  One of our merchants called us with this deal.  If you are a business (and all of our merchants are), and you have a Federal EIN (which you can get online), Sprint's Business Web site has this special: (if you go to a Sprint store, you better print the page and bring it with you- they might not believe it!). Read the "Company vs. Private" article in the next column first.)

Sprint Treo 650 gets update! Sprint and PalmOne's free firmware fix (Updater 1.08) makes storage much more efficient!  In addition:

• Overall voice quality improvements, including fix for voice "choppiness" some Sprint PCS customers experienced
• Internal setting modification to allow correct access to Sprint Affiliate roaming partner networks (previously released as Sprint PCS Treo 650 Roaming Patch)
• TTY (also known as TDD or Text Telephone) optimizations and improvements
• Optimizations for data calls
• Includes VersaMail 3.0c which provides greater stability and improvements
• Bluetooth Carkit drivers are now included in ROM (previously released as Carkit Update for Treo 650)

Keep in mind that the ROM patch is only for the Sprint version of the Treo 650 and not others, such as the GSM edition offered by Cingular Wireless.  We have used this here with complete success.  Make sure your device is fully charged, and that your HotSync is working properly.

 
Company owned vs privately owned stores.  As much as we value the entrepreneurial spirit, the privately owned stores have often refused to honor some of the best offers from their carriers, as well as warranty claims and insurance issues.  You can hardly blame them, they pay as much as $500 for an advanced PDA phone (up front). When you want to purchase below their cost, without the activation they earn money with, or "swap out" a defective unit, this can negatively affect their income, and rather than flatly say "NO", they will stretch existing rules, or just flat-out make them up to justify their refusal.

If you have a warranty issue, or a "special price" deal, you should definitely seek out a company - owned store.  These stores will "Service the Brand" and should honor all promises, prices, and special opportunities on the corporate web site, no matter where you bought your unit.  Remember, if someone says "we did not sell that to you", you are talking to the wrong company, as your phone HAS the carrier's logo on it, it IS their unit! 

ORDER FREE MERCHANT MATERIALS HERE!!!

Copyright (c) 2004 Advanced Merchant Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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