A very interesting discussion/event is coming up at our local library.

Tuesday, May 5 at 5:30 PM in the Levenson Room of the Portsmouth Public Library for a discussion about micro-lending and philanthropy leveraging the Internet with Jessica Jackley-Flannery, co-founder of Kiva.

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Just got this email. Interesting twist on an old scam. Shame on them for targeting the unemployed on top of it all.

--------- scam email below --------- Dear Prospective Representative,

I am looking for someone to employ in the position of a Personal

Assistant for me part time or fulltime. I need someone who would attend

seminars and conferences all expense paid, receive and handle phone

calls. YOu would also receive and issue payments on my behalf as at when

due (Utility bills and allowances), These payments are in form of bank

transfers and they would be paid into your Bank Account or a designated

account.

JOB DESCRIPTION?

1. Receive payment and issue payments.

2. Receive and make phone calls

3. Receive and forward letters and documents.

4. Attend seminars and conferences, not mandatory. But there is extra

pay for attendance.

HOW MUCH YOU WILL EARN?

The pay is on contract basis.. It depends on how much work and efficiency

with which you work.

The pay is very lucrative.

ADVANTAGES

You do not have to leave your house unless there is a seminar or

conference to attend. And attending such comes with great reward and

benefit.

NOTE

You must be located in the UNITED STATES.

If you are interested, please signify your interest by

sending your full name,address and phone number. I will be expecting to

hear from you as your utmost consent will be awaited.

Regards....

ROBERT FLAX

I got an odd call today on my cell phone. It was an automated call (pre-recorded) saying that my Service Credit Union account was closed due to third party access.

The actual quality of the voice was horrible. It was quite clearly computer generated and sounded like the text to speech software available in the mid 90's.

The message told me to press 1 to reactivate my account. I figured this would put me in contact with an operator so I pressed 1. This just took me to another pre-recorded message basically saying the same thing and to press 1 again. At this point I knew it wasn't from the credit union and hung up. I am pretty certain the next step would have been for them to ask me my credit card number to 'confirm'.

I wrote down the number that called me and called them back. Went straight to voicemail, and the message said nothing of Service Credit Union, banks, or anything at all related.

I called Service Credit Union to check my account and let them know. They said they had reports from a few others, and they all mentioned different phone numbers that had been used. I would guess its VOIP and not the real number.

Bottom line, NEVER enter your account number or any personal information on an incoming call. Never do it. If you think it may be something you need to worry about, hang up and call the bank back on a confirmed bank phone number.

I have gotten many email phishing scam's in the past, but never for a bank that I actually use. I was pretty surprised that someone got my cell number and my bank correctly. Perhaps just luck on their part?

In my case my account was just fine and it turns out I only owe a bit more in car payments. Woot! Oh, and for anyone planning on using my info here to try to scam my Service CU account, I am paying it off now and closing it. So don't bother.

Raise your hand if you have bought something with the rebate price in mind, but never actually sent in the rebate, or never actually got the money back from the rebate. 

I have made many purchases myself that involved a rebate.  Not once (until today) have I actually gotten a check back.  Either i forget to fill it out in time, or I throw away a vital thing I am supposed to submit, or I do send them in, never to hear from the company again.  I know I have sent them in, but who and for what... that I am hazy on.  You see it takes SO long for a rebate to be returned to you that most likely you forget. 

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I have been asked many times by friends and client about ways to make money with their web sites.  The quick answer for many is AdSense, but there are many other programs out there.  I decided to make a quick little site covering some of my favorites.  It isn't a complete list, as there are a lot of scams out there.  Rather these are programs I have used or are known to be legitimate and work well for people. 

My Best Affiliate Programs list is a work in progress.  I will be adding more when I have a moment or two.  If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

I have decided to remove Kontera.  For those not familiar Kontera is a form of advertising.  As opposed to a traditional ad that shows text or images in an area designated by me, this program looks at the text of my site and automatically ads links to other sites. 

I get a few pennies for a click.  Yes, a few pennies.  The money isn't really worth it.  Maybe if I had the volume of activity in the hundreds of thousands of users, but right now it just clutters up my site with no real benefit.  I will keep the account in case I need it for some reason. 

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As you may note I did a review of John Chow's web site recently.  The deal is you review his web site and he will in turn link back to you in groups of 10.  His site gets a lot of traffic so people are willing to dedicate a blog post just to get some link love in return.    His link back program has been a big hit for him and has also really helped his blog in the search engines.  Search on 'Make Money Online' and he is at the top.  All because of this link back program. 

I was interested to see what would happen if I got a link from him.  How much traffic would result?  Would that trigger other links or reviews? So I did the review.  He posted the blog entry with link a few days later. 

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When to sell my stock?  The ultimate question for the stock market newbie like myself.  I own 600 shares of just one stock. (outside of our family retirement stuff) I bought it a few years ago on a whim when it was very very low priced.  Right now it is up about 800% and a great success.  So when should I sell it?  The price has gone up and down a bit, but overall it has climbed pretty consistently.

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