Category: information

Wealth and Finance Awards – Are They Real?

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We received an email titled ‘Your Business Elite 2016 Selection’ and the email claimed that one of the presenters had been chosen as one of the Business Elite for 2016.

First problem is that the name they used wasn’t a presenter or anyone else at the station and there was no mention of a job title or responsibilities or anything that would lead me to believe the email was anything but spam, but it is in fact genuine.

They claim rigorous assessment and checking of the market to find the best people but that really didn’t add up.

The email says we can announce this result but to appear in their magazine next issue we need to invest in one of their packages.

Elite Package for £1,400

Or Innovative Package for £800

Or Cutting Edge package for £300

And logos and trophies are available for an extra fee apparently.

This doesn’t seem to be a scam – there is a magazine Wealth and Finance International and they give out a lot of awards in the Finance industry.

The Elite package for £1,400 gives you

  • A double page spread
  • Inclusion of your article on their Homepage
  • A front cover headline
  • 1 trophy highlighting you as Business Elite Winner 2016
  • A Business Elite 2016 logo for use in your Marketing.

So, it appears that anyone with money to spend can get a lot of coverage in the magazine and website. That seems to be a novel form of Marketing.

But it doesn’t make me want to read a magazine where people are in it based on how much they pay rather than anything  worthwhile they have done.

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Email Marketing – Professional or Spam?

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You can buy millions of email addresses for a few hundred dollars and you would likely find that most of them are rubbish or out of date and useless.

But there are reputable Marketing agencies that strive to use email Marketing in a more considered and professional manner.

We received an email from a professional online Marketing company in Manchester offering to use their contacts database and create an email campaign for us.

It says an average campaign of 10,000 emails costs £415 including design of the emails, follow-up emails and website data.

This is not something we would ever use but you can see why so many companies do go down this route and try email marketing.

The key point really is use a professional business to do the work for you and pay a sensible price.

Don’t go cheap rate – you’ll only get rubbish.

UK Payments Fraud in 2015

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Fraud is a huge industry with countless victims and it’s getting worse.

Financial fraud losses across payment cards, remote banking and cheques totalled £755 million in 2015, an increase of 26 per cent compared to 2014.

Prevented fraud totalled £1.76 billion in 2015. This is incidents that were detected and prevented by the banks and card companies and is equivalent to £7 in every £10 of attempted fraud being stopped.

Card Fraud can be split up as follows:-

70% is remote purchases – i.e. where stolen card details are used

13% is lost and stolen –

2% is card not received i.e. the card is stolen in transit

8% is counterfeit cards

7% is card ID theft – the fraudster uses the person’s identity information to get their card details

All of these frauds are rising except for counterfeit cards which is probably dropping as a result of chip and pin technology.

We all need to be more aware then ever of these scams and how to avoid them.

Further information available at http://www.financialfraudaction.org.uk/cms/assets/1/2015%20year%20end%20fraud%20update%20report.pdf