Unlike Citibank’s well known and popular Citi Thank You purchase incentive feature, which tends to focus on more tangible gift card and cash based rewards that you can accrue through daily card purchases, the Citi PrivatePass program is devoted almost exclusively to entertainment and experience based offers – providing its participants special access to free and cheap tickets to unique concerts, dining experiences, and popular sporting events. The Citi Private Pass program is not a separate card, but rather a rewards program already available to existing Citi Card customers.

Citi Private Pass Offers Free and Cheap Tickets For Special Live Events and Experiences

After reviewing the Citi Private Pass website and examining some of the promotional material, it’s clear the motivation behind the Citi Private Pass program is to help Citibank capture a greater segment of the entertainment generation, an emerging and outgoing demographic that’s willing to go out and spend money but still harbor the savvy mindset to locate the best online deals for discounts, limited time offers, and freebies. Presumably hoping to re-brand itself into some sort of entertainment conduit or facilitator for card carrying customers who are also experience seekers, the Citi Private Pass program offers Citi customers the opportunity to enjoy special VIP access to sought after events at deep discount prices that are much lower than that typically sold to the general public.

According to the folks at CitiCard, the Private Pass program offers card members a way to get access to limited pre sale tickets, obtain preferred seating reservations ahead of time, arrange meetings with their favorite musical artists, or even attend special limited opportunity movie screenings and cultural events. Reviewing the Private Pass terms and conditions and examining the entire selection of offers available to customers, I can see why the program has appeal on a diverse scale. Members can select from a very wide variety of trips and event categories – including golf, restaurants, nightclubs, shopping, sporting events, theater, and other popular activities.

The Citi Private Pass program breaks the program down into several broad experience categories, each with its own individual selections. Currently, Private Pass is touting several popular summer programs, and such seasonal programs are constantly being rolled out.

• Tickets To Music Concerts: Citibank and Live Nation are promoting discounted lawn concert tours for just $5 per ticket through the Summer of Savings event for the months of July and August 2009. Discounted concert tickets are available for a wide array of well known artists and bands such as Lil Wayne, Aerosmith, Creed, Kid Rock Depeche Mode, Nickleback, Blink-182, and even the Jonas Brothers (gag). Just go to www.citiprivatepass.com to get the special access code that allows you to take advantage of this offer.
• Tickets To Popular Sporting Events: Special exclusive discount savings for sporting experiences are available – everything from ordinary events like basketball and baseball games, to the more out of the norm – including fly fishing, river sailing, and rodeos.
• Access To Special Movie Viewings and Special Art Galleries: Many of the featured offers in this category are not available to the general public and are only available to CitiCard customers. A few of the more exclusive offers are only available to Citi Visa Signature cardholders.

If you are one who loves going out and spending money on experiences and memories rather than on mere materialistic objects that inevitably depreciate, then I think the Citi Private Pass offerings and special ticket discounts are something your lifestyle may demand. At the very least, the Citi Private Pass program is a rather interesting way to get to know what live events are happening out there if you’ve been wanting to participate in one. Simply visit the Citi Private Pass website directly and access the free and discounted selections from the entertainment category of your choice.

Remember, to participate in the free Citi Private Pass rewards program, you’ll need to be a current Citibank credit card or debit card customer. If you’re not yet a Citi cardmember and would like more information about becoming one, check out some of these popular Citi Card offers:

• Citi Platinum Select Master Card – 0 % APR on balance transfers and purchases for 6 months.
• Citi Forward Card – 5% purchase reward back for restaurants, books, movies, music, and 1% for everything else.
• Citi Premier Pass Elite Card – 2% reward points for all everyday purchases at gas stations, supermarkets, transportation lots, and parking facilities.
• Citi Forward Card for Students – 5% purchase reward back for student purchases like eating out, books, movies, and music.
• Citi mtvU Platinum Select Visa Card for Students – 5% rebate reward back for dining out, music, movies, and books, including purchases made at Amazon.com.

Source URL: Review of Citi Private Pass Rewards by Citi Card

Copyright Protected © 2009 Money Blue Book: Personal Finance Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Well we’ve finally reached the dog days of summer – the hottest stretch of heat sweltering days of July and August. For those of you who live in colder climates, bless your hearts – enjoy the mild temperatures while you can because colder weather will be upon you soon. But for everyone else who lives in a state or region that enjoys four seasons year round with hot and humid summers like I do, it’s time for all of us to get outside and enjoy that nice sunshine warmth.

One of the best ways to get some mild exercise, and enjoy the great outdoors with the family at the same time is to visit an amusement theme park like Six Flags, Busch Gardens, or Disney World. Now you might be thinking to yourself – wait, visiting an amusement isn’t exercise and it sure isn’t the great outdoors. Where is the huffing and puffing, and where are the essential greenery that make up the great outdoors? I guess that’s where you and I differ – I consider the great outdoors to be anywhere that’s not cooped up inside an air conditioned house or apartment on a summer’s day spent watching TV or playing Nintendo Wii. As long as you are out and about, walking around outside, enjoying the sun’s natural Vitamin-D inducing rays, you are immersed in the great outdoors my friend.

In addition, all that walking around, waiting in line, and strolling from roller coaster ride to concession stand is definitely exercise. It’s not exactly running an Olympic marathon, but you’ll likely burn off some needed calories in the process. The last time I went to Six Flags, my poor puppies (my weird slang for feet) ached after walking around all day. I visited the amusement theme park during pre-season so the lines were incredibly short and non existent, prompting me and my travel companion to walk around even faster to ensure we hit every single roller coaster ride and gaming stand by day’s end. It was a fun, but rather tiring and dizzying experience.

You’re Getting Off Track Again – What About The Free Roller Coaster Photos?

Now, anyone who has ever been to one knows that spending a day at the amusement park does not come cheap. In fact, most places are pretty expensive and if you’re not careful about your budget or keep a tight reign on careless spending on snacks and drinks, you mind find yourself blowing more money than expected – just like you do at the movies. At amusement theme parks like Six Flags, you can expect to shell out anywhere from $25 to $50 per person depending on your age and height, and even more on top of that for meals and other gaming experiences. At mega theme parks like Orlando Florida’s Disney World resorts, tickets range anywhere from $70 for young children to more than $160 for adults for multi-park access. Thus, any little thing you can do to cut costs here and there will help you save lots of money in the long run and prevent you from losing your financial mind.

Here’s a little tip I picked up a while back on how to get free roller coaster photographs of yourself and free on-board pictures of your friends at any amusement theme park. After every major roller coaster ride, as you’re walking down the exit ramp rather dizzily from the experience, you’re likely to bump into the ubiquitous roller coaster souvenir photo booth. At the stand you’ll usually find a sales counter along with multiple television monitors mounted high up, cycling through live digital photo shots of roller coaster riders taken in various stages of facial displays ranging from joy and happiness, to sheer terror (but they are usually all funny). The images are all photos automatically taken by strategically mounted on-ride cameras located throughout the track. Oftentimes, the cameras are installed on segments where the riders experience the greatest speed, resulting in a variety of funny displays of wacky and distorted expressions due to excitement, fear, or just plain wind resistance. Sometimes, all occupants of a single roller coaster car are displayed in one photograph, and sometimes only two or four people are displayed at one time. The photos on the display screen are usually numbered and park customers willing to purchase their own can do so. The instant photos are usually available immediately after the ride is over should you choose to buy them – and they frequently come in a variety of specialty trinket forms like T-shirts and key chains. The prices charged however, are frequently expensive rip off prices. A tiny wallet size photo may cost in excess of $15-20 each. Larger photos may be priced as high as $25-$35 each. Keychains and T shirts can easily cost in excess of $25-$45.

For those who want to get their roller coaster photos for free, you’ll have to act fast as soon as the ride is over. Usually the rollercoaster souvenir booth video displays cycle through the most recent ride results from one car to another before moving on to the next set of new vehicle riders. As guests exit the ride, the display screens update the photos with the latest riders, thereby gradually burying the photos of riders that came before. If you want to save some money, take the limited time opportunity to raise up your digital camera, zoom in, and take a direct digital photograph of the display screen when your rollercoaster shot cycles through. You’ll want to act fast as your photo will likely only be flipped through a few times before disappearing for good. If you’re quick, you just might be able to walk away with a high quality, free roller coaster self shot.

The last time I was at Six Flags, I did just that for numerous rides. It sort of baffled me at the time why no one else was doing it though. As soon as I saw the screen display of my friend and I, I raised my Canon Digital Elph sky high to rise above the crowd of riders waiting to buy souvenir photos, and quickly snapped off a few free shots. As soon as I did that, everyone looked at me with eyes widened, and immediately took out their own cameras to do the same – frantically snapping their own self pics as the display screens flipped to images of them. Such frugal tips seem so common-sensical that we oftentimes fail to realize that we can easily get many things for free just by trying.

Financially or Morally Ethical? It’s Up To You – But Remember, You Did Pay The Price Of Your Pricey Admissions Ticket

While I doubt Six Flags, Disney World, Disney Land, Kings Dominion, Busch Gardens, or Cedar Point officials condone this type of free photograph taking, I’ve never noticed any signs or ticket stub fine print restricting this frugal (albeit freeloading) practice. Support the park and pay your $35 roller coaster souvenir photo at Kingda Ka or any other popular ride if you want. However, in my opinion, you’ve already paid for your price of amusement park admission, so you might as well maximize your budget by taking advantage of free photographing opportunities. Once you snap a photo with your digital camera, you can pretty much make as many digital prints as you want.

I suppose the lawyer part of me feels compelled to address one more concern. As for questions about copyright infringement legalities, don’t worry. Copyright laws only protect the rights of actual tangible mediums of expression whether it be an expression of writing, photography, or music. Yes it would be a possible copyright violation if you were to copy the digital photographs off of the souvenir booth computers directly and reproduce them (that might be considered criminal theft as well). But by using your own personal digital camera to take a photograph of the monitor indirectly, you are in the clear. Feel free to snap away. You are now your own paparazzi!

Source URL: How To Get A Free Roller Coaster Photo At Six Flags or Disney World

Copyright Protected © 2008 Money Blue Book: Personal Finance Blog. All Rights Reserved.

When you think of Ed McMahon, you don’t exactly associate or lump him with big time wasteful spenders like MC Hammer and some of the other well known celebrities of the past who rose to fame and fortune quickly but ultimately frittered away their money into bankruptcy on trivial pursuits. No, when you think of Ed McMahon, you think of the aging but charismatic late night show announcer, the TV personality, and the face and voice of the American Family Publishing sweepstakes team (not to be confused with the more popular Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes) that arrives unannounced at the homes of winners to present them their grand prize. You certainly don’t see or hear about him throwing his money away on fast cars, fast women, or holding lavish sleaze parties to great excess.

So I was quite surprised when I learned that someone like the now 80 plus year old Ed McMahon has now found himself in difficult financial straits and faced with the prospect of mortgage foreclosure on his multi million dollar home. This housing bubble and credit crisis seems to be quite merciless and universally brutal, even to those who simply lived their lives with the best intentions, but still succumbed to hard times. With little regard to feelings or reason, the mortgage credit crisis and the powerful forces of housing supply and demand have devastated many good families.

Ed McMahon and His Wife Pam Speak Out About Home Foreclosure and The Possibility Of Losing Their House

Ed McMahon recently appeared on the CNN Larry King Live show (CNN video clip) with his wife to discuss their difficult foreclosure nightmare and explain how a former multi-millionaire such as himself could fall from financial grace after all these years and have his house foreclosed on. During the conversational interview with Larry King, many of Ed’s words about how it all happened rang true:

“If you spend more money than you make, you know what happens. A couple of divorces flown in – a few things happened. You want everything to be perfect, but that combination – the economy, a little injury, breaking my neck – you just can’t work with this thing around your neck.”

“In some sense, I want to speak for the million people who now have foreclosure signs on their houses. I just want to give them hope, give them optimism and some guidance. Get the best corrective people you need around you, keep working at it, don’t stop. There’s a lot of people who are hard workers, did everything right, didn’t do anything wrong, and all of a sudden they are in this boat, and I speak for all of them as far as I’m concerned.”

“For everyone out there who’s going through this, we really sympathize with you. Be optimistic. It can be done. All kinds of things can happen. Let it work out great for you.”

When asked by Larry King to comment on the public assumption that the McMahons are multi millionaires and asked how they could have fallen behind $644,000 on their house mortgage payments, McMahon’s current wife Pam chimed in (tearfully at times):

“People do assume that you have hundreds of millions of dollars, and I think over the years it’s a combination of Ed working so hard and not looking at proper management which happens a lot. Because you’re a celebrity, people think you have a lot more than you have. And you always want to take great care of all your friends and family in all you do. We didn’t keep our eye on the ball and we made mistakes.”

“But you have to not give up. Whether we keep our house or we don’t keep our house. The whole financial issue might be the thing that ruins marriages, ruins relationships – but our marriage is strong.”

“You have got to realize that you can get through it. You never know what good things can happen for you tomorrow. Keep the faith.”

My Thoughts On Upper Class Celebrities, Ordinary Middle-Class Americans, and How To Protect Oneself From The Realities Of The Recessive Economy and Housing Market

After listening to the interview, I have to say I really started to sympathize with the plight of those in foreclosure. I know Ed McMahon and his wife Pam aren’t exactly representative of the classic foreclosure case, but at least they can relate to the pains of someone who can no longer afford his or her home mortgage loan payment and compelled to face the reality of home foreclosure. It’s an embarrassing and even humiliating experience that no one wants to be forced into. Home ownership is the American dream and when you can’t afford your pride and joy any longer, it’s a tough pill to take.

As I am currently still a happy renter and have not yet become a home owner, it is in my own personal and financial interest to see that there is no housing bailout whatsoever instituted by the government. This would obviously be the most self centered and self motivated route to take as opposition to any housing foreclosure bailout or assistance would help to ensure a growth in the glut and oversupply of available homes on the market, thereby substantially driving down real estate prices for the next 2-3 years until I decide to finally enter the housing market as a buyer.

But I do sympathize with most of the owners of the more than 1 million American homes (CNN news article) that are now shockingly finding themselves in foreclosure jeopardy. Sometimes in life, you do everything right with good intentions and yet bad things still happen when you least expect it. In Ed McMahon’s case, he may have lived an early life of entertainment and celebrity success and held to great esteem in his work, earning millions of dollars through the process, but apparently he failed to adequately plan for the future and prepare himself for inevitable financial emergencies.

The reality of home ownership life is that even those with good Fico credit scores who are able to qualify for and obtain prime fixed rate loans on their houses, bad things still may happen. Sometimes through no intentional fault of their own, people lose jobs, divorces happen, child custody battles rage on, or injuries and illnesses come up making one unable to afford one’s house anymore. With a stagnating economy in recession and plummeting real estate market prices eliminating much of the home equity built up in homes, such drastic and hard financial times can hit the best of folks. Without a proper emergency fund or savings set aside to handle such occurrences, even millionaires and celebrities, let alone ordinary people like you and I, can get hit by troublesome cash flow crunches.

The solution I think is to know and realize early on that life is inherently unpredictable and fraught with financial peril. Like the stock market, no one can accurately predict the good and the bad that will happen in the future. We can only anticipate and plan for the worst but hope for the best. While there are basic financial planning steps to take, such as investing for retirement through tax deferred vehicles like a Roth IRA account, one of the most important decisions is to save and build up an emergency fund. The amount that you will need to set aside for emergencies will vary from person to person, but it’s important to plan for emergencies. For example, my car recently broke down and I had to face a sudden and emergency $1,200 auto service repair bill to replace my vehicle’s alternator and battery to get it working again. Fortunately, I had saved enough on the side to handle such an emergency occurrence and expense.

The other important thing that we should glean from the Larry King – Ed McMahon interview is to stay optimistic and keep fighting. Never give up in despair. For those who are mired in housing foreclosure, credit card debt, or even perpetual unemployment, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Don’t forget, there are many similarly situated people out there trying to stay financially afloat just like you. Just keep plugging through and maintain the faith.

Source URL: Even Celebrities Can Fall On Hard Times And Face Home Foreclosure

Copyright Protected © 2008 Money Blue Book: Personal Finance Blog. All Rights Reserved.

For the last few days I’ve been a pretty sad fellow. Not only did I feel isolated and cut off from the real world without convenient home access to the Internet, I haven’t been able to properly update my personal finance blog, nor have I been able to check my email messages, or tend to the operations of any of my online passive income businesses. On a normal weekday I usually receive close to 50 emails a day from a variety of personal and business related sources. By the time my Internet service was finally restored, I was greatly backlogged and had major catching up to do.

I Never Realized How Much I Relied and Depended On Having Home Based Internet Access, Until It Was Suddenly Taken Away From Me

I used to feel this way about TV, but I now have a new love – my computer (and the Internet service it provides me). When my precious Internet is gone, I feel crippled. This is not the first time I’ve experienced an Internet outage due to loss of power, but it’s the first time I realized how much I depended on my broadband Internet service at home. In the past, whenever my cable Internet service was knocked out, I’d simply access my backup laptop’s wireless signal manager and search for one of my random neighbor’s unsecured wireless signal to piggy back off of. Oftentimes I would get lucky and find one subscribed to a different broadband Internet provider that still had active service. While the majority of the stray wireless signals were properly password protected, a few were left publicly accessible. However, as the importance of securing one’s wireless router from unwanted intrusion has picked up steam, I find that most signals today are properly secured and inaccessible to strangers like myself. Particularly in a condo complex such as mine that’s populated by mostly tech savvy young adults and families, finding an unsecured wireless signal to temporarily piggy back off of is proving more difficult nowadays.

Since I’ve been working from home for the last few months, I’m not able to access the web through an alternate location such as an office workspace. So for the last few days during the outage, I visited my local library to get my Internet fix and to keep tabs on my email messages the best I could. Due to usage limits of an hour per day on the computers at my public county library, I wasn’t able to fully respond to all messages during each sitting and frequently had to do the bare minimum when it came to managing my online finances and keeping track of all my wheelings and dealings. Since I’ve adopted the practice of going all electronic and paperless and have converted all my paper bills into e-billing and automatic debit payments, not having immediate home based access to the Internet puts me in an incredibly inconvenient position. It’s a hopeless and powerless feeling when you’re unable to properly manage and access important aspects of one’s personal and financial life in real time. Especially since I am currently managing a major balance transfer credit card arbitrage, not having online account access makes it difficult for me to keep tabs on monthly due dates and stay on top of my minimum payments. If I’m not careful with online due dates, I could easily unintentionally commit a tragic balance transfer mistake and ultimately face terrible repercussions. It’s been so long since I’ve performed paper or phone banking that I’m not even sure how it’s done anymore exactly or where to locate my backup paperwork. I’m simply so used to doing everything online these days.

We’ve Become An Extremely Technology and Internet Dependent Generation

The no-Internet experience left me amazed and somewhat alarmed at how much my life has grown so reliant on the availability of the Internet. While it’s only a single form of technology, it’s a mode of communication and source of information that I’ve become extremely dependent upon. It’s interesting how only about a decade ago, no one had even heard of Google, Yahoo, Mapquest, or CNN.com. Back in the Internet-less caveman days of the early 90’s, we relied on non electronic forms of communication and information gathering. Before the Internet, people relied on daily newspaper deliveries for their written news, people purchased hard compact discs for their music, paper maps were used to plot directions, and people actually obtained background information on a variety of common topics by turning to hardcover encyclopedias.

Today, people rely on CNN.com, NYTimes.com, Yahoo news, and even online blogs to get their daily news. People order songs individually from online vendors like iTunes. People use online websites like Mapquest or Google maps, or utilize handheld GPS devices to easily and automatically get directions to where they want to go. Nowadays, the old volumes of encyclopedias have become extinct as all forms of text and multimedia data have been compiled and stored onto easy to carry around storage disks, or have been uploaded onto online information repositories like Wikipedia. As a testament to its breadth, the Internet is even changing the way we order pizzas now. Today, the trend of ordering freshly made pizzas online in real time through vendors such as Papa John’s is growing rapidly. The Internet has essentially phased out the clutter generated by paper documents, menus, and voluminous booklets.

The Internet Is Replacing The Cell Phone and Cable TV As The Technology We Can Least Afford To Do Without

But with this great reliance comes the dangers as evidenced by how out of place I became as soon as this important technology was taken away from me. Today, with the Internet having enveloped and dominated our day to day lives, and high speed cable and DSL broadband having greatly expanded the media content we can now receive, we can barely function now without this important service. I know I can’t.

Without full Internet access for the last week or so, I became handicapped and only partially functional. In fact, I dare to say that not having access to the Internet was astronomically worse than not having my mobile phone or even not having a fully functional cable TV service. Both cellular phone and television service can be easily replaced and compensated by the power of the web. There are easy ways to make local, national, and even international phone calls for free using a computer and the Internet, and I can easily communicate with my friends and family through instant messaging or via social networks such as Facebook or Myspace. There are also plenty of free online shared videos on YouTube and daily updated news videos on the major news network websites that can replace the lack of TV service. But there is simply no duplicate or substitute for a non working Internet.

The Internet is so pervasive, it’s hard to know what life would be like if it ever disappeared. It’s a wonderful and powerful tool that has changed the way we interact, communicate, and live our lives, but at the same time it makes us very technologically dependent and vulnerable. We are more susceptible to critical financial and societal collapses from computer viral outbreaks or electrical infrastructure disruptions than ever before. Some say it has made us as a society more distant and anonymous to each other, but I disagree. I think it’s greatly improved our lives and has allowed us to reach out and touch others in a way not possible before. We can only hope that technology can continue to defy the elements of mother nature (thunderstorms) and adequately keep up with this never ending appetite for electronic convenience and digital information. Such electrical and service outages as I experienced this week mustn’t happen again. I just can’t bear to be without Internet access for too long. Things just don’t seem to run right or smoothly when I am offline for extended periods of time.

Source URL: Internet Service Is More Important To Me Than Phone or Cable TV

Copyright Protected © 2008 Money Blue Book: Personal Finance Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Spammers and Scammers Are Relentless And They Can Afford To Be – Sending E-Mail Lures With Scam Bait Doesn’t Cost A Thing

Starting very recently, I’ve been receiving nearly 20-30 spam related messages everyday. I have no idea how they are effectively evading my spam filters, but they are. These spam messages are driving me absolutely crazy and are irritating to say the least. But one can’t help but find some amusement from the content of these desperate messages. These spam letters that flood the web are mostly from the poor African country of Nigeria – sent by notorious computer users who run well documented Nigerian 419 scam operations. You know when you receive one of these classic Nigerian 419 spam letters as they are pretty recognizable. Usually the Nigerians use very flowery, British style English comprised of exaggerated legalese-type terminology to make the content appear more legitimate. However, oftentimes their lame use of the English language borders on comical and their complete lack of understanding regarding American and western male and female names makes me chuckle. For some reason they have a habit of using the funniest and oddest fake first and last names – using common first names as last names, and improperly matching up male and female names – like Peter John, Mark Donna, or Smith Karen for example – frequently it’s pretty obvious they’re fake names as the names simply sound unnatural. But then again, these Nigerians and African spammers are not incredibly bright. They may be criminally and diabolically clever, but they are not exactly all that well educated or worldly. They resort more to the law of probability and the long held truism that “a sucker’s born every minute”. By casting a very wide net, even their ill conceived attempts may net at least one or two potential biting fish in the long haul.

It’s not just the crazy Nigerians either, spammers and scammers live in other countries as well – all beyond the reasonable reach of established arms of law and justice. Most of them approach the spam and scam business utilizing the same typical shot gun approach. Since the Internet affords the ability to send out many messages at relatively little to no cost, they are able to send out massive amounts of spam emails to potential victims with one click of the mouse or a single tap of the keyboard. Perhaps 75% of their spam messages will be screened out by domain or email spam filters, and perhaps another 90% of those that don’t get filtered out are ultimately deleted by the recipients immediately. However, a small percentage will still get through and a small percentage will be read, and an even smaller percentage will ultimately fall for the scam bait. While the chances of an unwitting recipient acting acting upon the message and replying back to the Nigerian scammer are slim, some people still do.

Frankly, these scammers from Nigeria, Eastern Europe, and South East Asia have nothing to lose – the scams are usually quite profitable for them. Take the Nigerians for example – they live in a wasteland of a country – with a corrupt government, lax law enforcement, high unemployment, with little semblance of an economy. Any amount of money they can siphon from American citizens or that of other western countries is worth the effort and time. To them, there is simply very little risk involved since their government and police enforcement officials either turn a blind eye to their antics, don’t care, or are simply too financially overwhelmed to take on the challenge of cracking down on computer crimes.

Although I may have some sympathy for the poor economic lives the scammers must live in their native countries, their criminal attempts at trickery often leave me coldly and sarcastically insensitive. However, that doesn’t mean I can’t amuse myself with their lame shenanigans. That’s why I sometimes enjoy reading spam emails – they’re funny. They really amuse me – like something from the funny pages. Today I received an email from poor “Madam Ruth Moses” who addressed me as “dearly beloved in Christ”, stating that she was “suffering from a cancerous ailment” and that she was “married to Engineer Gilbert Moses an Englishman who is dead”. Apparently they lived a life of charity of helping the “down trodden and the less-privileged individuals”. Evidently she now has $4.4 million US dollars in some African bank due to a large financial payout stemming from her husband’s untimely death in a car accident that she is unable to retrieve, and is willing to give me a 25% cut if I assist by providing her a “small process charge” to help facilitate the release. Oh how generous and noble of Mrs. Moses – especially since she enjoys citing biblical passages in her message to me, for as she puts it “The Almighty will fight my case and I shall hold my peace.” Comical, yet pretty pathetic. If I ever had the chance to meet any of these spammers, I’d laugh at their face for 15 minute straight.

I Am Now Very Distrustful and Extremely Paranoid About Doing Business Or Any Online Communication With Residents From Proven Scam and Spam Prevalent Countries

Unfortunately, what scammers with their spam emails have done is made me very distrustful of anyone from traditional scam haven countries. The list of countries mainly stem from poor, and legally and socially undeveloped countries like Nigeria, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, and Indonesia, but it also covers countries like Russia as well. Many of these third world countries either have corrupt governments or are constantly experiencing tribal warfare and upheaval that prevent stable law and judicial enforcement to flourish. But as of now, I would never do any online business with people who live in those countries at the present time. I’ve already been tricked once and after my one time experience of getting scammed during my post college years, I’ve learned my lesson. It may not be politically correct, but I think it’s a smart business move to refrain from doing any online or Internet transactions with anyone from these countries – the financial risks are simply too high. My purpose for rejecting individuals from these countries is not to stir up racial, ethnic, or even social controversy, but simply to protect my own financial interests, so please don’t take offense. I would gladly do business with them and so would millions of American merchants on eBay, Craigslist, and other online stores if only fraud wasn’t such a huge and rampant problem in those parts of the world.

I run a few small online eBay and weblog businesses (take a look at my ebay business guide), and these days the quickest way to turn me off and cause me to reject your business proposition right off the bat is to say you’re from Africa – it frankly doesn’t matter which country in Africa. I have yet to meet a single African country (aside from South Africa, although that’s debatable as well) that I trust to do business with. The rampant scams and spams that originate from that continent have turned me into a hyper-vigilant person. Most African countries simply have undeveloped legal systems that prevent merchants or publishers like myself from being able to bring legal action to effectuate contractual disputes. That is why the U.S. is such a great country. Despite our over-lawyered and lawsuit-happy society, we have a perfected legal system that ensures legal disputes have a forum to be heard and resolved. Scammers and spammers have a much more difficult time operating their illegal craft here in this country. A few foreign rotten apples have really ruined the whole international tree and apple pile, but online entrepreneurs like myself have to do to what it takes to protect ourselves and our interests. It may seem racist and prejudicial to rule out a whole segment of the world’s population, but it’s not – it’s just smart business.

Despite eBay’s attempts to provide it’s buyers and sellers with more purchase and selling protection, many if not most major eBay Power Sellers now refuse to ship to certain dangerous countries, such as Nigeria or Indonesia. A sizable number of merchants have even ruled out shipping to any foreign destination due to the prevalence of scammers living overseas where they are shielded from prosecution. It’s terrible what these online and Internet scammers have done to the whole industry. These days as I browse through business propositions and offers I receive over email on a regular basis, even African sounding surnames, African cities (like Lagos, scam capital of Nigeria), African banks, and anything to do with Africa trigger glaring red flags when I evaluate Internet commerce deals. So if your online business is based in Africa, I’m sorry, but I don’t want to do business with you at this time. Perhaps someday when your government stabilizes and sets up a legal system that will protect and ensure my legal and contractual interests I will consider it. But until then, too bad so sad. If you are a legitimate African, East European, or South East Asian business, don’t be offended if established western and far east Asian businesses demand strenuous proof of identity and extra evidence of trustworthiness before doing business with you.

All About The Nigerian 419 Advance Fee Fraud – Also Known As The Check Cashing Scam (For Those Not Familiar With What They Are)

The classic Nigerian 419 scam has been around for a long time but scam success didn’t fully take off until the advent of the Internet and the World Wide Web. The country of Nigeria has all the essential ingredients that has enabled it to become the worldwide hub of Internet and computer crimes. The country is not only dirt poor, but unemployment is incredibly high, and the government is hopelessly corrupt and incompetent. The country also happens to be an English speaking nation – making it all the more easier for select scammers to communicate with their primarily English speaking victims all over the world. The 419 numeric designation refers to the Nigerian Criminal Code that covers the crime of fraudulently obtaining property through false pretenses. Unfortunately the 419 criminal code is a mockery of the Nigerian legal and criminal enforcement system as the laws in that country are frequently ignored and flaunted, thereby allowing scammers and spammers to run rampant with little fear of accountability. The Nigerian 419 scams have recently developed into a world wide epidemic of Internet fraud crimes that have branched and spun off into other criminal areas such as: charity scams, romance scams, lottery scams, and even threats of violence and extortion scams.

In its most common form, the Nigerian 419 fraud is also known as the Nigerian advance fee scam. The process works by its ability to successfully build trust and emotional confidence with the alleged victim over time, and ultimately persuade him or her to provide confidential financial information or to send sums of money for the possibility of a much larger gain in return. The scam appeals to human greed and the fallible desire to inherently trust others. Through easy and unregulated access to Internet cafe computers and connections, Nigerian scammers have been able to harvest e-mail addresses and contact information to use in their elaborate scams. With potential victim contact information in hand, they usually submit massive amounts of electronic letters to recipients though deceptive means such as spoofed email letters, and cleverly disguised and graphically adorned emails that hide their malicious intent and true source. Oftentimes they’ll write and pretend to be a wealthy heiress or someone who is terminally ill and dying from a disease like cancer, and plead with the recipient for an amount of money in exchange for the promise that they will pay back the amount plus more. Oftentimes they will cleverly claim that they have access to or are in control of a vast financial fortune to which they would be willing to offer the recipient a huge portion as a reward if he or she would provide some upfront money first.

These scam letters are frequently very, very elaborate, as they often disguise the email meta headers to make them seem like they came from legitimate sources such as governmental agencies (like the classic IRS email scam letter for example). Sometimes the headers aren’t even disguised all that well, but the messages still contain content indicative of a mass spam campaign to artificially inflate the stock price of a particular financial investment (penny stock scam spam). Oftentimes they’ll make references to real life current events such as tragic disasters or make reference to official business developments such as laying claim to being connected with some wealthy foreign business developer in the news. Oftentimes they utilize fake phone numbers that can’t be tracked down. One common ploy of the advance fee scam is to send the recipient a fraudulent Western Union or fake personal check for a very large amount of money, and write to the recipient to apologize for the excess amount that was sent and ask for a portion back in supposed good faith. The recipient, thinking he or she will get to keep a large portion for their services, deposits the fake check and cuts out a legitimate sum of money that he or she then sends to the scammers. In time, the check will undoubtedly bounce, forcing the recipient to swallow his or her losses with the bank – an unfortunate result that still happens despite attempts to thoroughly educate the public on the prevalence of Internet scams and how they work.

Source URL: Nigerian 419 Scams and Spam Emails Are Funny But They Make Me Paranoid

Copyright Protected © 2008 Money Blue Book: Personal Finance Blog. All Rights Reserved.

As you can tell, I am not too fond of tow truck drivers. My disdain also carries over to others in the parking profession, including but not limited to opportunistic car booters and sneaky meter maids who dart from car to car with their little hand held tri-corder gadgets, tucking tickets under windshield wipers and escaping before the driver comes back and catches them in the act. While these parking ticketers bug me somewhat, they don’t irritate me as much as tow truck drivers. Perhaps it’s because parking ticket fines are usually not as financially hefty or as personally offensive as getting your car manhandled and forcibly hauled away by a stranger. Most of the time, I see tow truck drivers as nothing but conniving, predatory, and opportunistic vultures who feast on the vulnerable and distracted plight of unsuspecting drivers.

Just Watching Others Get Their Cars Towed In Their Absence Irritates Me

A few years ago I lived near a shopping center located next to a major Metro subway station. Every morning as I walked to the station to take the train to work, I witnessed the daily spectacle of tow truck sharks preying on those who failed to notice the no parking warning signs for non patrons. At the start of every morning rush, like clockwork precision, several red tow trucks would park themselves in partially hidden locations throughout the shopping center parking lot, embed themselves among the other cars, and lie in wait for subway commuters to improperly park their cars and walk away. Oftentimes as I walked by their tow trucks, I could see the drivers eating their breakfast sandwiches behind the steering wheel as they waited. As soon as the commuters had walked out of sight and demonstrated that they weren’t parking their cars so they could shop at a plaza store, the tow trucks would take turns swooping in, jacking up each vehicle one by one, and speeding away with their precious cargo like a thief in the night – racking up an instant $150 towing fee for each car, plus an extra $25 per day service charge for the cost of daily impounding. What a lucrative but conniving racket.

The livelihood of tow truck drivers is based on their ability to successfully hide in the bushes with their getaway vehicles and lie in wait for hapless drivers to make a parking mistake or slip up. In their eyes, a breach is a breach – if you park past a certain white line, that means you’re going to get towed – there’s little mercy. When that happens, it’s almost a given that at least one tow truck vulture will pop out from the shadows and holler “Gotcha!” as he gleefully impounds your vehicle with cranes and hauls it away to the junkyard. I don’t really care much for their self righteous claims that they are simply doing their jobs. They purport to follow the law and abide by no parking signs, but the reality is that oftentimes these warnings signs are not always sufficiently clear, evident, or easily understandable. The whole towing business is absolutely ripe for unchecked, unaccountable, and abusive practices.

A&E’s Parking Wars Reality Television Show Tries To Humanize The Entertaining Lives Of Tow Truck Drivers, Car Booters, and Meter Maids – But They Still Come Off As Jerks, Albeit Funny Jerks

I guess the world of reality TV shows has finally come down to this – an entire show devoted to the people we all love to hate. Yes, they get yelled at, cursed at, bird flipped, and harassed, but apparently they have feelings too as well as stories to tell. The A&E Channel has released a not-so-new anymore show called Parking Wars that follows the daily working lives of parking meter maids, tow truck drivers, and grunts who make a living from slapping indestructible boots onto vehicle wheels. For those who’ve always wanted to know what it’s like to work on the seedy side of the parking business, this show does a good job of telling it like it is – through the daily lenses of the ticketers and the towers.

While the show infuses the parking meter maids and tow truck drivers with some personality and offers a glimpse into their gritty service with a smile lifestyle, they still come off as predatory and opportunistic hounds who howl with delight when they successfully snag and trap a potential victim – a person who probably was simply at the wrong spot at the wrong time. It’s clear these vultures get a kick from handing out tickets and I’m sure they feel a rush of superior adrenaline when they get to flex their powerful authority by taking away some one’s valuable vehicular possession. Street signs confusing or yellow no parking lines not easily apparent? Tough luck! Ticket and tow, and ask questions later – for they are the law. After all, what is the ordinary layperson going to do – spend thousands of hopeless dollars and file a lawsuit over a $200 towing charge or a $300 booted car fee?

In an episode of Parking Wars, the camera trailed one particular meter maid as she ducked behind a building corner and waited for the right opportunity to pounce – taking a few moments to bask in the inquisitive glory of the A&E camera crew. It was 3:55 p.m. on a weekday and she was waiting near a downtown city street that was close to rush hour time. According to warning signs, street parking was prohibited at the start of rush hour, designated at 4:00 p.m. The parking girl chatted away about how much of a rush she got from ticketing people and the excitement of giving them out. As soon as her watch ticked 4:00 p.m., she eagerly dashed out to begin her ticketing raid, working her way from one side of the street and down the row of parked cars that were now illegally parked on the street. In the distance the camera crew could see a few worried drivers run towards their vehicles, trying to beat the parking violation clock. Some successfully ducked into their vehicles and drove off before their cars were ticketed while others beat it only by a few minutes. One driver who received a ticket only a few seconds before he arrived back protested. However, the parking meter maid was unrelenting and refused to rescind tickets already written.

In one case we had two individuals who verbally protested their ticket concerns to the meter maid over a broken and easily missed no parking sign that was literally dangling upside down. However, their complaints fell on deaf ears as the quota driven ticketing attendant offered no sympathy. Those drivers who parked in the spot guarded by the upside down, broken sign perhaps had a very legitimate lack of proper notice defense. A reasonable driver would not have been able to read the signs as they may not have been readily apparent to a reasonable person. I recently experienced a similar parking ticket scenario. I received a small parking ticket in a neighborhood where there were no visible signs denoting the side street I was parked on as restricted parking. While there were signs elsewhere, there were none readily apparent where I had parked. Luckily I had my digital camera on me at the time, which I used to take photographs of my parked vehicle and the surrounding signs and street shots to prove my case. However, other people are not always as fortunate and most are at the authoritative whims and mercy of parking ticketers.

It’s A Rude And Dirty Job But Somebody Has To Do It… I Suppose

Yes they are financial predators that profit from the absent-mindedness of hapless drivers but I suppose they do serve a legitimate societal purpose. None of them are ever going to win a popularity contest but on some level I suppose they are just dutifully doing their job. After all, some do come to our rescue and save drivers who are stuck in a ditch or have a flat tire on the side of the road, and I’m sure some do a great job of clearing away road blockages and making our highways and local streets more passable. A tow truck did come to my rescue when I spun off the icy highway and into a ditch in upstate New York during one particularly bad winter storm last year. Occasionally, commendable credit is due.

But my biggest concern with the parking authority is that oftentimes, drivers are powerless to protect themselves against improper tows, unfair tickets, or even against scrape and scratch damages to our vehicles caused by improper and negligent towing techniques. Oftentimes it’s simply your word against theirs. I suppose the only real solution is to just stay out of their way if possible. Follow street signs to the letter, timely feed the meters, and don’t park in a spot if you have any doubts. That way, none of us will ever have to learn our parking lessons the hard way and find ourselves as entertaining sideshow victims on Parking Wars.

Source URL: “Parking Wars” Reinforces Why I Dislike Tow Truck Drivers

Copyright Protected © 2008 Money Blue Book: Personal Finance Blog. All Rights Reserved.

If you’ve ever encountered sites on the internet that claimed to offer brand new laptop computers, mp3 players, or even plasma TV’s for free, I’m sure most of you jumped to the immediate conclusion that they must all be scams. Well, on some level you may be correct and your initial instincts serve you well. But the misleading deception is not that they don’t actually give out laptops, it’s that these so-called free laptop offers do require some up front financial commitment and mandatory participation in a few monthly subscription programs. However, if you have a keen eye for seeking out deals that require the least amount of out-of-pocket effort, and know how to manipulate the rules by taking advantage of free trial offers, it’s possible to walk away with a brand new laptop for only a fraction of its fair market value.

What I’m about to share may be time consuming and require almost anal, obsessive compulsive organizational skills, but the potential payoff at the end is quite substantial. For those of you who need the laptop or fancy electronic gadget right away, you probably won’t have the patience for what this process demands. The procedure takes some time to complete and requires a lot of waiting – up to four months usually from start to finish. To successfully game the system and earn your almost free reward product you will need to be detail-oriented and willing to exercise patience and follow directions to the letter. If you follow these instructions, you should be able to beat the gift reward system and earn your prize – whether it be a free laptop, Ipod, Xbox, Playstation, or even a free plasma TV. The gift reward process does work, but it is heavily dependent on your own persistence and ability to successfully micromanage your offers to completion. If you are the type to give up easily or freak out in despair at the first sign of trouble, I don’t recommend any of this for you since you will likely crash and burn. For everyone else – good luck!

Background About Gift Reward Websites That Offer Free Laptops and Other Free Promotions

You may have heard about these websites that offer customers the chance to earn a free gift reward – usually an expensive prize like a notebook computer or even a plasma television set. I see these offers all the time and sometimes I even hear a few success stories here and there from friends (as well as a few horror stories) – but I never paid them much attention. I always assumed they were either spam offers or websites run by scammers. However it looks like some of these free gift reward companies are now branching out into mainstream media – running radio commercials, television spots, and featuring online banner advertisements on various websites.

These companies usually run a large number of similarly designed websites touting free laptops, free iPhones and an assortment of so-called free products. In exchange for you signing up yourself and/or referring a few friends to some of the company’s paid services, the company is willing to offer you a free reward. Some programs only require that you yourself participate in select offers, while others require you to refer friends, family, and strangers. Personally I recommend staying away from referral programs since I think they are too much trouble. Ultimately, the reward provider makes money because the sponsors and affiliate programs they promote pay them a lot of money in the form of incentives and commissions for advertising their products. By requiring you and I to sign up for paid products and subscriptions, the prize company makes a lot of money through referrals, which they in turn use a portion of to buy gift rewards for those that qualify for redemption. The way to beat the system is to make sure you cancel your paid programs before the end of free trial periods, or at the very least after fulfilling the prize terms to minimize your overall expenditure. Even for those gift reward programs that limit the number of cancellations to a certain number, you can still seek out the least costly programs to participate in for the mandatory length of time.

The reality is that not all customers will successfully complete the reward redemption procedure and many end up paying more money for unnecessary services than the ultimate value of their reward. The prize system works because the company knows that a sizable portion of customers will fail to follow the rules and procedure and not fulfill the terms to qualify for their reward. This method of working the odds is also how credit card companies make so much money off of promotions like 0% balance transfer offers. They count on a certain percentage of people to fail to make the business enterprise financially profitable. But you can choose to be part of that percentage that does succeed. If you follow the rules to the letter and document your receipts, as well as stick to the terms and conditions, you may be one of those that come out on top.

Some may say these types of offers are nothing but scams, but frankly they are really no different than your so-called reputable mobile phone company offering you a “free cell phone” with a new 2 year long term cellular contract. The word “free” is loosely defined these days in the business world. These companies and websites probably need to put a bigger asterisk by the word “free,” and indicate more prominently that additional terms and conditions apply. However, I think consumers need to take it upon themselves to read the fine print more carefully. In the world of free gift reward websites, the word “free” does not mean that the customer pays nothing out of pocket whatsoever – there is no such business model that could survive this way. When they say “free”, what they mean is that the customer pays nothing directly to obtain the product, say a free laptop, but may have to subscribe and enroll in a few participating product promos to qualify. These product offers frequently do require financial commitment, but only for the length of time required for reward program fulfillment (usually 1-2 months). In many cases you can cancel the paid monthly subscriptions within the free trial period without incurring a charge. Of course, each reward program’s terms and conditions vary so please read carefully.

Separating Scam Sites From The Safe, Legitimate Gift Reward Programs

You should never trust any reward site without first performing a detailed investigation into the company’s business practice and identity, and thoroughly going over its terms and conditions. Just because a website looks legitimate doesn’t make it so. You must also verify its identity to make sure you can trace and track down the company’s customer support staff before engaging with it. As a lawyer myself, I always want to know the identity and primary business location of the company I’m dealing with in the event I need to file a lawsuit against the company for any possible future breach of contract or civil fraud claim.

One thing to note is that these free gift reward companies are not the most pristinely run operations. Their business model naturally generates a lot of angry customers and commentators who are particularly vocal about expressing their views on websites like Rip Off Report. However, you should also keep in mind that the world is frankly filled with quite a few absent minded people who simply cannot follow directions. While I’m sure the majority of the scam reports are legitimate, I think there is a substantial number that are written by disgruntled people who simply failed to follow directions and rules set forth by the company. The terms and conditions written by the company is a obligatory contract between you and them that goes into effect once you sign up and start participating in their reward program. It’s important to follow the terms in great detail. Of course, this only applies to legitimate gift reward websites.

To Separate the Scammers From the Legit Businesses, You Must Do the Following:

1. Verify Its Identity – The quickest and most direct way to verify a company’s identity is to examine the information listed on the website. There should be a Customer Support, About Us, or Contact Us section where the company lists its identity and contact information. Legitimate websites ought to be transparent and you should be able to find and verify business identity information with relative ease. If you find a website that does not provide a telephone number or mailing address, I would advise you to be extra careful. Scam websites usually only include an anonymous contact form, without including an actual mailing address or verifiable phone number. There are also other ways to verify a company’s legitimacy, including checking out the website’s Who Is Internet registry information. Legitimate companies usually list their registry information openly, complete with actual addresses and verifiable phone numbers. If the company’s information is hidden or anonymous, you should be extra careful and suspicious.
2. Check Its Business Track Record – I usually run a few Google word searches to see if the company’s name comes up anywhere. This helps with verifying identity and checking out the company’s business track record. I’m looking to see whether it has a history of scamming people and whether it’s under investigation. Oftentimes gift reward companies will show up on sites like Rip Off Report, but you shouldn’t be immediately deterred by these consumer reviews without further investigation of your own. Use your own judgment about the reward provider and determine for yourself how trustworthy and reliable the program is. Remember, even great mainstream companies are bound to have a few customers here and there that simply have an unfounded grudge against them. You should also look the company up on the Better Business Bureau website. Keep in mind that companies frequently have multiple aliases and run similar operations under different names. If you find a phone number, you should try test calling to see if you can speak to a live person to verify the company’s authenticity.
3. Read The Terms And Conditions Carefully – It’s crucial to read the terms and conditions of the website very carefully. I recommend saving the terms and conditions web page to your desktop by going to your browser window menu and selecting “Save As”. This will allow you to retain the text in the form you found it and will help you keep a record in the event some sneaky company decides to secretly change their terms and offers without letting you know. Remember, this is your contract with the company. If something goes wrong and you must file a civil lawsuit or pursue a legal complaint against the company, this contract will lay out the details of your claim.

How To Beat the Gift Reward Process and Earn Your Almost Free Laptop Or Plasma TV

The first step is to obviously find a site that offers so-called free rewards. There are many of them out there and I don’t recommend any of them in particular, but they shouldn’t be too hard to find. In the future I will cite a few website examples and discuss my experiences with specific programs, but for now I leave the program search to you. Most of them show up in searches for “free laptops”, “free ipods”, and “free plasma TV’s”. Keep in mind that not all reward programs are legitimate.

Every reward program is different and specific terms and conditions vary so it’s important you actually read each program’s contractual details carefully before you even think of participating. However, their business models and the way they work are generally the same. There are two types of free reward programs – sites that don’t require referrals and sites that do. Personally I hate referral programs because I don’t like to bother my friends and family with spam and somewhat shady offers. If I’m going to get involved in some make money scheme/scam or reward program, I’d rather it only affect me and leave everyone out of it. That’s why I advise everyone to avoid offers that require referrals altogether. They are too much of a hassle and will likely upset the people you send those offers to. Once again, always seek out the fine print. Read everything carefully.

1) Before you start, be sure you have properly verified the identity of the reward website and make sure you have assured yourself that the business is indeed trustworthy. Make sure you document every step of the way by saving to your computer the contents of all offer listings and pages containing terms and conditions. You should also take a screenshot of each page or make a paper printout of the offer terms. Having full documentation is very important and will ultimately save you from a major mistake. It may mean the difference of you receiving your “free” laptop or finding yourself disqualified from receiving your reward.

2) Usually the reward website starts out by asking you to select your free reward. This part is meant to sucker you in and get you overly excited about the prospect of receiving an expensive product like a laptop, Ipod, desktop computer, or cell phone. Make your selection carefully since you usually can’t change your reward choice later after it’s made. The site will usually require you to submit your e-mail address right from the start. Never enter your primary personal e-mail address. You should always use an alternate or fake one from Yahoo, Gmail, or Hotmail because your account will be spammed. However, the spam is part of the program concession and needs to be tolerated if you are to fulfill the program’s terms.

3) Next, the website will usually ask you where it should send your free gift. This is when you have to enter your name, phone number, and address. Keep in mind that the mailing address you submit will likely be the target of any paid promotion they send you and may cause you to receive some junk mail for at least the duration of the promotion. If you want a fake phone number, you can always generate a free phone number online.

4) Some programs require that you refer a certain number of people and get them to sign up for the same product offers. I highly advise against getting into programs that require referrals. You don’t want to alienate your friends, family, or even strangers over this. I prefer non-referral websites since you work on your own and don’t have to annoy anybody. If your reward website is asking you to submit a list of your friend’s e-mail addresses, ditch them and move on to another website.

5) The program will usually run you through a long list of short introductory surveys and ask if you want information on any number of products from pills, to coupons, to student loans, to strange male enhancement products, to crazy nutritional supplements. Just say no to all offers and make sure you clearly click no to every request. Clicking yes will likely result in unnecessary junk mail or unwanted promotional samples to be sent to you. Furthermore, none of these initial offers usually count towards your “free” reward product.

6) The next part demands the most work and requires extra attention to detail-oriented record keeping. After the intro survey, you will likely encounter one or multiple web pages filled with advertisement offers. You will be instructed to select a certain number of product offers from each page by clicking on the desired link and signing up through it. There can be anywhere from 5 to 40 total offers that you have to choose from. Depending on the program details, you may have to select anywhere from 5-10 of them total (but of course it varies). Usually as you progress from one offer page to another, the product terms become more restrictive and expensive. The first page usually contains the least expensive products followed by more expensive and more difficult to fulfill offers. Some reward websites may require you to pick a certain number of offers from each page. For example, one notable reward website separates offer pages by “silver”, “gold”, and “platinum” labels – requiring 2 offers from “silver”, 2 offers from “gold”, and 6 offers from the more restrictive and expensive “platinum” page.

I recommend completing all of your required offers in one sitting to better track your reward completion. Before you sign up for any offer, read through each product carefully, saving and printing out the pages of the ones you are interested in. Here is where you compare offers and determine whether the particular offer is too expensive or has too restrictive of a return policy. Most of the advertisers do offer free introductory trial periods ranging from a week to a month. Before the trial period is up, you are usually free to cancel and get your money back, minus shipping and handling (although sometimes shipping is also refunded). Remember that you are committing yourself to these product offers. Make sure the individual products have return and refund terms that are clearly stated so you don’t get stuck with a permanent supply of useless furniture, foreign language tapes, or herbal supplements you don’t need.

7) Signing up for mandatory product offers will require the use of a credit card. I don’t recommend using a debit card because you want the purchase protections offered by credit cards in case something goes wrong and you either need to cancel your card number or need to protest an unauthorized transaction. Some of these advertisers have a habit of overcharging or continuing to charge even after customer cancellation. Thus you want all the purchase protection you can get.

8) I can’t overemphasize the importance of documenting everything. You should create a table, chart, or spreadsheet of all your product offer names followed by the offer details, including the page the offer was found on (”gold”, “silver” etc), estimated weekly or monthly cost, proposed cancellation date, and a section to indicate whether the item’s fulfillment has been verified by the reward program provider. If the reward provider limits the number of program cancellations, you will want to clearly delineate that on your spreadsheet.

Save every single piece of material you have on all offers you participate in. Run screen shots, print out pages, and save entire web pages that contain information about terms and conditions. In the event something goes wrong, you will need this documentation to prove that you genuinely fulfilled the terms of the offer and are qualified to receive your almost-free gift reward. You don’t want to go through all this for nothing.

9) After submitting your minimum required number of offers, you should regularly check your account to see when the offers have been fulfilled. Usually reward providers require you to fulfill their terms in 60 days to qualify for your “free” laptop or whatever reward you selected (the length of time varies). Your account should have a link location where you can check your gift reward status and verify that the advertiser products have been fulfilled and completed. Usually the advertisers are responsible for notifying the free reward center that you have successfully completed their offer, but that is not always the case. Sometimes the companies forget to report back to the reward provider site. In that case, you will have to bring forth your printed out proof or scanned documentation to verify that you are in compliance. That is why complete documentation is so important. These reward companies are notorious for forgetting to log your program completion.

10) If the terms and conditions permit returns, you should return most of the products you ordered. If that is the case, you should do so at the earliest opportunity to halt the monthly subscriptions fees and prevent yourself from going over any free trial period. Be sure to return the product for a credit and refund if that is required. Once again, make sure you document all returns as well. Note that some reward provider programs limit the number of product cancellations you can make – so keep that in mind before you cancel a product. You don’t want to violate the terms.

Final Thoughts About These “Free” Gift Reward Programs

Keep in mind that you are responsible for all federal, state, and local taxes for rewards that you receive since the rewards will likely be deemed taxable income. While tax reporting policies vary, many legitimate reward providers will report your gift receipts to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to comply with federal and state tax codes. On your own tax return, you will likely have to report the fair market value of the items received.

In my next post about How To Get A Free Laptop, I will review the Gift Reward Center. They run a whole bunch of online websites that you may have seen before but never paid much attention to. They’ve endured a whole slew of legal and customer complaints, but after changing their terms and policies, they seem to have stayed in business. Currently they are deemed a legitimate business by the Better Business Bureau despite numerous complaints. Their business practice leaves a lot to be desired but so long as they are a legitimate operation, their gift reward system can be beaten.

Source URL: How To Get A Free Laptop or Plasma TV Through Gift Reward Websites

Copyright Protected © 2008 Money Blue Book: Personal Finance Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Because of the power of compound interest, it is never too early to start saving for your future and planning your retirement nest egg. The earlier you start taking advantage of tax deferred investments, the more money you’ll have to live on when retirement rolls around. Don’t count on dying young to relieve you of the need to save either. Statistics show that improvements in medical technology and lifestyle changes, coupled with increased health awareness are extending our lives longer than before.

For the younger, single people out there, I know it can be strange discussing retirement so early on, but you must remember that your actions now have a huge impact on your future welfare. The cash you invest today in a tax deferred retirement account has a disproportionately more significant impact on your wealth level than money invested later. Don’t delay or keep putting it off – even catch up contributions won’t be much help if you wait too long to save for retirement.

When it comes to saving for retirement, there are a variety of tax deferred options such as the common employer sponsored 401K plan. But there is also the Traditional Investment Retirement Account (IRA) and the Roth IRA. Both are excellent ways to save for the future but you must be mindful of IRS rules when funding them – by being aware of the annual contribution limits, the contribution deadlines, and the applicable income phaseout ranges. I’ve created a list of helpful tables that cover the most important funding rules below. The income phaseouts listed on the charts are based on modified adjusted gross income (modified AGI or MAGI), which is derived by adding certain income factors back to the adjusted gross income. If you want further extra clarification, check out the official IRS explanation page for more information about AGI and MAGI calculation. For the majority of taxpayers, the modified adjusted gross income number will oftentimes be the same as their regular adjusted gross income.

1) Traditional IRA and Roth IRA Contribution Deadlines

With certain exceptions made for weekends, the April 15 deadline for filing your federal income tax is also the deadline for investors to make their final Traditional IRA and Roth IRA contributions for the closing tax year. For example, April 15, 2009 is the contribution deadline to make a IRA or Roth contribution towards the 2008 limit. After that date, all contribution money will go towards the 2009 tax year limit. This differs from a 401K, which has a contribution deadline that ends on December 31 of the tax year. Thus you should never miss the final deadline to contribute for the prior year. Contribution limits for the IRA and the Roth are considered by the IRS to be “used it or lose it” benefits. Those who fail to contribute the maximum allowed contribution to their IRA or Roth by the deadline, forfeit the limit for that year.

Note that even if you’ve already filed your tax return before April 15, you can still contribute to your IRA or Roth by the filing deadline, so long as you file an amended 1040X return thereafter to declare it.

2) Traditional IRA and Roth IRA Annual Contribution Limits

Qualification to contribute to an IRA or Roth account requires the contributing taxpayer to have earned income or taxable compensation, comprised of wages, salaries, fees, tips, commissions, bonuses, and taxable alimony. While the traditional IRA is available to all with no income restrictions or contribution phaseouts (not to be confused with IRA deduction limits), only the Roth reduces and limits your contribution if your income goes above certain levels. However for both the IRA and Roth, you are permitted to contribute the lesser of the normal contribution limit noted below or the entire amount of your total taxable income. You are not required to contribute the full amount but you cannot exceed the contribution limit. Those who are 50 years old or older are entitled to higher contribution limits called “catch ups” to help them expedite the pace of their investment.

Another thing to keep in mind is that for married couples, both the husband and wife may make separate contributions to their own individual retirement accounts, even if one of them is not working. This has the potential to effectively double the combined total they may contribute as a married couple.

3) Roth IRA Contribution Phase Out Due To Higher Income

Unlike the IRA which has no contribution phaseouts due to income, the amount of money that may be contributed to a Roth IRA per year is dependent on tax filing status, modified adjusted gross income, as well as age. Once the contributor reaches a certain modified AGI level, his or her maximum Roth contribution limit may be phased out or gradually eliminated in linear fashion. The phaseouts in the chart above show income ranges that span between a floor and a ceiling. Those with income below the lower floor amount may contribute the maximum amount. Those that exceed the higher ceiling are completely phased out and will not be permitted to contribute to a Roth IRA for that year. Of course, they can always still contribute to a traditional IRA.

Because the phaseout range is liner, if your income fell precisely in the middle of the income range, you would only be able to contribute 50% of the maximum Roth contribution limit shown above. Keep in mind that IRA and Roth’s share the same combined contribution limit. You may open multiple accounts, but the total contribution amount cannot exceed the limit.

4) Income Phase Out For The Traditional IRA Contribution Deduction

Traditional IRA’s, unlike the Roth, offer a unique tax benefit – contributors may be qualified to take a tax deduction on the amount they contribute. However, whether the entire amount can be deducted or only partially deducted from income depends on factors including tax filing status and income range.

An important factor that affects the phase out range is whether the contributor is already an active participant in an employer sponsored retirement plan, such as a 401K from work. For those who already participate in such a plan, their IRA contribution deductions are phased out quicker and at lower income levels than those who don’t participate in such a plan.

For married couples, if neither you nor your spouse participate in such a plan, the entire amount you are qualified to contribute towards your IRA may be deducted from income. If either of you participates in such a plan however, then deductibility depends on your tax filing status. There are two tables below – one for those covered under an employer plan, and the second one for those who are not. For those who are not personally covered by an employer plan, different rules apply if their spouses are covered (Spouse Covered) and for those whose spouses are not (Spouse Not).

For Those Who Are Covered By An Employer Sponsored Retirement Plan:

For Those Who Are NOT Covered by An Employer Sponsored Retirement Plan:

So what are you waiting for? Go open a Roth IRA right now! If you don’t qualify due to income phaseout, then at the very least you should go open a Traditional IRA.

Source URL: Traditional and Roth IRA Contribution Limits and Income Phase Outs

Copyright Protected © 2008 Money Blue Book: Personal Finance Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Exposing Money Making Get Rich Quick Infomercials

When most people have gone to sleep, the roaches come out to play. The vast majority of late light commercials fall into the slummy get rich quick category. Most are slickly produced sales pitches for useless packages containing rehashed literature and DVD tapes about how to earn big bucks flipping houses, dabbling in cash flow notes, or making money on eBay. Of all the late night infomercials, the one that really sticks in my mind is the so-called Shortcuts to Internet Millions gimmick being hawked by a guy named Jeff Paul. It’s not the fact that he is selling information that can easily be read and obtained online for free that makes me mentally nauseous and annoyed, it’s the gratuitous visual sales tactics that he uses to sucker gullible consumers into buying his promises of money making fortune. His commercials are full of ridiculous and extremely misleading assertions. Simply after watching his commercials for a few minutes, I felt my own IQ slipping down a few notches.

Without a doubt, it’s mostly the targeted male viewers, who despite their better judgment and gut instincts, still blindly succumb to the song of the financial siren. I guess many men find it hard to resist the message and promises of making millions when they are being flirtatiously whispered by beautiful curvy women surrounded by other attractive visual displays of lavish pools, opulent mansions, and luxury vehicles. Despite a world where society and the media continue to be pressured toward political correctness, in the world of advertising and product promotion, several sad truisms still ring true – “there’s a sucker born every minute” and “sex sells.” Much of these tactics are keenly and specifically demonstrated by the Shortcuts to Internet Millions infomercials.

Here are five of the more exploitive (but very effective) infomercial tactics used:

1) The Use Of Flirty Female Hosts To Mesmerize and Make The Sale – Without a shadow of a doubt, the use of sexual imagery is very effective at capturing the attention of the mostly male target audience. For the record, I want to make it very clear (to minimize email complaints), that I am moderately liberal in my social views. I don’t think there is anything wrong with women dressing up the way they want in real life. I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is the use of this sleazy and blatant form of exploitation and allure to sell a product that frankly has nothing to do with the associated imagery – something I feel insults my intelligence.

The Shortcuts to Internet Millions infomercials feature two noticeably attractive and perky hosts, Kelly Britz and Tina Milano, as they gush and chat about how much money they are each making on the internet using the program. They go on and on about how it’s so easy and magical, and how all their (presumably very attractive) girlfriends are all logging on and getting into the online affiliate money making business without so much as breaking a sweat. Right……

The attempt at sexual innuendo is not even subtle. It’s not merely two attractive women sitting on sofas having a pleasant discussion about their unbelievable passion for internet marketing. We are talking about two very, very, very prominently endowed women bearing their bare cleavages, while gushing about how easy it was for them to make thousands of dollars a week through eBay with just a few mouse clicks – without having any knowledge or prior experience with computers or the internet. It’s like Jeff Paul swiped two girls from the preceding Girls Gone Wild commercial and handed them microphones so they can blab away about how they magically made money on this thing called eBay. Wearing extremely low cut tops as they chatted away on screen, the stereotypical bombshells offered zero credibility in my eyes and likely in the eyes of most serious consumers as well. However, in a warped way, their mere presence got my attention and likely the focus of many male viewers, and sadly, perhaps even luring a few into handing over their credit card numbers to order the ridiculous product.

2) Obsession With Associating Everything With Magic – Why do they insist on making the attractive female hosts seem so naive and brainless? “Do you really know how your e-mail magically appears on your computer screen?” one of them quizzes. The female genius then offers a few more “magical” references, concluding her powerful and persuasive argument of, “If you can type on your keyboard and click your mouse you can do this.” By golly, she’s right!

In the world of the Jeff Paul Shortcuts to Internet Millions’ infomercial, everything seems to magically appear – especially with the program’s so-called “3 Clicks To Cash” process. You type in your information and voila, your new business website “magically appears on the internet”. You send an email, and the words get “magically sent”. You don’t even need to do any work or online promotion because money will just “magically get earned” and checks will “magically come flying to you”. After all, the internet is just one magical fairyland where everyone magically makes money right? Try telling that to all the multi-million dollar dot com startups that went bust in 2000.

3) The Joke That Computer and Internet Illiterates Can Still Become Online Millionaires – I’m sorry to burst the combined delusional bubbles of Jeff Paul and his two babes, but making money on the internet requires a lot of computer and internet knowhow. Getting started online is easy – anyone can start up a basic template website. But to truly become a successful online entrepreneur requires substantial amounts of trial and experience, as well as committed dedication towards effort and learning, whether it be with eBay or any other online medium. It can be done but the process requires skills beyond mere flipping through a few book pages or clicking a few mouse keys to get your simple turnkey website on the web. To successfully promote your site and make money, you have to rank high in the search engines, particularly Google, which is a competitive and time consuming task. It requires that you not only roll up your sleeves, immerse yourself in the subject, but also dedicate lots of time to developing the business. No one makes money on the internet overnight. Those who think they can will be taken for a magic carpet ride that ends nowhere. If we were to buy into the program’s sad and misguided logic, then even computer newbies like my mom and dad could easily become internet millionaire tycoons with just a few instant mouse clicks.

4) The Idea That You Don’t Need To Have Your Own Line Of eBay Products Because You Can Easily Make Money From Drop Shipping – It’s so sad that people fall for this particular sales pitch. Drop ship products are merchandise that the manufacturer agrees to ship directly to the consumer without the merchant having to take possession for shipment. The fallacy is that it is lucrative and allows anyone with a website to make a ton of money. The reality is that drop ship products are the absolute worst when it comes to profiting from eBay sales and making money online. Sure it’s convenient, but because there is little buying risk to you as the eBay merchant, the so-called wholesale prices you obtain are not really wholesale at all. As such, profit margins are virtually non-existent and in fact, after eBay fees and transaction costs, you will almost always lost money or simply break even if you’re lucky.

Furthermore, most of the drop ship products are items that already face saturated competition on the internet and eBay, further driving down the selling price and negating any profit potential. Most of these drop ship products are also pretty lame and you will almost never find any hot products like top of the line electronics for drop shipment. To truly get eBay wholesale product prices, you need to buy in huge bulk from the manufacturer, which obviously requires tremendous upfront capital investment and the unavoidable carrying of substantial inventory risk.

5) The Sales Gimmick That Revolves Around the Giving Away Of Free But Traffic-Less Websites – The Shortcuts To Internet Millions program seems to be feel that they are providing the buyer a great offer by giving away ten supposedly free websites as incentives. The reality is that most of these sites are template turnkey sites that can be easily and instantaneously cranked out and given away – a million of them at a time. Without organic internet traffic, which takes weeks, months and even years to build, they are useless.

Do the hosts ever talk about how the new website owner is going to successfully drive online traffic to the site? Of course not. Because if consumers knew how much work they would have to put in, they would lose their greedy interest. Free websites are worthless if you don’t have the knowhow to generate links and build online traffic. Big companies spent thousands and millions of dollars promoting and advertising their sites all over the web. Do you think a simple consumer with 10 free template websites is going to somehow trump them all and rake in the sales overnight? Of course not.

There is a reason why although thousands of new online entrepreneurs jump onto the internet money making bandwagon every second, only a tiny percentage of them ultimately survive. Internet success takes a massive amount of online advertising and social link building to generate traffic. It takes a lot of time to investigate, research, and learn from others as well. Having a new commercial website without traffic, even one given to you for free, is nothing more than taking on a piece of trash. Even if the infomercial promised you a thousand free websites – all you would be getting in your possession, without weeks and months of computer training and internet expertise, would be a thousand heaps of trash – nothing more.

My Recommendation If You Really Want To Make Money Online Or Become A Successful eBay Entrepreneur

For one thing, you should stay away from the late night infomercials. Watch them for the eye candy entertainment whatnot, but don’t even think about buying products through those late night shows. With the wealth of free information that’s available on the internet, there is no need to buy the information from some late night salesman. Please don’t be gullible and let your sense of greed cloud your better judgment. If you want to learn something about making money on the internet or want to know more about internet marketing strategies, you are better off following the blogs of proven online entrepreneurs such as John Chow, Darren Rowse, or Shoe Money. You’ll learn more about affiliate marketing, online blogging tips, and search engine optimization tactics from them than from any product toting guy or hot female hosts on TV. At least you won’t have to deal with the subsequent and continuous upsell attempts to get you to buy more expensive package upgrades, paid training, or costly mentoring services prevalent among these get rich quick infomercials. If you must throw your money away, buy one of those As Seen On TV Magic Bullet fruit blenders or something.

Source URL: Making Fun Of Late Night Infomercials Using Hotties With Assets To Sell Get Rich Schemes

Copyright Protected © 2008 Money Blue Book: Personal Finance Blog. All Rights Reserved.

No Lines And Half Priced Tickets – My Happy Experience At King’s Dominion

It doesn’t matter which amusement park you visit – if you want to fully maximize your time and money spent, I highly advise you to visit during off-peak season, such as the very start of the park season. Amusement park opening dates and hours vary and are dependent on the climate of where the premises is located. Parks located in sunny Los Angeles such as Six Flags Magic Mountain, or located in Florida such as Walt Disney World, enjoy year round park hours due to having annually mild temperatures. Unfortunately in my case, parks located in the Maryland, Virginia, and D.C. area are not year round due to the well defined four seasons that we have here. Theme parks here are open from very late-March to September, and shut down during the off season winter months due to cold weather.

Last year I went to King’s Dominion in Virginia on a Saturday right in early April when the park season was just starting. It was an incredible visit because there were no crowds or lines to slow us down. Ordinarily, each roller coaster would have required waiting through 30-45 minutes of crowded lines. But because it was just a few early weeks into the season, there were no crowds to be seen. The park was eerily empty, but I loved it because we basically had the entire park to ourselves. We were able to dart from one ride to another in rapid fashion with only a quick 5-10 minute wait time for each. Some didn’t even have lines and we easily walked up to the front, which was absolutely fantastic. The only downside was that not all parts of the park were fully open and operational. While most coasters were staffed, because the weather was still a bit breezy, the adjacent water theme park was closed and not scheduled to open until later in the spring season when it was warmer. But the extremely short lines and the mild 70 degree weather made up for any drawbacks.

As for tickets, at King’s Dominion and most amusement parks, prices are relatively high at around $45 per adult, but there are a wealth of amusement park discount codes available everywhere on the internet. With a quick search online, I was able to secure a discount code from some random bank’s public website to enter in as my own. The promotion code was for employees of the bank, but I was still able to use it to obtain a 50% discount.

Here are some tips to save money and make your amusement park experience more enjoyable:

1) Visit During Off Peak Times – (Spring, Fall, and Middle Of the Week) - The off peak calendar for individual parks will vary depending on the location’s climate. But in general, to duck the crowds, it’s best to avoid the major federal holidays especially the ones during warmer months. The summer will always be the busiest time with the greatest number of park visitors compared to spring, fall, and winter. Saturdays tend to be the busiest, with Tuesdays and Wednesday the slowest. The best time to go is generally before mid April and anytime after Labor Day in September. If you can go during off season months, you’ll find that even Saturdays are sparsely attended.

2) Hit the Most Popular Rides During Opening and Closing Hours – If you insist on going when there are crowds, then you may want to reserve visiting the most popular rides right when the park opens or near closing time. During those hours there are less crowds as people either haven’t yet arrived or have tired for the evening.

3) Buy Tickets Online, And Take Advantage Of Group Discounts and Coupon Codes – Always order your tickets ahead of time online through the park’s website to avoid the long ticket lines. You should never pay full price for expensive amusement park entrance fees. There are many discount codes that can be quickly found on the internet, as well as through employers, fast food restaurants, and hotels. Many theme parks also offer discount savings for AAA auto club members and for children and seniors. If you live very close, many amusement parks also offer steep discounts to local residents.
4) Don’t Bring Along Too Many Belongings - You can usually rent a locker at the amusement park, but if you plan to ride on roller coasters, you don’t want to have to keep putting all of your bags, purses, and backpacks into public cabinets everytime you get onto a ride. There is always the chance your possessions may be stolen by some opportunistic person. Remember to put your valuables and other belongings in your car’s trunk or in a locker, rather than exposing them on your car seat for all to see.

5) Remember to Grab A Park Map And Plot Your Plan – Maps are always available at the park entrance or at guide desks. Unless you plan on wandering around lost and wasting valuable time, it’s best to plot your path as you walk around. Since I’m a huge roller coaster buff, I tend to plot my trip around the most popular coaster rides.

Source URL: Visit The Amusement Park During Off Peak Times And Use A Discount Code To Get Your Money’s Worth

Copyright Protected © 2008 Money Blue Book: Personal Finance Blog. All Rights Reserved.

These popular house flipping shows should be regarded as entertainment only and not seen as a step by step blueprint guide to flipping projects. If you are looking to get inspired and want to become more involved in the real estate investing business, watching these shows will certainly give you a good introduction into the realm of flipping. But they won’t teach you how to properly finance your flip project or even address necessary aspects like how to obtain the appropriate construction loan or even how to properly budget for unexpected repairs. But entertaining they most certainly are.

Here Are A Few Of My Favorite Flipping and House Hunting Shows:

1) Flip This House (A&E Channel) – This show is probably the original house flipping program of recent years. Each episode tracks the purchase and renovation of a single home, listing the price of the home, renovation cost, and the expected profit from each flip. For newbie flippers, this show provides the least realistic portrayal of the amateur flipping process as the show only spotlights the trials and tribulations of experienced and professional real estate teams.

However I love the show and found it irresistibly entertaining due to the endless stream of scam and fakery controversies that have continuously plagued every season of the show. The Flip This House show and its television network are currently embroiled in at least one lawsuit involving allegations of fraud and breach of contract, as well as other well publicized rumors of flipping fabrication and scams.

The most notorious episode involved Atlanta “real estate developer” Sam Leccima and his season two housing flip scam debacle. His on the air house flipping prowesses were later exposed and discredited as shams by news investigators when it was revealed that he had duped many investors in an elaborate flipping cover up. Apparently not only did he fail to own a real estate license at the time of the show’s filming, he also never owned the houses he allegedly flipped. Much of the work shown on the show was revealed to be actually temporary and shoddy patch up jobs designed to look good on TV. Home staging presentations were faked with his own friends and family posing as potential buyers. Fake Sold signs were slapped in front of unsold homes to make his on the air flipping projects appear successful. How the A&E filming crew failed to realize what was happening as it occurred is beyond me. Very fishy indeed.

Other allegations of fakery involved the humorous and entertaining Montelongo brothers. After watching several of their episodes, I got the feeling much of the whipped up drama was being exaggerated and staged. At some point the episodes grew so ridiculously off the wall that they became asinine, such as when one of the Montelongo bros supposedly had a mental breakdown and had to visit a psychotherapist, or when the family had to sneak into a hotel with their pet dog and birds because their home was being worked on.

However, the show’s most popular real estate team was probably season one’s Trademark Properties, which featured folksy leader Richard Davis and his lovely fan favorite sidekick Ginger. However, due to contractual legal disputes, they’ve since moved over to another television network to start their own show.

2) The Real Estate Pros (TLC/Discovery Channel) – This show exclusively features Trademark Properties which left A&E after filing a lawsuit against the television network over allegations of breach of contract stemming from nonpayment claims. The characters are the same and the show revolves around the same flipping adventures of the Charleston based company.

3) Flip That House (TLC/Discovery Channel) – Unlike the other shows, Flip That House features mainly amateur singles and groups of house flippers as they work together through the process of purchasing, budgeting, renovating, and appraising. The conclusion of each show always ends with a final renovated home value estimate from a real estate agent, but the appraisal usually entails some ridiculously high projected profit that reeks of unrealistic expectations. Despite construction and budget obstacles, the flippers also always seem to come out on top.

Thankfully in the spirit of realism, some older episodes now showcase a Flip Forward feature where viewers can catch up with past flippers to see how their venture actually turned out. Oftentimes, it’s revealed that many flipper properties ultimately languished unsuccessfully on the market for months to years despite the original projected profit spin.

4) The Property Ladder (TLC/Discovery Channel) – This show is one of my best favorites, but only because I enjoy watching train wrecks of amateur flippers crashing and burning their way through the house renovation process. Most of the time I cannot believe some of the wacky approaches out there when it comes to flipping houses. The show features host Kirsten Kemp as the expert property developer who advises these bumbling fools as they strip, hammer, and spend their way into the financial hole. They never seem to listen to her but strangely frequently come out on top, to my viewing disappointment.

5) Flipping Out (Bravo TV Channel) – The show centers around the real estate flipping and personal life of Jeff Lewis, a colorful Los Angeles high-end real estate developer with an obsessive compulsive management streak. The fun part is not watching his team purchase homes and resell them for profit, but rather watching him multi-task his business deals and still keep tabs on his beloved cat “Monkey”, housekeeper, and former boyfriend and business partner Ryan. “Drama for sale” seems to be the theme of this interesting flipping show.

6) House Hunters (HGTV Channel) – With the implosion of the real estate market, there seems to be greater demand for home staging shows and programs that focus on the home buying experience. As a prospective home buyer one day, one of my favorite new shows is House Hunters, which tracks the house hunting experiences of families and couples as they visit prospective houses while verbalizing their likes and dislikes about every aspect of each home they visit. At the end of each episode, they have to decide which home they liked the best and which they would like to make a purchase offer for. It’s very educational and beneficial for me to see how others go through the home buying thought processes as they visit homes and scrutinize the pros and cons. The fun part is always trying to guess which one they’ll ultimately go for.

Source URL: A Review Of Popular House Flipping and Home Hunting Television Shows

Copyright Protected © 2008 Money Blue Book: Personal Finance Blog. All Rights Reserved.

I can’t help it. I’m attracted to and fascinated by trashy reality television shows – the bigger the train wreck, the better. My newest reality fixation is Bravo TV’s new millionaire dating show called The Millionaire Matchmaker. This show could easily be the next logical step up for those party girls from MTV’s Super Sweet 16, which I previously wrote about.

The Millionaire Matchmaker features feisty Los Angeles matchmaker Patti Stanger who runs a modern and high end business of helping rich men fulfill their dreams of finding true love and potential wife, and helping gorgeous women marry into millions. On the show, her clientele of wealthy men pay a high fee to be introduced to an exclusive selection of beautiful and smart women, pre-chosen based on their compatibility factors. The men are given access to an array of high end staff of date coaches, personal shoppers, and interior designers to help them improve their personal self appearance and to spruce up the presentation of their millionaire dollar homes. Many of these men are workaholics who are usually too busy with their own careers to find time to date for themselves.

For women, joining the club is free so long as they can pass the high physical appearance requirements and aren’t red flagged as possible gold diggers. From the start, Patti makes it clear that she is no Heidi Fleiss madam and that her agency is not an escort service as she strictly prohibits sex until both parties have entered into a committed, monogamous relationship.

Progressive Female Liberals Need Not Apply

You’re not going to find any feminist trailblazers on this show. What you’ll get is no-nonsense traditional views of what men and women want when it comes to love and relationships, especially when money is no limitation. Caveman tenets of lust, love, and attraction apply – with men being attracted to beauty, youth, and fun; and women being attracted to material possessions, confidence, and power. It’s the age old swap of money for beauty. Just from watching a few episodes, it’s clear that millionaire dollar men feel entitled to a higher standard and quality of women than common folk. As the show astutely points out, millionaires choose women the same way they would order a new car off the lot – they want the perfect, newest trophy model gift wrapped to suit their existing lifestyle without the flaws.

The most entertaining and fun part of the show comes with the crazy bits of wisdom (if you can call it that) that flies out of head matchmaker Patti Stanger’s mouth. She’s a rambunctious firecracker who doesn’t hesitate to lecture and verbally slap her male clients around for their own tough love good, whom she views as misguided little children. I really like her and even though much of what she says can be considered abrasive and shallow, I think there is much hidden truths in what she has to say. She also seems to genuinely care in shaping her eligible millionaire bachelors into successful relationship putty – even if that means she has to ruthlessly critique their flaws to make them understand what’s wrong with their views and why they are unable to settle down into real relationships.

The Show Strongly Reinforces Stereotypical Male and Female View Points

The show perpetuates a timeless and traditional view of men and women that frankly, remains alive and well today. It is this very return to tradition that has been one of Patti Stanger’s keys to success as a matchmaker. She is harsh on both men and women, screening both for the perfect traditional matching qualities. The men are checked to make sure they are truly worth millions and the women are screened carefully to maintain a high physical appearance standard. Many of the show’s millionaire clients come to her with a particular female look already in mind that’s partial towards the young, model-type look. Perhaps as a genuine reflection of the unspoken views of society, the show perpetuates the understanding that what men want the most in women is beauty and youth. What women seem to want the most from men is power and money.

According to Patti’s values for there to be matchmaking success, this means men need to be chivalrous, they need to be generous with their money, and they need to take charge and be confident with women. Females on the other hand are encouraged and taught that they must accentuate their physical qualities – if they have nice “assets” they must flaunt it, they must dress alluringly to appeal to male tastes, and they must show a little leg here and there – basically don’t dress like you’ve just left work. Another disturbing but perhaps real life lesson is that she also lectures women on the need to downplay their own professional accomplishments – basically if you are a doctor, never introduce yourself as one initially – because when it comes down to it, men don’t want to compete in that department.

I Find The Show Entertaining Because It Reflects Many Unspoken Facets and Truths About Societal Views Towards Dating and Relationships

Whether the traditional values promoted by the show are right or wrong is not for me to say, but I think the reality is that despite the modern progress men and women have had in terms of human relations, in many ways we’ve stayed the same. Many commentators have blasted the show for perpetuating traditional stereotypical views of women and I understand why they are upset. But at the same time, the show is about hooking up men and women who want love, not about political correctness. Love is a crazy thing where traditional ideas still hold true.

Even though I think matchmaker Patti Stanger has a narrow view of what men want, I think she is frequently right on point when it comes to her true life assessment of male and female preferences when it comes to dating. Of course her traditional views may be controversial and humorously offensive to some – such as when Patti chided one of her prospective women for having red hair, because as she put it, red hairs are “not the freshest produce in the aisles” (presumably implying that red hair is old school and outdated). Dye it brown she ordered, because men don’t like red hair. If you have curly short hair? Grow it long or get hair extensions and perm it straight because men like hair that is long and straight so they run their fingers through it.

However, the show does seem to promote a worthy abstinence requirement as a way to keep the men’s dating motivations on the up and up (so to speak). Patti imposes a strict no sex policy until a committed relationship has been established. While this almost puritanical policy tries to inject some standards, it doesn’t detract much from the inherent meat market circus of matching up nearly two dozen attractive women with one rich man for his choosing. Then again, is it really all that much different when people post their personal profiles complete with physical attributes onto online dating sites like Yahoo Personals or eHarmony?

The Show Does Teach A Valuable Lesson – Money Does Not Always Buy Love and Happiness

As an ordinary non-millionaire Joe, I actually find some guilty comfort knowing that even millionaires have major trouble in the dating department despite their massive financial fortune. The show reveals that even millionaires can be fault ridden in the love department. The Millionaire Matchmaker’s stars are not the peddled and pimped out women who willingly submit themselves for selection, but rather the sleazy, cocky, and pathetic men that do the picking. In one episode you had one man in his late 40’s who despite his noble assertions of wanting to find true love with an educated and marriage-minded mature woman, still ended up picking the young co-ed nearly 20 years his junior out of the female selection pack despite having nothing social in common with her. Then there was the episode with the one rich guy who ran a successful online sex toy business who could not give up his player lifestyle of throwing female laden house pool parties or removing the “non-offensive” stripper pole bolted in his living room.

Their money might provide them housing comfort and material joy, but it’s also the same corrupting influence that clouds their proprieties and explains why they insist on finding their trophy sugar babes rather than their more age appropriate soul mates. Entertainment aside, the show does demonstrate that money doesn’t really buy true happiness. However, it will allow you to buy access into the Millionaire’s Club to meet plenty of long and straight haired young women, who are eager for you to lavish them with material attention – for the short term at least.

Check out Patti’s Commandments Of Dating for both men and women. Prepare to be entertained, offended, and dumbfounded at the same time. Her views really reflect on the current dynamics of male and female wants and expectations. Here is a sample of one of her thought provoking dating tips directed at women:

Once you have decided you like a specific male and you have gone out with him four times, it is important to show your appreciation and reciprocate. But do not offer to outright pay for something: once a woman touches money/credit card in front of a male she becomes masculine energy, which is undesirable. But this does not preclude showing thanks by purchasing him a CD, book, theater or concert tickets, just don’t do it in his presence. Offering to cook a meal for him is an exceptional, appreciative gesture. The number one small request a wealthy man makes of a woman is a good old-fashioned home cooked meal.

Masculine energy? Haha! Great stuff!

Source URL: The Millionaire Matchmaker Show – Revealing Traditional Stereotypes About Men, Women, Money, And Love

Copyright Protected © 2008 Money Blue Book: Personal Finance Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Love May Be Cheap, But Fondue Isn’t

The Melting Pot is definitely not a place for patrons who are financially squeamish about opening up their wallets wide for a rare romantic dinner. On special occasions like Valentine’s Day, expect reservations to be in demand and planned dinner courses for two to cost upwards of $130.00. On other days, the price doesn’t fare all that much better – at around $85 per couple. It’s amazing how high prices soar for love-related events and merchandise during special holiday occasions like Valentine’s Day (just look at the price of online Valentine’s day flowers in my last post).

I’m not really a high end restaurant connoisseur (usually preferring to save my money by going elsewhere), but I’ve been there a few times and enjoyed the food and ambiance. Don’t get me wrong – a dinner at the Melting Pot is incredibly expensive, but for that special someone or for that special annual occasion, I think the experience is worth the financial cost. It’s not a place I could afford to visit every weekend, but I’d much rather spend money on such experiences than on material trinkets that depreciate over time. Just be sure to snap some photos while you’re there to immortalize the memories!

Fondue Restaurants Are a Place For Diners Who Like To Play With Their Food In The Dark

As the restaurant’s website proclaims, fondue is a fun and interactive dining experience. If you’re clumsy at planning romantic outings (like me), a restaurant like the Melting Pot pretty much does it for you. They keep the place very cozy and the lighting very dim to promote and encourage warm fuzzy feelings. The interactive part is where it gets fun. They pour the fondue broth in front of you and provide you with color tabbed skewers that you use to cook the fresh mushroom, garlic chicken, white shrimp, fillet mignon, ravioli, citrus pork tenderloin, and lobster. Sounds tasty doesn’t it?

The reason why I’m reviewing this restaurant chain is because it is where I took my girlfriend to for our very first Valentine’s Day dinner. I had a good time and I think she did too. That’s the stuffed monkey I gave her.

Source URL: Happy Valentine’s Day – Melting Pot Memories Are Expensive But Worth It

Copyright Protected © 2008 Money Blue Book: Personal Finance Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Well it’s been months since I rambled off topic but I think after having watched this year’s 2008 Super XVLII, I feel compelled to comment on the deteriorating quality and excitement of the once highly anticipated half time musical performances. It used to be that I always looked forward to watching the Super Bowl half time shows since they used to feature pretty good superstar performances. But unfortunately, what was once an exciting party bash has in recent years turned into a safe and cautious yawn fest.

Tom Petty’s Performance Was Decent But Too Safe For A Super Bowl Half Time Show

This year’s half-time show featured Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, a band that probably caters more to the older generation than today’s kiddies, myself included. While I will admit he did pull of a pretty skillful performance and sang some great songs, I’ve never been much of a fan of his band’s music. I wasn’t really moved or pumped up by their performance as it wasn’t really much of a performance – mostly just a karaoke selection of his greatest hits.

I think future shows need serious tuneups. Ever since the whole Janet Jackson alleged wardrobe malfunction episode of Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004, the quality of the halftime shows have been sliding downhill. We really need MTV to bring back the excitement that the event once had or I think we’re going to start seeing many viewers switch channels during halftime to watch some of the other competing shows airing at that time. Some cable network channels have actually started to seize on the waning interest in the half time shows by featuring unique commercial free programs during that very time slot.

I know it was controversial at the time, but I personally thought the whole wardrobe malfunction incident was a great thing for the Super Bowl – an unanticipated oops that generated buzz and front page excitement for an event that by definition should be glorified, edgy, and memorable. I’m not sure what other football fans and Super Bowl followers think, but in my opinion, the best half time show I’ve seen in the last few years was the one in 2001 – Super XXXV – that featured amazing stars like Britney Spears, N Sync, Nelly, and Mary J. Blige, as well as the ageless, but still sort of hard rocking Aerosmith. Laugh if you want – I would have loved to have been there!

The music performers in recent years featured boring artists like the Rolling Stones, and Paul McCartney – two utterly forgettable artists that most people probably didn’t even realize were still alive. Of course, it’s obvious why the Super Bowl planning committee continues to book such predictably bland artists to cater to the older folks and the family crowd – they are the ones who have the money to pay the exorbitant ticket prices to attend these type of events.

Source URL: Diversions – Super Bowl Half Time Shows Need To Feature Better Music

Copyright Protected © 2008 Money Blue Book: Personal Finance Blog. All Rights Reserved.

If I were a Giants or Pats fan, I would have given some serious thought to shelling out the high scalper-driven prices to secure the coveted tickets and necessary hotel rooms for the chance to experience the event of a lifetime. Looking back at my earlier days, I wish I had jumped on the exciting opportunities when I had the chance. When my college alma mater made it to the men’s NCAA basketball championship game I was still in graduate school and didn’t have the financial means or the ability to take time off from classes to attend. Looking back I wish I had dug down deep and made the effort, because ultimately my school went on to win that national title game. I missed an opportunity that may not happen again for some time. Afterwards, I promised myself – never again would I give up such a once in a lifetime opportunity on the account of mere time or cost, in the absence of other considerations.

Money Spent On Memories Vs. Money Spent On Material Goods

While I personally am very wary about spending exorbitant amounts of money on material goods, I don’t seem to have the same aversion towards spending money on precious experiences that have the possibility of creating everlasting memories. Unlike the substance of memories, I view tangible goods as items with limited and fleeting lifespans that ultimately depreciate and wither away. Particularly with newly released electronic products like iPods and flat screen TV’s, they frequently become outdated within months by the time the new updated model rolls around. Technology prices drop fast and what was top of the line one day soon becomes yesterday’s news the next. At the end of the day, all material goods break down, wear out, and eventually become obsolete, but memories are forever. Memories and experiences are retained in the recesses of our minds, enriching our human experience and growing ever more valuable as time passes. As we age, those fond memories from years past become priceless treasures (it’s cheesy but true).

When I was little, I spent a great deal of money and time on buying and playing video games. But looking back, it wasn’t the computer technology, gaming systems, or game cartridges that brought me joy – it was the experience and cherished moments I had when playing games with friends and family. I think it’s important to practice a reasonably frugal lifestyle, but some expenditures are worth the financial price. There’s nothing wrong with living it up within your means on occasion – just make sure you are spending your hard earned money towards the things that have residual and appreciative intangible value.

The stores of wealthier diehard Super Bowl fans paying upwards of $20,000 for a pair of front row seats to the greatest show on earth is indeed stunning, but if they are sharing the experience with their friends, spouses, and children, I say – more power to them. I just hope they are living within their means and not doing anything financially crazy like putting the entire amount on a high interest credit card they can’t afford, just for a 3 hour thrill.

Opposed To Spending Money On a $5 Coffee Drink, But Okay With Spending $250 To Watch My Favorite Sports Team Play

I’ve noticed that I seem to have a selective form of frugality. I generally like to save on the little things in life by cutting back on smaller daily expenses like my old Starbucks coffee habit and by refraining from frequently updating my clothing wardrobe. However, I seem to have no problem spending larger sums of money on things like entertainment experiences that I truly care emotionally and passionately about. It’s an odd form of frugal living that I sometimes wonder if others share as well.

Source URL: Paying $4,000 For Super Bowl Tickets May Be Crazy, But Possibly Worth The Memories That Will Last A Lifetime

Copyright Protected © 2008 Money Blue Book: Personal Finance Blog. All Rights Reserved.