Spoofed IRS Letter Attempts To Steal Social Security and Credit Card Information

By MoneyBlueBook

The Internal Revenue Service is at it again - trying to steal our hard earned dollars. Just kidding. This time it's not really the IRS, but someone trying to masquerade as them. Recently I've been receiving spoofed emails from someone trying to impersonate the IRS to solicit confidential financial information from me. Screenshot of the Scammer's E-Mail Message - looks real doesn't it? But it's a fake.

Spoofing and Phishing

Spoofed e-mails are forged messages where the e-mail header is altered to appear to have come from someone else other than the true source. Many of these spoofed e-mails come from scammers who send these messages out on a massive scale to unwitting recipients to try to get people to respond to them. Spoofed emails are frequently disguised to be from places of authority such as government agencies or banks, usually asking for sensitive and confidential data such as name, login, password, credit card numbers, and social security information. This disguised request for sensitive data is known as phishing and is a frequently used tactic by scammers to fish for and steal confidential information. Be careful, once confidential financial data has been harvested, the stolen information is usually used for criminal purposes.

I've seen so many of these types of spoofed e-mails from scammers over the years, mostly disguised to be from well known banks like Wells Fargo, Citibank, Sun Trust, and other major online sites like PayPal, eBay, and now the Internal Revenue Service. Through the untrained eye, it might be

By MoneyBlueBook

During graduate school I roomed with a medical student, who's still a good friend of mine. Although he and all of his medical friends studied hard, they also partied hard - very hard. They were quite the rowdy bunch. Together with his medical and dental friends from other neighboring prestigious schools, they consumed alcohol and other things like you wouldn't believe. Although I could probably go on for days about the many weird things that happened in our apartment, the thing I wanted to talk about was one of the things he used to do for money (no he wasn't a drug dealer, if that's what you're thinking).

Make Money By Being a Human Guinea Pig

What my roommate used to do was answer advertisements in the newspaper or respond to requests through his medical school for open call patients who were interested in participating as subjects in scientific studies. The scientific studies he submitted himself for were for substance abuse related clinical research projects. His qualification for the studies involved his chronic prior and current usage of alcohol and illicit substances (party drug variety). The studies were always confidential and he was paid quite handsomely for his time. I think he agreed to be a paid guinea pig because he needed the extra money for further boozing.

Frequently this involved him showing up at the research center for a few hours at a time and allowing the researchers to put him through a series of mental and physical tests. Now you might be thinking, easy money

By MoneyBlueBook

Money is an important part of life but sometimes it can be very fleeting. Just look at the world stock markets recently. What was a high flying market has now come back down to earth and bottomed out. The market will eventually rebound, but it's a stark reminder that the accumulation of money should be a means to an end, and not become the goal itself.

I hope we can all learn to be extra generous during this Thanksgiving season and cherish the important family, friends, and loved ones in our lives. It's important to keep spending under reasonable control, but don't let it prevent you from sharing your generosity with others. Money can be replaced, but good friends and family cannot.

Have a wonderful and Happy Thanksgiving and remember to eat hearty (don't worry, you can work off the pounds later on the treadmill). Enjoy the Black Friday shopping festivities! :)

By MoneyBlueBook

The holiday season is a time for good memories and cheer. But it's also a time when people are looser with their wallets, more readily open to the idea of spending more money than usual on presents for family, friends, and loved ones. It's easy to take out the ole credit card, swipe it through and not worry about it until later. But that later time will ultimately arrive in less than a month. When you finally open up your next bill or when you log into your online account to check your statement balance, prepare to be stunned. Somebody's going to have to pay all that back to the credit company and I'm betting it's going to be you.

Don't Let Holiday Shopping Hype Force You To Make Bad Decisions

Just because it's the holiday shopping season doesn't mean you have to forget all the frugal living common sense you acquired throughout the year. Don't throw all that out of the window. Christmas and the other holidays are still a month away. You still have ample time to plan ahead to make sure you are making the most efficient use of your shopping budget. Don't panic and start hitting the department stores without doing your research first to make sure you are using all of the available coupons and discounts out there.

Here Are A Few Of My Thoughts and Common-Sensical Tips Regarding Holiday Shopping

By MoneyBlueBook

Well it's that time of the year again. The holiday shopping season is nearly upon us and consumers are starting to get all giddy like little schoolgirls. Although I try to keep my own giggling variation to a minimum, I must admit that I do get caught up the bargain hunting hoopla.

Black Friday Means Deals and Lots Of Them

For those of you who are not familiar with what it is, Black Friday is the crazy shopping frenzy that immediately follows Thanksgiving. It draws so much consumer and media attention because the day has traditionally signaled the start of the Christmas shopping season. It is called Black Friday because it always falls on a Friday and is the day when many retailers finally turn a profit - their balance sheets finally going into the black. Although Black Friday is not always the busiest shopping day of the year, many retailers frequently release their most lucrative deals and promotions on this day.

I Love The Hype and Excitement, But Participating Is Another Matter

I enjoy following the news and coverage that surrounds Black Friday events, but I've never actually gotten up early enough on Black Friday to take advantage of those one time a year deals. I think the closest I ever came to shopping on Black Friday was wakening up at noon on the day after Thanksgiving and strolling into a nearby Best Buy to see if there were any deals left. By then the store had already been picked clean by other crazy

By MoneyBlueBook

I'm always excited when I can get my hands on one of these free Starbucks gift cards Read the full article »