Category: information

Instant Company with a Rebadged Product

This is about how companies can suddenly appear and have new “fantastic” products at bargain prices.

Creating a New Company

In the UK as long as you haven’t been banned as a director then it’s an easy, cheap and quick process. In some countries it’s even easier and people can churn out new companies as fast as they want.

Creating a New Product

Inventors and designers may spend years perfecting their product, but the simple approach is to find a product that already exists, rebadge it in some way – maybe just a different colour scheme. Then you give it a new name and that’s your new product. There are patent protection laws to prevent this but scammers operate quickly and aim to have disappeared before the law catches up with them.

Manufacturing Your Product

Lots of companies (mostly in China) will manufacture anything you want at very low prices. If it’s an item they already make and you just want a different colour or a version with your logo on – no problem.

Then comes the Marketing. Modern Marketing through email lists, social media etc. can be cheap and quick.

The method described above is very simplified of course and it’s not really this simple, but for people who do this regularly it is quick and easy.

Here’s an example.

An email arrived titled ‘Cleaning Scrubber Works for Arthritis”

Then a sales pitch for the Hurricane Spin Scrubber.

It’s a rechargeable device with a rotating head designed to make cleaning bathroom surfaces quicker and with less effort. It comes with an extending arm so the user doesn’t have to bend down – hence the claim that it helps arthritis sufferers.

Sounds good.

Strangely the email is from diabetichlp.bid whereas this product cannot be considered an aid for people with diabetes.

Following up on this shows that the product is real and does work. However, customers complain about faulty items, the difficulty of getting any money back and terrible customer service. The product itself is very cheaply made and generally not very good. The company selling this product only came into existence months ago and if the pattern is followed then is likely to disappear fairly soon, to be replaced by another similar company with a slightly modified version of the device. And the process starts again.

It is far simpler and quicker nowadays to create companies than it used to be, have a factory in the Far East make the product, make money then shut down and open up a new business doing something similar.

Buying this kind of product may be right for you, but be aware that if there are problems – you may wish you’d invested in a reputable make with good customer service.

If you’ve purchased this kind of instant product or dealt with such companies – do let me know by email.

The Disrespect Nobody Campaign

You may have seen some strange adverts on the TV and on posters in city centres. This is part of a campaign called Disrespect Nobody and is aimed at teenagers.

The Disrespect NoBody campaign helps young people to understand about healthy relationships, re-think their views of controlling behaviour, violence, abuse, abuse and what consent means within their relationships.

It aims to challenge attitudes and behaviours amongst young people that abuse in relationships is acceptable.

The campaign is targeted at 12 to 18 year old boys and girls and aims to prevent them from becoming perpetrators and victims of abusive relationships.

There are four TV adverts

  • A talking bra
  • Talking underpants
  • Talking eyes
  • A talking hand

DISRESPECT NOBODY

“There’s a person attached to every body, respect both”.

“Healthy relationships are all about respecting each other. You should feel loved, safe and free to be yourself”.

“Relationships can be confusing and it can be difficult to understand what is and isn’t normal behaviour”.

“But disrespectful and unacceptable behaviour can come in many forms. It isn’t limited to just physical behaviour; it can also go way beyond that”.

The UK Government backed and funded the “Disrespect NoBody” campaign.

The campaign has been criticised as it video doesn’t acknowledge that men can be the ones experiencing abuse in a relationship and uses key phrases like “Do you turn to violence when your GIRLFRIEND disagrees with you”

There are documents on the website for teachers and group leader to use in discussions with teenagers

https://www.disrespectnobody.co.uk/

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CIFAS Registration Protects Against Identity Theft

CIFAS a not-for-profit company working to protect businesses, charities, public bodies and individuals from financial crime. They have more than 25 years of experience in fraud prevention and financial crime, working with a range of UK organisations to protect their customers and the public.

https://www.cifas.org.uk

Cifas Protective Registration is a defence against identity fraud. It’s not for everyone – only those who have  good reason to think they’re at risk, for example:

  • people who have recently lost personal documents, or had them stolen
  • customers of organisations that recently lost or leaked sensitive data
  • anyone who has been advised by the police that they’re at risk.

How does it work?

When you request Protective Registration, they place a warning flag against your name and other personal details in the National Fraud Database. This tells the hundreds of organisations that use Cifas data to pay special attention when your details are used to apply for their products or services. Knowing you’re at risk, they’ll carry out extra checks to make sure it’s really you applying, and not a fraudster using your details.

What is identity fraud?

Identity fraud happens when a fraudster pretends to be someone else and uses their credit card or account to buy products or services in their name or takes out a loan in that person’s name.

Victims may not even realise that they have been targeted until a bill arrives for something they did not buy or they experience problems with their credit rating. To carry out this kind of fraud successfully, fraudsters usually have access to their victim’s personal information such as name, date of birth, address etc. Fraudsters get hold of this in a variety of ways, including through phishing emails, fake websites, hacking and data loss, as well as using social media to put the pieces of someone’s identity together.

What to do if you’re a victim:

ACT FAST if you think you have been a victim of identity fraud

If you receive any mail that seems suspicious or implies you have an account with the sender when you don’t, do not ignore it. Phone one of the major credit reference agencies to report your concerns.

Get a copy of your credit report as it is one of the first places you can spot if someone is misusing your personal information – before you suffer financial loss. Review every entry on your credit report and if you see an account or even a credit search from a company that you do not recognise, notify the credit reference agency.

Individuals or businesses who have fallen victim to identity fraud should report this to Action Fraud at www.actionfraud.police.uk.

It pays to be careful with your identity and never give out confidential information unless you are sure of who you are giving it to.

If you have any experiences with scammers, spammers or time-wasters do let me know – go to the About page then Contact Us.

Warning: Antibiotics For Sale Online

An email from cahiphop.com titled ‘Excite your communications thirst”

In fact the email is trying to sell antibiotics and is nothing to do with communications.

The main selling point is “Good antibiotics made with love and care”

And it says

  • Shipping to anywhere worldwide
  • Lowest price
  • No prescription required

The statement about the drugs being good and made with love and care is worrying. No professional pharmaceutical company would state anything like that. As customers you want to know that a product is made according to the set standards not with love and care as if they are talking about cakes. You don’t want to know that it is ‘good’ but that it is verified to be at the required standard.

The seller appears to have no company name – just shortened urls advertising products.

I would not buy any kind of medicine from an online store such as this one. I would not feel confident that any products they supply have the correct active ingredients  and haven’t been cut with talcum powder, rat poison or whatever was to hand in the garage or slum where they were likely produced, to keep the price down.

This applies to any drug, but the world is increasingly facing antibiotic resistant bacteria and all antibiotics MUST be prescribed by a doctor and taken according to the instructions.

Allowing people to buy antibiotics online without prescription can only make the problem worse at a faster rate.

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The Trust Alliance

https://otalliance.org

The Trust Alliance was formed in 2005 and today(now called OTA) has the mission to enhance online trust and empower users, while promoting innovation and the vitality of the internet.  OTA is global organization supported by over 100 organizations and has  offices in Washington DC.

The goals of OTA are:-

  • Help educate businesses, policy makers and stakeholders while developing and advancing best practices and tools to enhance the protection of users’ security, privacy and identity.
  • Supports collaborative public-private partnerships, benchmark reporting, meaningful self-regulation and data stewardship.
  • Promote data sharing and collaboration through working groups, training and committees.

Sponsors include individuals,  technology leaders, social networks, ecommerce, financial institutions, service providers, government agencies and industry organizations.

Why Was OTA Stated?

Faced with increasing levels of spam and deceptive email, in early 2004, a group of business, industry and marketing leaders led by Epsilon Interactive, Email Senders and Provider Coalition, The Direct Marketing Association, Microsoft, Symantec and Sendmail  began meeting to pursue solutions to authenticate email and improve user confidence and in July 2005, the first Email Authentication Summit was hosted in New York City and there have been further successful summits.

So, OTA work at the strategic level to improve Internet security. They are currently working on how to make email trusted. We all know the problems of emails that appear to be from one person but are in fact faked (this is called spoofing) and the design of email makes this possible and difficult to stop. But there are technologies that can improve this situation and ensure email is from who it says it’s from.

OTA are also investigating online advertising.  There are major concerns about lack of privacy and security, click bait, fake news, sponsored  content, and more. Online advertising is fast evolving so OTA will have to move quickly to keep pace.

OTA are also looking to the future at the Internet of Things and how this will affect privacy and security.

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Scam Hunter Website Review

http:// scamhunter.org

Exposing Internet Scams and Frauds Worldwide

Scamhunter.org was setup some years ago and its purpose is to help people recognize and avoid many of the common advance fee frauds, lottery scams, and scams on the Internet. Educate yourself on ScamHunter.org so you won’t get caught in the con artists’ traps. Their philosophy is “Sunlight is the best disinfectant”.

Scamhunter  focus on Advance Fee scams, Penny Stock scams, Lottery scams and Phishing scams but they do also publish about other types of scams.

The site has been very successful in helping people and was in the past targeted by scammers who managed to bring down the site through a DDOS (distributed denial of service) attack. The site was rebuilt with its new name scamhunter.org.

There is a search facility that lets you try a company name or a scammers names to see if there is anything published about them on Scamhunter.

This is a very useful site with a considerable breadth of information about scammers and their methods. It covers the most common scams and has information going back to before 2009.

Recent Alerts Section on the Home page

This is the recent items that have come to the notice of the Scamhunter.

e.g. Mrs. Jovann Mafra (scam warning), YOUR PAYMENT IS IN SERIOUS DANGER (Scam Alert), Re-profiling Funds (Scam Warning), Lt. General Susan J. Helms (scam alert), Harley Wang Mystery Scam, German Scam Messages, Sr. Diego De Martinez of Portugal (scam alert) Cancelled: Contact MoneyGram director, Ebrahim Talib, Bahrain Petroleum , company (scam warning), Qatar Foundation (scam alert), Mr. Frank Moses, JFK Airport (scam warning), Mr. Deneys James, Attorney (scam warning), Abandoned Bank Account Scam, Susanne Klatten Charity Foundation (scam alert)

Scammers never stop.

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