It's about freaking time!!!

I knew it was going to take a massive court order to get the credit reporting agencies to do their jobs. Finally there might be progress. A recent judgment against the three major credit bureaus (TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian) requires them to delete all forgiven debts showing on the credit report. This includes accounts that were included in bankruptcy. One of the major problems I faced while working as a paralegal for one of the largest credit repair organizations in the country was in getting these types of accounts deleted. They were included in a bankruptcy and were easy to verify. The bureaus often didn't even bother investigating them since it seems pretty obvious to them that the information is accurate.

BREAKING NEWS!! They have until October 1st to comply with Judge David O. Carter's order to "revamp their systems," writes Jane J. Kim on the Wall Street Journal's finance blog. Now if you're in debt trouble, you can look forward (?) to having either unpaid debts on your credit report, or a bankruptcy filing, but hopefully no longer both at the same time. How is that for progress? All I can say is that it is about freaking time!!

Here is another great scam, speaking of fraud. I remember something similar happening several years back where people would put up fake ATMs in public locations. People would put their cards in and enter their PIN. The ATM would tell them it was out of order and to try somewhere else. Later on the fraudsters would come back to collect the ATM and load all the read account numbers from the magnetic strips onto dummy cards that are easily purchased. Now they have a working debit card and your PIN and can empty your account at will. Pretty clever, eh? Well that is too high tech for some fraudsters. Here is what I read on another blogger's site.

Next time you use a bank machine, check closely to make sure it’s the real thing. Cops in San Francisco report that thieves are now installing fake overlays on banking ATMs. The fakes swallow your card, record your PIN, and report that they’re out of service; the thieves show up later to remove the fake overlay and harvest the cards and collected PINs.

As crimes go, I gotta had it to these scam artists: That takes work. It’s also quite successful, according to a story in last week’s San Francisco Examiner:

"Daly City nurse Elaine Flaherty’s ATM card was swallowed at a Washington Mutual bank in the West Portal district March 13, and within hours thieves had milked $4,000 from the card, using it from San Mateo to Los Angeles."

After poking around online a bit, I discovered a fascinating summary written up by Diebold — the leading manufacturer of ATMs — of the latest card-scamming techniques (PDF link). Some of the tricks are pretty low-fi. In some cases, the scam artists put a simple jamming device on the ATM’s card-slot that gets the card stuck inside. Then they put a fake sticker on the ATM saying that “if your card doesn’t work, try typing your PIN again”, which gives the shoulder-surfing thieves a chance to watch and remember it again. When you give up and walk away, they retrieve your card and withdraw all your cash. But some of the cons are more high-tech. In some cases, the criminals also put a fake 12-button keypad over the ATM’s real keypad; their fake records your PIN. And that artificial overlay for the entire machine, pictured above, is the ne plus ultra of this flimflammery.

It occurs to me that one of the reasons the fake overlays work is that real ATMs these days are often so shoddily designed that they already look fake. Sure, the ATMs embedded into the side of banks are usually pretty gleaming and high-tech. But the bank machines you find in crummy corner bodegas, composed of cheap aluminum and early-80s-vintage all-green video displays? Those things look like badly-assembled droids from the first Star Wars. No wonder it’s so easy to dupe banking customers. Using materials I’ve got lying around my kitchen, I could probably create a reasonable facsimile of the ATMs in most Manhattan bagel shops.

Again, my advice to you is to watch your back and be careful out there. It is a world of opportunists who don't have the morality that you might expect them to.

Fraud, I say!! FRAUD!!!

The idea of fraud has been on my mind today. Possibly that has to do with certian work related projects and discussions I'm involved with, but more likely because I have a criminal mind and just can't stop seeing the angles.

A co-worker burned herself in the cafeteria today. The soup was incredibly hot and she suffered a second degree burn because of it. She isn't going to do anything beyond her visit to the office nurse, but someone with a devious mind would see this as an opportunity to take it a step further. Maybe I decide to go down there and burn myself too. That would be the second incident of their soup causing damage. One person can be ignored, but as soon as someone can say "Others are being burned too!" the situation changes. It is a chance to benefit off something that should just be endured as part of life.

Not always do we have to endure injustice though. I'm sure you have heard about the lady that was burned by spilling MacDonald's coffee on herself in her car. I have read the court documents from the case and it is much more than what most people think. A lot of people who bring that up think that it was just some bratty lady that got mad because she spilled something on her dress. Oh no, my friend. That lady was seriously damaged by this incident. The facts of the case, which caused a jury of six men and six women to find McDonald's coffee was unreasonably dangerous and had caused enough human misery and suffering that no one should be made to suffer exposure to such excessively hot coffee again, will shock and amaze you:

McFact No. 1: For years, McDonald's had known they had a problem with the way they make their coffee - that their coffee was served much hotter (at least 20 degrees more so) than at other restaurants.

McFact No. 2: McDonald's knew its coffee sometimes caused serious injuries - more than 700 incidents of scalding coffee burns in the past decade have been settled by the Corporation - and yet they never so much as consulted a burn expert regarding the issue.

McFact No. 3: The woman involved in this infamous case suffered very serious injuries - third degree burns on her groin, thighs and buttocks that required skin grafts and a seven-day hospital stay.

McFact No. 4: The woman, an 81-year old former department store clerk who had never before filed suit against anyone, said she wouldn't have brought the lawsuit against McDonald's had the Corporation not dismissed her request for compensation for medical bills.

McFact No. 5: A McDonald's quality assurance manager testified in the case that the Corporation was aware of the risk of serving dangerously hot coffee and had no plans to either turn down the heat or to post warning about the possibility of severe burns, even though most customers wouldn't think it was possible.

McFact No. 6: After careful deliberation, the jury found McDonald's was liable because the facts were overwhelmingly against the company. When it came to the punitive damages, the jury found that McDonald's had engaged in willful, reckless, malicious, or wanton conduct, and rendered a punitive damage award of 2.7 million dollars. (The equivalent of just two days of coffee sales, McDonalds Corporation generates revenues in excess of 1.3 million dollars daily from the sale of its coffee, selling 1 billion cups each year.)

McFact No. 7: On appeal, a judge lowered the award to $480,000, a fact not widely publicized in the media.

McFact No. 8: A report in Liability Week, September 29, 1997, indicated that Kathleen Gilliam, 73, suffered first degree burns when a cup of coffee spilled onto her lap. Reports also indicate that McDonald's consistently keeps its coffee at 185 degrees, still approximately 20 degrees hotter than at other restaurants. Third degree burns occur at this temperature in just two to seven seconds, requiring skin grafting, debridement and whirlpool treatments that cost tens of thousands of dollars and result in permanent disfigurement, extreme pain and disability to the victims for many months, and in some cases, years.

So not every lawsuit is the attempt of some morally corrupt individual trying to take advantage of someone. However, with that being said there is a lot of danger out there to watch out for. Here is some information from a lawfirm in Houston, Texas regarding insurance fraud and how people perpetrate it. This is something that can impact every single one of us, so listen up.

Causing Accidents - Methods Used

“Swoop and squat” a/k/a “Squat and stoop”

Variation 1: Two cars act in concert to cause an accident, usually involving a truck. The first car slams on its brakes abruptly while driving in front of the truck while the other car is traveling beside the truck, forcing the truck into a collision.

Variation 2: Two cars act in concert to cause an accident, usually involving a truck on a freeway or multi-lane road. While the first car travels in front of the truck, the second car cuts off the first car causing the first car to slam on its brakes to avoid the second car. As a result, the truck rear-ends the first car and is also a witness to the phantom car that caused the first car to stop abruptly.

Variation 3: One car quickly cuts in front of an insured driver and brakes, causing a rear-end collision. In March of 2006, the Los Angeles Times reported that this type of fraud may again be on the rise in the Miami and Los Angeles areas.

Start and Stop – From a stop, a vehicle directly in front starts to move forward and then stops abruptly for no reason causing a rear-end collision.

T-Bone – While an insured driver is crossing an intersection, a driver traveling on the cross street accelerates to make contact with the company vehicle. The assumption is that a company vehicle is insured by the corporation and has much deeper pockets than a typical driver on the road.

Waving in/on a/k/a Drive down– While the insured vehicle is attempting to merge/turn/etc. another car waives the insured on, then intentionally causes an accident and claims no indication was given to the insured vehicle to proceed.

Non-existent accidents – An individual takes down all of the pertinent information of a vehicle traveling on a road at particular time and then reports to the company owning the vehicle that this vehicle forced him off of the road. The individual produces a vehicle with damage and makes a claim.

A particular individual using this scheme was indicted on 24 felony charges and 76 misdemeanors for claims totaling over $70,000

Side Swipes – at a multiple lane turn area, a vehicle purposely side swipes an insured driver that has turned wide. While the liability may be legitimate if a driver has traveled outside of the proper lane of travel, the damages should be carefully scrutinized. In any instance where it appears that a criminal may have purposely failed to avoid or caused an accident.

Paranoid yet? You're looking around you while you are driving and thinking everybody is out to get you now, aren't you. Well that is because THEY ARE!! We are surrounded by fraudsters just trying to get into our pockets and into our insurance companies. With the economy turning down the way it is, people are just going to get more desperate for money. Schemes like those mentioned are the acts of desperate and morally deprived people. Don't think that just because your brain doesn't work this way that nobody else's does. My brain works this way, but I was blessed with a value system that doesn't allow me to act on it. I can see the angles, but I never act on them. I just point them out. Watch your backs, everybody.

Don't be a moron!!

Have you seen this email yet? Check this out and see what you think...


I’m against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG. Instead, I’m in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a ‘We Deserve It Dividend’.

To make the math simple, let’s assume there are 200,000,000 bonafide U.S. Citizens 18+. Our population is about 301,000,000 +/- counting every man, woman and child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up.. So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billion that equals $425,000.00.

My plan is to give $425,000 to every person 18+ as a ‘We Deserve It Dividend’. Of course, it would NOT be tax free. So let’s assume a tax rate of 30%. Every individual 18+ has to pay $127,500.00 in taxes. That sends $25,500,000,000 right back to Uncle Sam.
But it means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket. A husband and wife has $595,000.00.

What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your family?

• Pay off your mortgage – housing crisis solved.
• Repay college loans – what a great boost to new grads
• Put away money for college – it’ll be there
• Save in a bank – create money to loan to entrepreneurs.
• Buy a new car – create jobs
• Invest in the market – capital drives growth
• Pay for your parent’s medical insurance – health care improves
• Enable Deadbeat Dads to come clean – or else

Remember this is for every adult U S Citizen 18+ including the folks who lost their jobs at Lehman Brothers and every other company that is cutting back. And of course, for those serving in our Armed Forces.

If we’re going to re-distribute wealth let’s really do it….instead of trickling out a puny $1000.00 ( ‘vote buy’ ) economic incentive that is being proposed by one of our candidates for President.

If we’re going to do an $85 billion bailout, let’s bail out every adult U S Citizen 18+!

As for AIG –

• liquidate it.
• Sell off its parts.
• Let American General go back to being American General.
• Sell off the real estate.
• Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up.

Here’s my rationale. We deserve it and AIG doesn’t.

Sure it’s a crazy idea that can ‘never work.’ But can you imagine the Coast-To-Coast Block Party! How do you spell Economic Boom?

I trust my fellow adult Americans know how to use the $85 billion We deserve the ‘We Deserve It Dividend’ more than the geniuses at AIG or in Washington DC.

And remember, The Family plan only really costs $59.5 billion because $25.5 billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam.

Ahhh…I feel so much better getting that off my chest.

Ok, fabulous plan. Now, have you done any research on this information? I'm no math genius, but I have to say that when someone told me about this I had to scratch my head. 450,000 is nearly half of a million. There are only a thousand millions in a billion (two thousand half millions) and only 800 billions in 800 billion (1,600,000 half millions). So unless we are planning on only sharing this wealth with the taxpayers in Utah (total population about 2.5 million, so I'm sure maybe 1.6 million taxpayers) then this isn't going to stretch very far. I didn't know why the math didn't work off the top of my head, but it just didn't seem right to me. Then I read the email and it really didn't seem right.

$85 (updated) billion million divided among 20 million Americans would only result in a payout of $425 (before taxes), according to this analysis by the urban legend site Snopes.com.

They also point out that even giving every American a share of the (updated) $700 million billion proposed (and rejected) bailout would only come out to about $3,500 per person. Not enough to pay off many mortgages, I'm afraid.

Get familiar with Snopes.com. Feel free to verify any emails that you get before forwarding them on. Do a search in Google or something. You'd be surprised how fast these kinds of things get debunked. Every year I get the same email about the moon being closer to the earth at that time than ever in history and every year I email out everybody the Snopes link that explains where they are wrong. I'm not saying that people who forward emails are morons, but I will say that you shouldn't believe everything you read. It makes you a target for scams.

Have you ever gotten an email asking for your bank information so that the deposed king of Nigeria can move funds out of the country? In exchange for your assistance he will leave several hundred million dollars in your account after the transaction is complete. Pretty obvious scam, huh? Obvious and yet hundreds of people fall for them every single year. In 1997 the Secret Service confirmed losses to this scam at over $100 million dollars. This is the national pasttime of an entire country of fraudsters. Not everybody in Nigeria is a scammer, but not everybody in America is a baseball fan either, but what do we call our national pasttime?

A search on Google will give you many sites with information about Nigerian Scams. Here are just a few:

For a good presentation with examples and links:http://www.snopes2.com/inboxer/scams/nigeria.htm

This link gives a chilling story about one hapless victim who was kidnapped:http://www.techtv.com/cybercrime/shownotes/story/0,23008,3396765,00.html

The official 419 Coalition Site ("419": after the relevant section of the Criminal Code of Nigeria).

This site gives Five Rules to Remember and instructions on what to do:http://home.rica.net/alphae/419coal/

This site has a discussion forum and a link to post the scam email you received, as well as many other links to even more information:http://www.quatloos.com/scams/nigerian.htm

Even the United States Postal Service has a site dedicated to these scams:http://www.usps.com/websites/depart/inspect/pressrel.htm

For an email gallery with a list of the different names, and circumstances used:http://www.potifos.com/fraud

Another good site:http://www.greaterthings.com/News/NigerianScam/

Of course, The Secret Service has it's own informative site dealing with this problem. If you have been victimized, they provide an address where you can send written documentation or, if you wish, an email, at the bottom of the page. If you have not lost any money, you can fax a copy of the letter you received at the number given:http://www.secretservice.gov/alert419.shtml

The majority of people who receive this type of correspondence don't fall for the scam. But there are still enough gullible people out there who do. Recently, in the Charlotte Metro area of North Carolina (where I live) 36 people fell for this scheme. That is just in this small area of this state. Now, try to think in terms of the rest of the billions of people in the world and the fact that these scammers also use snail mail...well, I guess you get the idea.

This type of scam gives new meaning to the phrase "A fool and his money are soon parted." However, the more people are informed beforehand, the less likely these people will profit.

There is a delightful organization of people who find these scammers and then string them along for the ride. http://www.419eater.com/ You gotta love people like that! They post faithfully their experiences in leading these scammers down the road of pain and torture. Well, not really, but they certianly make them sorry for ever getting involved in this industry.

These scams don't only take place in Nigeria though. They happen all over the world and just get called 419 scams. The scam has become as generic for Nigerians as Kleenex has become for tissues and Band-Aids have become for bandages. However, here is an example of a scammer in London who really got what he deserved. Read this story (and pardon any bad language) and tell me it isn't the greatest thing you've ever read! Some scammers really get what they deserve.

This post was inspried by an email I got this morning from an eBay member saying they were waiting for my payment for a Yamaha keyboard. The link to the item was a fake login site that just harvests your username and password for some nefarious purpose. I may have been born at night, but it wasn't last night, so I sent it to eBay and reported it as phishing. Phishing is when someone is just trying to get information from you so they can get access to your accounts. People do this to eBay all the time.

Craigslist also has their fair share of scammers. People will post an item for an outstanding deal and then say that the item is out of state and blah blah blah you'll need to put the money in escrow and they will ship the item to you. Be very fearful of that escrow word when dealing with anybody online. My rule of thumb is if they won't take cash in person or credit card/PayPal then they are a scammer. You just have to keep your eyes open and not believe everything you read. Like I said before, the sucking sound of sponges are just targets for scammers. Don't be a sucker.

Oh the humanity!!!

This post is inspried by my recent cleaning of the garage this week. My garage has a fair amount of stuff on the counters, but I detail cars in there sometimes and I like having everything in reach. Twice a year I'll sweep everything out and start over, so it doesn't really get too bad. I'm reminded of some houses I saw in Dallas that were so bad that you couldn't even open the front door. Then I found this video and way too many memories came rushing back... Get a barf bag ready!

Click here if that video doesn't work.

Seriously now... How the hell do people live like that?? That kitchen.... I nearly passed out!! My real issue is that the guy shooting the video seemed to be pretty mobile. He had at least two arms and two legs since he was walking around and holding the camera. What was wrong with him that keeps him from being able to clean up? Is it seriously easier to complain about the lawn mower being left out instead of putting it away? Of course, the way he was wheezing by the time he got upstairs to his space I would guess that he is two Big Macs away from a heart attack anyway.

He said at one point that he doesn't understand how she can live this way. How can SHE live this way? Dude, doesn't he live in the same house? The answer to his question is in his own little head. How does HE live in that house?? It is revolting.

Here is the crazy part. Did you see the bottles of hand sanitizer in the video? She is probably a germaphobe on top of being insane. I'm just wondering if anything else in that house gets washed other than her hands? The bed is so piled up full of crap that I'm sure those sheets never get washed. How could they? That would create an avalanche of epic proportions!! But hey... at least her hands are purified from 99.99% of common germs. Of course it is environments like that which breed 99.99% of the most uncommon germs, so they probably drink hand sanitizer like orange juice to make them stronger.

Here is the really sad part. People will live like that and then do cartwheels when they get their house upgraded from "disaster area" to "habitable mess." Case in point...

Can that really be called progress? Ok, so maybe it is. Now I'm not saying that I live in a museum where everything is spic and span all the time, but I would never step over a pile of clothes that blocks my path on the stairs or render my kitchen unusable by stacking stuff on top of all of the surfaces and blocking in the fridge and cupboards so the food can do nothing but rot. That is just sickening... I think this is the solution for houses like that...

Yes, that's right. I say jail the owners and send in professionals to clean sweep the sucker and then send them the bill just like they did to that guy. The really sad thing here is that people actually raise kids in that kind of environment. Can you believe that???

So my point on this rant is that you don't have to live in a perfectly clean house, but for heaven's sake at least be able to vacuum your floor once a week. Pile it up on the tables and chairs for all I care, but get it off the stinking floor. Think about your kids for crying out loud. Do you really want them going to school smelling like the garbage that rots in your house? You realize that you get used to the smell after awhile and don't even notice it, right? Well let me tell you that not everybody is as desensitized to the odor as you are. I have people at work that I know live in a pig pen because I can smell them a mile away. You can't live in a trash heap like that and not have other people know about it. I don't care where you live or what culture you come from.. It is never acceptable to live like that. NEVER.