Archive for the 'Consumer' Category

Ohio "Loses It" Again

I guess state employees in Ohio are on a roll. It was recently discovered that in addition to the 225,000 Ohio taxpayers whose personal information is on a missing computer backup tape, a laptop computer was stolen from another state employee.
On the stolen laptop is the social security numbers and other personal information belonging to [...]

Missing Backup Tape Holds Ohio Social Security Numbers

Every time I see one of these stories, I just think to myself, “You’ve got to be kidding me. Not again!”
It seems like these stories are popping up every few weeks these days and who knows about the ones we never hear about.
This time a missing computer backup tape in Ohio is the problem. The [...]

Centerline Financial Group Accused of Loan Scams

This is appears to be a pretty wide-spread operation with people all over the U.S. reporting that they were scammed by an outfit that was known as “Centerline Financial Group” that claimed to be located in St. Louis.
Despite the claim that they were located in St. Louis, the people behind the operation were actually in [...]

Pat Haines And N.M.E. Are At It Again

Ah, May must be the time of year when the pink sleaze blossoms. It was during the month of May last year that I entered here the first post featuring “Pat Haines” and his or her merry band of pushy salesdroids at N.M.E., which as I recall, stands for “National Magazine Exchange.”
This year Pat has [...]

Afraid To Use Your Credit Card Online: Don’t Be!

So why is it that you should not be afraid to use your credit card online? There are a couple of reasons. Let me explain.
The first reason is that if you are in the United States, there is a law that protects you from online credit card fraud by limiting your losses to $50. Sure, [...]

Don’t Advertise It If You Don’t Use It

Here’s something that I run into once in a while that is pretty irritating. I find this most common on web sites that are set up by businesses that are traditional “brick and mortar” businesses and not so much on sites that are built with the idea of doing a lot of business via the Internet.
I [...]

TJX Needs A Good Slap In The Face

OK, so this post will be more of a rant than anything else, but I find myself so ticked off about this whole TJX data breach thing that I have to sound off a little bit somewhere.
For those that have not heard, there is a company called TJX that is the parent company for a [...]

Citronella Bark Control Collar: Don’t Waste Your Money

I recently presided over a major clean-up effort here at my house. The end of the year seemed like a good time to get a fresh start by getting rid of all the useless junk that has been accumulating around here for the last few years. It would have been easier to believe “decades” if [...]

Hate Obnoxious Salespeople? Stay Away From Quicken Loans!

I’m getting better at trusting my instincts these days, and most of the time it serves me well. That certainly was the case during my dealings with Quicken Loans very recently.
As you may have noticed, mortgage interest rates have dipped again lately and are looking quite reasonable. Having missed out on the last round of [...]

Cool Product For Avoiding Traffic Tickets

Sometimes I just stumble upon and a product that I think is so cool that I just have to write about it somewhere.
My big problem with this particular product is that I really have no use for it. But I guess I won’t let that stop me from telling others about it.
The product is called [...]