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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Apologies Given

A NOTE FROM BIRDY:


     It seems that my Net connection is rather tenuous at the moment as I am out in the 'pucker-brush' so to speak, my Net connection is rather sporadic to almost non-existent.  I apologize to all my readers, as I will be out of the way for 8 to 9 days, repairing an old house.

      Thus, in the interest of fair play, I will also be preparing several Blog Posts while out in the brush, the next post on this blog will be on the 27th of January 2011.  Please have patience, more posts will be forthcoming shortly.

      I wish to thank all the people who have visited this Blog, 'In Birdys Eyes' over the past year, and have high hopes that these posts have assisted in [at least] stopping someone from becoming a victim of crime.  As crime is contagious, to bring education to a few, will - hopefully- stop some crime from happening, or another victim of some criminal action.


      A warm thanks is for those few individuals who have visited my Blog and was kind enough to leave a comment on the contents.


      Again, I am currently out of circulation, for a few days.  Thank you for your patience and understanding, birds do fly together, and sometimes takes leave of absence [both of body and mind].


     -Birdymckee...

Monday, January 10, 2011

Victim of a consumer Rip-off? Want justice?

Ripoff Report® is a worldwide consumer reporting Web site and publication, by consumers, for consumers, to file and document complaints about companies or individuals. While we encourage and even require authors to only file truthful reports, Ripoff Report does not guarantee that all reports are authentic or accurate. Be an educated consumer. Read what you can and make your decision based upon an examination of all available information.

Unlike the Better Business Bureau, Ripoff Report does not hide reports of "satisfied" complaints. ALL complaints remain public and unedited in order to create a working history on the company or individual in question.


By filing a Ripoff Report it's almost like creating your own web site

Your Ripoff Report will be discovered by millions of consumers! Search engines will automatically discover most reports, meaning that within just a few days or weeks, your report may be found on search engines when consumers search, using key words relating to your Ripoff Report.

Helping you, the consumer...

Search the Ripoff Report before you do business with retail stores with bad return policies, checking & credit theft, rebate fraud or other unscrupulous business policies such as phony auto repairs, auto dealer bait-and-switch tactics, restaurants with bad service or food, corrupt government employees & politicians, police corruption, home builders, contractors, unethical doctors & lawyers, online stores that sell non-existent products, dead beat dads & moms, landlords & tenants, fraudulent employment & business opportunities, and individual con artists who scam consumers.

Filing a class action lawsuit & notifying the authorities

Many law firms and law enforcement agencies utilize Ripoff Report to aid in their investigations of business practices. By filing a report, your information may aid in pursing civil or criminal proceedings against companies engaged in wrongdoing.

Ripoff Report has been contacted by almost every state Attorney Generals office, U.S. Postal Inspectors office, the Justice Department, Homeland Security, FBI, FTC and local and state authorities, including those in Canada, UK, Australia, and other government agencies around the world.

Media attention

Quite often the media is interested in the reports you filed and ask us to assist in their investigations giving you the publicity needed to help your cause. In the event your Ripoff Report is of interest to the media, we will put you in contact with them. 
 
We also supply story ideas along with victim information to every network and most local affiliates and to every major TV News Magazine including Dateline, 20/20, 48 Hours, 60 Minutes, Inside Edition, W2 Canada, CNN, along with most major news papers including, NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Money, Inc. and hundreds of others.

Helping you, the reported business or individual

My company has been reported! How do I respond?

If you are a business with one or more reports filed against you, you can make it right. If handled correctly, Ripoff Report(s) filed against you can actually help improve your credibility and reputation. We offer you the opportunity to file a REBUTTAL to any report. (See the RESPOND rebuttal box at the end of the specific Ripoff Report you wish to comment on). Every company receives complaints, but how they handle those complaints separates good business from bad business.

Businesses that want to make a real difference should read about the very successful, groundbreaking and innovative program that both businesses and consumers are raving about. This program is a way businesses can turn negatives into a positive. Ripoff Report Corporate Advocacy Business Remediation and Customer Satisfaction Program is a program that benefits the consumer, assuring them of complete satisfaction and confidence when doing business with a member business.

Employee insider / ex-employee information

If you are an employee or ex-employee with information about a reported company or individual, please click on the REBUTTAL box at the end of the Ripoff Report to post your comments. This sort of information is often very helpful to an investigation.

Whistleblowers

Employees who want to expose corruption may file a Ripoff Report. Any employees who do so should be protected by Federal Whistleblower Laws, and Ripoff Report treats all victims as a confidential source. Remember, we are a publication, just like a major newspaper, and we will never voluntarily reveal your identity. Instead we will protect our sources under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

DOING BUSINESS WITH THE COMPANY OR INDIVIDUAL REPORTED

Consumers, just because a company or individual is reported on Rip-off Report does not necessarily mean you should not do business with them. In many cases, it’s just the opposite. Just because a company is posted on Rip-off Report does not mean they are "bad". At some point in time, everyone has felt like they've been ripped off, when that may not have been the case. Not everything published on the Internet, or local newspapers, or local TV news is always true. Many stories, no matter where you see them, may have a bias slant. Being short on space or only having less than 2 minutes to do a story where important facts are left out can change the entire story. Rip-off Report feels consumers reading the unedited experiences of other consumers, without editorial involvement, are getting the best consumer opinion/news available. Our detractors would like to tell you differently. Savvy consumers need to take in all the information they can find and use it as an advantage. Consumers who investigate and obtain information about a company from a number of sources will be able to make more educated decisions, because they know what to watch for. By reading Rip-off Report, or any other publication containing information about businesses, you, the consumer, now know more about that business than its competitors. More than likely the competitor has the same issues. Let the reported business know you’ve read complaints about them, that you would like to do business with them, and get affirmation from the company that if you do business with them, they will do right by you. Let them know that if they treat you right, you will log on to Rip-off Report and tell the world what a great experience you’ve had. All companies make mistakes. It is the ones that learn from their mistakes that will benefit the consumers the most. "An educated consumer is our best reader"

USE YOUR REPORT TO GET WHAT IS COMING TO YOU

Faxing your Ripoff Report to the company or individual you have just reported can serve as a very valuable negotiating tool. Include in your negotiation that you have the ability to UPDATE your Report and reflect their good business practices by explaining that their eagerness to satisfy the complaint and make things right will be seen by the entire world. Also, explain that failure to respond/rectify the situation will also be seen.
YOU MUST NOT call them threatening to file a report if they do not comply with your demands, as this may be construed as blackmail! You must first file a Ripoff Report, then fax them a copy, offering them a chance to rectify the wrong that they did to you. Explain that then, and only then, you will UPDATE your Ripoff Report in a positive way, if deserved.

Organizing class action lawsuits

Victims & lawyers who want to sue companies or individuals reported

Victims & attorneys who are interested in pursuing litigation against a particular company reported on this website must contact us directly. It is inappropriate to solicit business using this website other than through prior arrangement. This is largely because we need to ensure, the best we can, that our readers are not being taken advantage of again.

If you are interested in filing a class action lawsuit based on Reports you’ve seen posted, and you want to identify a class representative, we can help by e-mailing those victims that gave permission and asking them to contact you. In this way, we protect victim identities while allowing them to make the decision as to whether to participate or not. 
 
Additionally, if you would like to know whether any new reports are being posted AS THEY GET POSTED, such as during the early stages of an investigation, you may be interested in our upcoming Ripoff Alerts program. We’ll update you shortly on how you can participate in these valuable programs.
We are anxious and willing to join forces with victims and attorneys to stand up for the rights of consumers and help them get justice. Both victims and attorneys should send their e-mails to: ClassAction@RipoffReport.com.

It's important to file on Ripoff Report because we're important to government and media agencies

Many sites and organizations (like the BBB) are in place to collect information from you, the consumer, but in many cases, those reports never become available for others to see. Listing your complaint on Ripoff Report insures that your report will be seen, and not just placed in a a database where only privileged eyes can see them. 
 
Many government agencies come to the Ripoff Report for information. We have assisted, and continue to assist, many government agencies, including local and state police departments, the FBI, FTC and Attorney General offices from around the country.

Since all the Reports are out in the open, consumers, journalists, attorneys and investigators from all types of agencies can research existing problems and anticipate potential problems. We provide immediate access to all kinds of fraud and scams, all out in the open, all unedited and all for FREE.
Reporting your experiences on Ripoff Report is the next best thing to getting your story on TV or in a newspaper. In fact, many national TV networks and several local TV stations from all around the country come to the Ripoff Report for information. They do this because they know other agencies are not as reliable or as cooperative a source as the Ripoff Report. News stations know that they will get information from us that is unobtainable elsewhere. 
 
By filing a Ripoff Report, you might be contacted by one of us to notify you to make contact with a law firm that has shown interest in your case. We get requests every week for class action lawsuits, bringing victims together with lawyers willing to sue the company after reading your Ripoff Report.

Get a company or individual listed on Top Ripoff Report Links

If there are more than five (5) Reports filed from different consumers on a company or individual then you can request they be added to the list. Ripoff Report will verify that the Reports are filed by different people. Send request to EDitor@RipoffReport.com.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Ticket Scam Threats to Olympic Games and Musical Concerts

By some estimates, one in every 12 people booking seats online for concerts and major sporting events has fallen for a ticket scam. 
 
And with seats for the 2012 Olympic Games in London going on sale in March 2011, organizers could face another spate of ticket scams similar to those that hit the 2008 Beijing Games, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and the 2010 Soccer World Cup, costing many thousands of sports fans millions of dollars. 
 
Similarly, a number of major blockbuster concert tours lined up for 2011 will likely draw in the ticket scam artists, especially for events that are nearly or already sold out. 
 
Furthermore, in the ticket scam world, there's a whole gray area where genuine tickets sell for outrageous prices or with conditions, like long-distance collection or last-minute delivery, which make them almost worthless. 
 
This issue, I highlight the main ticket scams to beware of in 2011.

2012 Olympics Ticket Scam

If anyone offers to sell you a ticket for one of the 2012 London Olympic events before March of this year, it's a scam -- because the seats don't go on sale before then. 
 
And once they do become available, a whole stack of websites will appear with official Olympics-sounding names offering them for sale. 
 
Most of them, if not all, will be phony and if you choose to buy from them, you won't get tickets and you will risk having your credit card details stolen and used for identity theft. 
 
The games start July 27 and, as always, the only reliable source of tickets -- 8 million of them -- will be either the official websites of Olympics organizations or their appointed agents. 
 
Most of the 649 events, especially the opening ceremony, will sell out and some may even be issued via a lottery process -- both situations that are likely to increase the risk of a ticket scam. 
 
In the UK, the safe starting point for ticket buyers is the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games host website. But tickets from this site are only available to UK and European residents, who will get up to 75% of available tickets. 
 
This adds to the likelihood of ticket scams in North America, which will only get a tiny fraction of the remainder. 
 
Scammers will be out in force, as they were in Australia and New Zealand, which found them in a similar situation for the Beijing games. 
 
In the US, the first place to visit is the Team USA site, the official site of the US National Olympics Committee. 
 
At the time of this writing, details of ticket allocation and availability or names of accredited agencies in the US were not available but unless and until they are, our advice is not to seek tickets elsewhere.
Bookmark the Team USA site and visit regularly for ticketing details. 
 
Once the USA Committee names its accredited agents, they are the only ones to buy from if you want to be certain of avoiding scams. 
 
Once sales do start, the "secondary market" -- reselling previously purchased tickets -- will swing into action and you'll likely see online auction and classified websites offering tickets. 
 
If they genuinely have tickets for sale, they may be perfectly legal but you'll probably pay up to three times the face value of tickets. 
 
Then, again, they may not be genuine, so avoid dealing with anyone who does not provide a verifiable address, a legitimate land-line phone number or who asks you to wire money for your payment.

Concert Ticket Scam Targets

The list of top stars touring North America in 2011 includes country singers Keith Urban,and Taylor Swift, plus some big names from the past including Bon Jovi, James Taylor and Ozzy Osbourne, and top pop performers like Lady Gaga.  
You can be sure that most, if not all, concert dates for these performers will sell out well in advance. And if the recent experience of fans of the reunited "boy band" Take That (including Robbie Williams) is anything to go by, the concert ticket scam artists will be out in force.
Pretty well all of Take That's concerts in May and June sold out as soon as tickets went on sale and superstar Williams shows his concern with a warning about scams on his personal website.
He suggests fans should authenticate ticket agents before using them; his site actually lists "trusted agents."
Tickets for Lady Gaga concerts were recently offered on Craigslist by a crook who repeatedly "sold" the same item. They were genuine tickets, which would have been confirmed if a buyer called the concert venue, but were each sold several times over.
I offer the same advice as for the Olympics above, especially regarding secondary market sales. But always be aware that, even if you check things out like we suggest, you're still at risk if you don't buy from an authorized agent.
And, as with the Olympics, beware of sites offering show tickets before they even go on sale. Before the tragic death of Michael Jackson, more than a dozen scam sites were offering tickets for his comeback concerts before they were ever released
Much of what we say above also applies to major sporting events, especially final games in all leading sports and horse racing
High Tech Aids the Ticket Scam Artist
How do brokers and "scalpers" (unofficial resellers) get their tickets? 
 
Well, many of them just advertise for individual tickets or buy them when they go on sale, reselling them at a significant mark-up. 
 
The picture becomes murkier when unscrupulous ticket brokers use software to buy thousands of peak event tickets as soon as they go on sale. 
 
In March 2010, four men were indicted for an alleged $25 million scheme that used software to illegally buy huge volumes of tickets for concerts by artists like Bruce Springsteen, as well as for Broadway shows and baseball games. 
 
The tickets existed but were offered at a huge premium that went straight into the pockets of the scammers, depriving many fans of the opportunity to buy at fair prices. 
 
Other legitimate but shady dealers offer ticket "guarantees" but buyers later find out they have to pay hidden charges for delivery or even have to travel to collect them. 
 
On occasions, they arrive after the event, but the dealers refuse to issue refunds. Of course, in these cases, it's perfectly possible the tickets were previously used. 
 
It's so important that you don't let your enthusiasm for a particular individual, band or team weaken your otherwise sound judgment and lure you into a buying decision you wouldn't normally make. Instead of cheering from the balcony, you might just be sitting in the fast lane to a ticket scam.
Time to conclude for today -- have a great week! -Birdy

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Viruses and other serious security threats -- and what to do if you've been infected

Most of the urgent emails you get about "deadly viruses" are just hoaxes. But there are a lot of very serious real ones out there as well.

How do you know the difference between real viruses and virus hoaxes?

  • What Are Computer Viruses?
  • What Kind of Damage Can Computer Viruses Do?
  • Your Computer May Have a Computer Virus If...
  • How Can Your Computer Catch a Virus?
  • When a Virus Isn't a Virus: Hoaxes and Chain Emails

Computer viruses aren't the only threat. In fact, the list of potential security issues gets longer each month! For example, in addition to computer viruses, there are worms, Trojan horses, spyware, adware, scumware, etc.

Let's briefly look at each of these threats:

Computer viruses are designed to spread from one computer to another quickly. Here's what Webopedia says about computer viruses:

"A program or piece of code that is loaded onto your computer without your knowledge and runs against your wishes. Viruses can also replicate themselves. All computer viruses are man-made. A
simple virus that can make a copy of itself over and over again is relatively easy to produce. Even such a simple virus is dangerous because it will quickly use all available memory and bring the system to a halt. An even more dangerous type of virus is one capable of transmitting itself across networks and bypassing security systems."

Some computer viruses don't do anything malicious -- others can wipe out everything on your hard drive.
Worms are self-propagating computer viruses. Webopedia defines a worm as:

"A program or algorithm that replicates itself over a
computer network and usually performs malicious actions, such as using up the computer's resources and possibly shutting the system down." Their impact is similar to computer viruses.
Trojan Horses are closely related to computer viruses, but they differ in that they do not attempt to replicate themselves. More specifically, a Trojan Horse performs some undesired -- yet intended -- action while, or in addition to, pretending to do something else. A common example is a fake login program, which collects account information and passwords by asking for this info just like a normal login program does.

Here's what Webopedia says about Trojan horses, including where the term comes from:

"A destructive program that masquerades as a benign application. Unlike viruses, Trojan horses do not replicate themselves but they can be just as destructive. One of the most insidious types of Trojan horse is a program that claims to rid your computer of viruses but instead introduces viruses onto your computer.

"The term comes from a story in Homer's Iliad, in which the Greeks give a giant wooden horse to their foes, the Trojans, ostensibly as a peace offering. But after the Trojans drag the horse inside their city walls, Greek soldiers sneak out of the horse's hollow belly and open the city gates, allowing their compatriots to pour in and capture Troy."

Spyware is software that tracks your actions and/or your Internet use. It can capture what you type on your keyword, including passwords, and send it to the spyware creator. Here's what Webopedia says about spyware:

"Any
software that covertly gathers user information through the user's Internet connection without his or her knowledge, usually for advertising purposes. Spyware applications are typically bundled as a hidden component of freeware or shareware programs that can be downloaded from the Internet; however, it should be noted that the majority of shareware and freeware applications do not come with spyware. Once installed, the spyware monitors user activity on the Internet and transmits that information in the background to someone else. Spyware can also gather information about e-mail addresses and even passwords and credit card numbers.
"Spyware is similar to a Trojan horse in that users unwittingly install the product when they install something else.

"Aside from the questions of ethics and privacy, spyware steals from the user by using the
computer's memory resources and also by eating bandwidth as it sends information back to the spyware's home base via the user's Internet connection. Because spyware is using memory and system resources, the applications running in the background can lead to system crashes or general system instability."
Adware is "a form of spyware that collects information about the user in order to display advertisements in the Web browser based on the information it collects from the user's browsing patterns."
Scumware changes how you view websites you visit. It replaces the actual content of sites with ads from scumware advertisers, and generates traffic for the scumware advertisers.
Note: Every single day we hear about viruses causing major PC crashes, PC's being hacked into, Spyware installed without their permission, and even private information stolen.
The inconvenience and cost of repairing this physical damage is considerable, but the psychological effect can be devastating.

Yet it's relatively simple to protect yourself! But if that's the case, why do millions of people never protect themselves as they should?

It's because installing security and safety precautions APPEARS to be costly, technical and intimidating. So the vast majority of people don't do it -- with devastating consequences!

I found a simple solution: It's called 'The 'PC & Internet Security Kit'.

For the first time, you can bullet proof your
PC and personal information without any technical knowledge and without spending an arm and a leg doing it.

My other favorite resources on computer viruses and hoaxes:

Symantec's [Norton] latest virus threats and security advisories
http://www.symantec.com
McAfee virus info and recent threats
http://us.mcafee.com/virusInfo/
List of the latest computer hoaxes
http://www.f-secure.com/hoaxes/hoax_new.shtml

-Birdy
Remember: When you and your information are safe, society is safe.

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