Incredible T-Mobile deals!

800 numbers and privacy:  Most people think that if they have a caller ID block, the people they call cannot get their number for sales purposes.  They could not be more wrong. You should know that when you call a toll-free number (800/888), the vendor gets your phone number (CNI  "Calling Number Identification" also called ANI). Unlike caller ID, this cannot be blocked. They may also receive additional address information from the phone company monthly, or use a reverse look-up service to acquire address information. This information can then be resold, which may bring a new level of  junk mail and junk phone calls. Also, since you called THEM, they can now claim an "Existing Business Relationship" and call you even if you are on the Federal Do-Not-Call registry. 

Calling your customer for High Ticket and Overnight Delivery orders.  Calling customers is not only an excellent way to detect fraud, but it can also be a valuable part of your customer service. The telephone call also gives the merchant the opportunity to welcome the customer, answer their questions, and build a solid relationship.  Sometimes the fraudster will submit the actual phone number of the person whose card was stolen. If the card holder did not authorize the charge, suggest that they call their credit card company to report their card as stolen.

 

These guys actually registered the name Charter-One.net, which could fool a lot of people.  CharterOne's actual website is CharterOneBank.com, but how many of their customers would catch this?   A check of the WHOIS registry shows that the phony site is registered to someone in Italy!

The plot thickens, there is a virus involved as well!  Using a special machine that we keep insulated for testing scams, we find that clicking on the link invokes the JS.Trojan.Blinder virus, which is an embedded JavaScript Trojan horse that spoofs the URL displayed in the browser address bar.

The moral of the story is: NEVER, EVER click on en email requesting any type of financial or personal information!  If you think it might be legit, DO NOT USE THE EMAIL, go directly to the company website YOURSELF.  If you do not know the URL (address) of the company, go to GOOGLE, and type in the company name.  

One of our merchants who sells at the swap meets, takes a picture of anyone using a personal check.  Another merchant takes a photo of the customer's driver's license for large dollar amount purchases.   It REALLY cuts down on fraud and chargebacks.  If a customer knows you have a picture of them holding the merchandise, it's pretty hard for them to call Visa, and claim he did not make the purchase.  Likewise, a bad check passer will walk away knowing you will have his picture to give to the police!  Most states have laws against passing bad checks, and here a picture speaks more than a thousand words!

A West Hollywood realtor by the name of Gary More, grew annoyed at the plethora of unwanted credit card applications he was receiving and tried calling the issuers to put a stop to all the junk mail. After that approach failed to achieve the desired results, he took one of the many unwanted solicitations in hand, scrawled the words "Never waste a tree" across it (as his way of telling the sender to stop wasting paper), and mailed it in.

And then ... you guessed it, Mr. More received a credit card from Chase Visa, issued to one "Never Waste Tree":

Increasing your GOOGLE Ranking? If you register a Domain Name for longer than a year, You might get higher rankings….

Google filed (in March) United States Patent Application 20050071741. As part of that patent application, Google made apparent its efforts to wipe out search engine spam. Domains registered for longer periods give the indication, true or not, that their owner is legitimate. Google uses a domain's length of registration when indexing and ranking a Web site for inclusion in their organic search results. 

So to prove to everyone that your site is the real deal, register for more than one year and increase your chances of boosting your search ranking on Google.  (We registered until 2010)

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