Some stuff I have learned while reading what has happened to other people.

Be careful who you bank with, as the big banks are trying to find ways to gouge you big time. Check out a small local bank and move your accounts to them. (This is not new)

Don’t get a credit card with the same bank where you keep your money.  Keep your savings account, if you have one, at a different bank than your checking account. Diversify!

Get a prepaid cell phone and forget about the telcos.  They just find ways to over charge you.

If you have Comcast, find alternatives.  Comcast does not want to help you, they just want your money.  This is true of most companies that provide TV, phone service and broadband Internet, so good luck finding a good one!

Read the fine print before you sign the dotted line.  Everywhere. For Everything. You can’t believe everything a customer service representative tells you.

Oh yeah, one more thing.  Folks who write to the consumerist are telling one side of the storey. (I am inclined to believe them though.)

One thing stands out. Big banks, big corporations, big companies will lie to you to get your business.  Don’t trust any of them. Once they have your money and if things aren’t as promised, too bad for you.

I truly thank ‘The Consumerist’  for keeping me informed.

Martha

Google made this ‘Buzz’ automatic. They didn’t ask me, they just turned it on. As a result I decided to turn it off, but before that I deleted all of the email addresses in my Gmail accounts. (I have more than one)  Now I download the emails to my computer. I am seriously thinking of deleting my Gmail accounts and just using my ISP or my domains for email.

Facebook keeps adding changes. Facebook keeps making changes.

I looked at my privacy settings.  They had to be changed again! I am seriously thinking about deleting my Facebook account.  Who knows what they will do next?

Now it’s Microsoft and Hotmail.

Years ago I got a Microsoft Passport as it is needed sometimes to get content from Microsoft.  Fortunately, there is nothing in my profile and I intend to keep it that way. I left Hotmail about 6 years ago, so hopefully that is now defunct.

Nothing concerning privacy really seems to matter to the ‘big boys’ (Microsoft, Google and Facebook).  Usually they make changes available to users, but it is ‘after the deed is done’, so in the meantime private information is exposed to the world.

I think I may have to forget the Internet and go back to socializing face to face.

Martha

John is now friends with……………………

Harry became a fan of…………………….

Jane became a fan of…………………….

Mary and Jane are now friends.

So enough of that! Facebook Lite!!!

Then Facebook Lite won’t let me sign in. AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

Who needs Facebook!

Martha

By far the majority of these folks don’t have a clue who all of the ‘friends’ really are and I suspect they don’t care. They just say ‘OK’ and ‘befriend’ anyone who asks.

Case in point.

I think that pretty much says it all.

Martha

But unfortunately, sometimes unscrupulous merchants try to boost their bottom line by using practices that while maybe are not illegal, but are certainly shady.

One way customers are sucked in to a shady practice is the promise of a rebate for shipping.  Notice this is NOT the same as an order code for free shipping that many reputable sites offer.

Most customers are intent on what they want to order and fail to read all fine print on the site where they will order. Sometimes the fine print is in a much lighter shade and is located below the ‘Order Now’ button. An example of this is on this site: Plaque Attack

Notice the Free Shipping logo at the top of the page has a small wording, After Rebate. Now scroll to the bottom of the page and in a box with light gray text, read the Offer Details. In order to get the free shipping, the customer is signing up for a ‘free trial’ of the ‘Insider’s Club’.   Curious, I went to the site FreeShipping.com mentioned in the order details and nowhere could I find what the price would be after the free trial ends.

So now what happens?  Customers sign up to join to get the free shipping.  What they may not realize and most don’t, after the ‘free trial’ they will be billed a monthly fee and nowhere does it say what that fee will be until it’s too late. Then when they get their credit card statement or bank statement they learn the awful truth.  (Never ever use a debit card to order online!) Trying to get this unwanted service canceled and a return on their money can be a very frustrating experience, sometimes almost impossible.

Unfortunately there a lot of sites like this. Just check out the posts on the Complaints Board.

There are so many deceptive practices on the Internet. A lot of them are pure scams, but the sites like the one above cover their you know whats by putting disclaimers or confusing wording on their sites so when the customers dispute the charges they can claim the customer was notified in advance. So while these sites are not actually illegal, they are in cahoots with sites that are certainly out to scam the customer.

Very soon we will be able to see just what you post on Twitter! Yahoo! and Twitter give wings to your social world.

OK, that’s what Twitter is about, but what about the secure way you set up your Facebook? Facebook Pages Now Part Of Google’s Real-Time Results.

Is it only a matter of time before your Gmail messages show up in searches? It could be if you didn’t turn Buzz off!

I hope my ISP doesn’t decide to be a social network!

Martha

I learned a long time ago not to trust stuff in email, especially from strangers. Spam loaded my inbox and I quickly learned not to open it but to just delete it unopened. It’s a good thing too because it wasn’t long before email came bearing unwelcome stuff besides folks just trying to sell me something. Virus was first, then Trojans, worms, phishes, etc., ack! Email became dangerous!

As if that wasn’t enough, so called trustworthy sites began to put stuff on our computers to spy on us. My favorite tax program put spyware on our computers! I will never use anything by that company again! Although they apologized, the trust I had in them is now gone.

I found out a music company did more or less the same thing!  They put a dangerous application called a rootkit on computers when a music CD was played on a computer. A rootkit is very hard to detect. That company also makes computers and how can we trust that those computers are not ‘infected’?

I suspect those companies learned their lesson and probably won’t try such tactics again, but I am suspicious. I tend to remember “fool me once, shame
on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me”.

Since companies don’t want to lose customers, they generally will not try stuff like that again.  But there are other things that can ‘bite’ us if we don’t beware.

Some ‘free’ downloads are not free if you don’t watch out when you install programs. When I installed my pdf reader (not that piggy Adobe), there
was an option to also install the Ask toolbar. The box was already checked to install it, so if I hadn’t learned a long time ago to actually read what’s
going to happen during the install I would have ended up with an unwanted toolbar. Other downloads have done the same with the Google toolbar.

Now Gmail has lost my trust with this thing called ‘Buzz’.  I like Gmail, for email. Just email and nothing more. I don’t want my email to be a social network.

I saw someone on TV talking about Buzz and how she likes it.  She can share so much like links and photos.  The first thing that came to mind was ‘wow, a new way for scammers and phishers to suck people in to getting spyware, worms, trojans and the like, as if there isn’t enough of this already’.

I turned Buzz off in my Gmail and I am going to go one step further.  I am going to remove all email contacts as well.  Who knows what Gmail may try
next?

Except there was no form below. (In Firefox, my default browser) So I reloaded the screen.  Nope, no form.  On a hunch I opened IE and loaded the same screen.  Yep, there was the form.

Now while this is normal for some websites, the funny thing is, Secunia reports that Internet Explorer (both regular and 64 bit) are insecure and there is no fix!

Now since they know IE is insecure, wouldn’t you think their page would work in another browser like Firefox?!!!!  (But it did work in Opera!)

Martha

Why?

Did you give the site that information because it asked for it? If you don’t know by now that is not a very good idea, then I will tell you why you need to keep your email private.

You need to know what happens when you give that ‘social network’ your login and password. They are going to ‘spam’ everyone in your address book by sending them an ‘invitation to join this social network. This invitation will be sent to any business address, your boss (that could be very embarrassing!), every contact you have in your address book. This may include the owner/moderators for Yahoo Groups/other lists and can get you removed from the group/list! Owner/moderators really don’t want to join your social network and don’t appreciate the spam/invitation.

I suspect you probably didn’t know that was going to happen, but in fact it did.

Now comes another question. What will that site do with all those email addresses it just added to their email address database? You do know spammers pay big bucks for email addresses, don’t you?

Now just in case you didn’t know all this and think you may want your friends to join you on that social site, most of them have an option for you to just add the email addresses manually. You might want to ask them first though, just in case they don’t want their email address to be added to a potential spammers’ list.

Think about it, giving someone access to your email is just not a good idea. Who knows what could happen if someone in charge of that database turns rogue and decides to ‘have some fun’ with your email account!

I keep asking folks why they don’t like Vista.  The answers I get vary, but most of the time there is only one reason.

A favorite program won’t work. When I ask them if they tried the Program Compatibility Mode, they don’t know what that is!

They can’t find anything because it isn’t where Windows XP put stuff. (They don’t look!)

The UAC (User Access Control) is too much ‘in my face’. They could turn it off, but they don’t know that.

Some of the replies indicate they aren’t even using Vista, but someone they know has it and that someone doesn’t like it.

A common response was ‘I read it’s no good’.  No real reason, they are just repeating what they have read or heard.

I think the real reason may be Vista isn’t Windows XP!

Some of these folks remind me of sheep. They follow someone else and never make a decision for themselves. Sheep sometimes will follow the lead sheep off a cliff, at least that’s what I have heard.

Martha