Author: Chris Walters

There’s a strange auto-dialer message going around right now that asks you to call back for important info. When you call back, you might end up being offered lower interest rates on your credit card… or you might get a voicemail inbox where a man yells at you, “You stupid f***ing b*tch!”

The tipster who sent this in asks, “What are they trying to get out of me? What should I know now that I called back – should I be worried?” Naah. Based on the people who posted on 800notes.com, if you manage to get through to a real person they just start trying to get your credit card number out of you, and if you ask for details or say you want to be taken off the list they hang up. Getting insulted by a voicemail recording, however, is totally free.

If you get this call, you should report it to the FCC.

The Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS), a military payroll facility in Ohio, has told at least 62 of its employees that they will be terminated for having bad credit, reports WKYC. Troy Marshall, a 17-year veteran at the DFAS and one of the people being fired (incidentally, he’s also the president of a union that expanded jobs at the DFAS five years ago), told WKYC that he handles Social Security numbers and maiden names, but nothing else. “We are people. We are not just numbers. We are not just credit reports… Look at the whole person.”

”Union President: At least 62 DFAS workers to be fired for bad credit ratings” [WKYC] (Thanks to David!)

My advice on mail-in-rebates is to ignore them when you’re trying to decide on a purchase. They take too long to receive, during which time you’ve paid a higher amount on the product. Even worse, it’s easy for a company to deny a claim and refuse to cooperate with you, and it’s hard for consumers to get misbehaving companies to play fairly.

Andy’s experience with MSI is a great example, because first the company rejected his claim with an explanation that didn’t make sense, then approved it after providing a completely different rejection explanation, then revenge-killed it because he’d complained to the BBB.

Im hoping you might help expose MSI for the scam running company they are.

Back in November I was looking to purchase a new video card for my computer. While browsing through newegg.com I found an MSI brand video card which advertised as having a $30 rebate. I decided to purchase the MSI video card since after rebate it would be the cheapest one. I filled out the registered the rebate online as instructed to get the rebate form which is needed to be filled out, and sent all the requested documents. With rebates I always send a copy of the invoice/receipt from email, as well as the packing slip even though they dont require both just in case they try to state they needed one or the other.

I waited several months waiting to get the check in the mail. When nothing came I logged into their rebate website, entered my information, and then was met with a short message saying my rebate was rejected and that no resubmissions are allowed. I sent several emails to their rebate email address trying to get clarification on why it was denied, and was finally told that the invoice did not match the upc, and also that I never registered the rebate online which is why theyre denying it. Both reasons they rejected it I know are false- in order to even print the rebate form out you have to register online, and I also have a copy saved in my acknowledging me registering the rebate online. The first part about the invoice not matching I didnt think I could have sent the wrong ones, especially since I send essentially two copies of them in- the packing slip and a copy of the email/receipt so even if one was wrong like they claim by some odd chance the other would be correct.

I sent literally a dozen emails to MSI trying to show proof that everything was correct and for them to investigate, but all went ignored. I finally ended up filing with the BBB about MSI ripping me off, and aparantly quite a few others have been ripped off as well. They currently hold an F rating and the majority of complaints are all ignored. http://www.la.bbb.org/Business-Report/MSI-Computer-Corporation-13155122

Still, I wasnt about to let MSI rip me off if I did everything correctly. I started calling their number and eventually found out they have a rebate department handled by a single person named Jessica at 626-913-0828 x163. I finally reached her one day and asked her to look into why my rebate was denied. This time the reason she said it was denied was not because I filed anything wrong, but because my invoice was partly cut off? She told me I could email her the invoice and she would processes it for me. I did just that and the next day I received an email from MSI saying my rebate was approved and should expect it in 8-10 weeks.

A short while later I got an email from the BBB saying my MSI case was closed due to no response from the company, and that there was nothing they could do. Typical… What was odd however is that the very next morning I get an email from MSI saying my rebate was rejected again. I called back Jessica trying to figure out what was going on, and was told her manager instructed her to cancel my rebate check since I filed a case with the BBB! I couldnt believe it. I asked to speak with her manager and she told me she would be on vacation for a long time. I then asked to speak with a supervisor and she just laughed at me and said they wouldnt want to talk to me anyways and then hung up!

I dont understand how MSI can get away with ripping people off like this and stealing their rebate checks away from them.

Daniel can’t get his diploma from the Art Institute Online, which is part of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, unless he comes up with nearly $3,000. The trouble is, he already completed the required courses for his degree and paid the school. The school originally told him that this was an oversight on their part and that he wouldn’t have to pay for the extra course, but they haven’t kept their word. Now he’s facing a balance of $2,758 that he has to pay if he ever wants to see his diploma, and nobody at the school will help him.

I’ve got a potential problem on my hands I could really use some help with. I’ll try to make it quick while still giving enough background to explain the situation. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

After much work, I was able to turn my Associate degree from another design school into a Bachelor of Science in Interactive Media Design at the Art Institute Online (Art Institute of Pittsburgh) while working more than full time as a Senior Creative Director in the Washington DC area – even got a 3.8 GPA.

I was scheduled to graduate last December and did in fact drive to Pittsburgh with family and friends from all over the east coast to attend the ceremony, where they had all my grad stuff and even announced I made Dean’s list when I walked. It was nice, I was born there and haven’t been back in years. My student loans automatically went back into repayment and I was ready to start another new chapter in my life.

Not more than a few weeks later, I received a phone call from one of the school’s financial advisors asking why I haven’t filled out/reapplied for financial aid for the upcoming quarter. I explained that I graduated to which she responded that I hadn’t and then put me on hold to speak to a student advisor. After a long wait, I was disconnected. Kind of freaked but thinking it a mistake, I emailed my student advisor to see what was up. A few days later, he called back to inform me that the school messed up and I needed one more core credit. Keep in mind that the school, not the student, sets the schedule at AiO. He informed me it was required for the degree and since it was their fault, it would be paid for by the school – I just had to buy one more $60 book. I even got to pick from a list of about eight classes.

Throughout taking this final class, I sill received bills (mail and email) for the class I was never signed up for (while in a false post-grad state). I was reassured that it just needed to be cleared up with financial. The class came and went and after much back and forth, I was told that now the whole class would not be paid for by the school because they approved me for a 2 credit class and the class I took was 3 credits. No, there wasn’t a credit count on the list I was given and in fact, I went back and looked at my degree audit and saw that ALL of my classes were either 3 or 4 credit classes. Not a 2 credit class in my whole academic career.

From previous experience, I’ve noticed from my student loan info each quarter that the classes were about $2400 each – and always had to be paid before starting or you wouldn’t be able to log in to the classroom. Somehow, my final “discounted” bill for the free class is $2758. From the info (I can scan it if you’d like to see it), it looks like they still left the class I never took on it at full price, plus the discounted class. I brought it up to my student advisor who said I could clear it up with financial and gave me two people’s contact info (in other words he couldn’t do anything more from this point). He did say it needed to be cleared up before I would be mailed a diploma.

I called both people and haven’t got a response after a couple weeks (I left a detailed message for both). Keep in mind the main number is that of whom I believe to be the head of the department and whom I’ve contacted with financial questions many times over the years and NEVER received a response – phone or email. The only time I heard her voice was when she thought I might owe money.

So there it is. My concern is it’s going to be sent off to collections and it will be too late to contest if the charges are even correct – which I’m fairly certain they’re not. After six long years of extra late nights and large bills looming over me from Sallie Mae for at least another decade, I don’t even have a diploma in my hands – just the blank case for it from the ceremony and a cap and gown that I’m still looking to somehow repurpose! Any ideas what I could do from this point?

I spoke with someone who used to work in the admissions department of a university to see if she’d have any insider advice. She says you should contact the dean of academic affairs and the dean of student affairs and report the problem. I noticed the terrible Art Institute Online website won’t help you with this–it’s nothing but marketing drivel designed to pull in new customers–but you should be able to find the necessary contact information in the school catalog.

If that doesn’t work, take your complaint to the Pennsylvania Department of Education:

Pennsylvania Department of Education
333 Market Street
Harrisburg, PA 17126-0333
Main Information Number: 717-783-6788
TTY Number: 717-783-8445

Josh at GeekSix unearthed a comic book ad that might be familiar to you if you were a kid in the 80s. Olympic Sales Club was one of those door-to-door greeting card companies that enlisted kids across the country to sell crap to neighbors in exchange for merch your parents wouldn’t buy you.

For adults, multi-page direct mail letters tend to get good response rates; Olympic figured out how to get a similar response from kids by cramming a single comic book page with as many damned items as they could fit. (Like Josh, I sold for Olympic. I ended up with a Kodamatic.)

Also, their CSRs looked a little like Sea Monkeys.

“I was a preteen greeting card salesman” [GeekSix]

Credit unions might be attractive alternatives to big commercial banks, but they’re not crisis-proof. OregonLive says about a fifth of the nation’s credit unions are having financial troubles right now. To get in better financial health, they’re introducing fees for services that have long been free, and even asking members to move their deposits to other institutions.

OregonLive says part of the problem comes from corporate credit unions that have made bad investments. Local credit unions rely on corporate credit unions for financing, so when the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) has to take over one of these it not only wipes out a source of financing but forces local credit unions to pony up more cash–$1 billion last year–to rebuild the NCUA insurance fund. The other problem is that members of credit unions are traditionally poorer than average bank customers, so when they can’t pay their loans, the credit unions get hit.

Point West Credit Union in Oregon is one of the places where members are being asked to go elsewhere before the credit union is destroyed:

Like other credit unions, it has seen a flood of deposits from consumers seeking safety, higher returns and an alternative to fee-heavy, bailed-out big banks. But Point West can’t make auto and consumer loans fast enough to generate income to offset the costs of serving those members.

“We realize we can’t make enough income fast enough to get in a better net worth ratio,” said Robert Barzler, Point West’s CEO and president. “We actually have to shrink the credit union by shrinking the deposits. It’s something we’ve proactively done in order to protect our members and save the credit union.”

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Here’s another example of a credit union asking its members to go away, this time in Nevada. (Thanks to Jaime!)

“It’s crunchtime for Northwest credit unions “ [OregonLive] (Thanks to varro!)

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) was the group responsible for pressuring Disney into offering refunds on Baby Einstein DVDs last October. Now the CCFC says Disney threatened the mental health center where the group had offices, and consequently the center booted them out in January.

The New York Times says that just a few days after the refund story broke last October, officials at the Harvard-affiliated Judge Baker Children’s Center contacted officials at the CCFC and said they weren’t happy about the way the group had pressured Disney over the DVDs.

Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint, the psychiatrist who directs the Media Center at the Judge Baker center and oversaw the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, and Susan Linn, the campaign’s director, said center officials had told them that Disney contacted them three times.

“The Judge Baker staff informed us they didn’t want us to talk to the press, or to say anything about Baby Einstein,” Dr. Poussaint said. “They suggested to me that Disney was threatening to sue Judge Baker.”

[…]

Barely two weeks after the story of the refunds appeared, Dr. Poussaint said, he and Dr. Linn were called before the Baker center’s executive board.

“I asked the lawyer who had talked to Disney, point-blank, whether Disney had threatened to sue, and he said no,” Dr. Poussaint said. “But I still don’t know the content of the conversations with Disney.”

In January, center officials told the CCFC to get out by the end of February. The group had kept offices there for more than a decade.

The eviction is weird not just because of the unspecified Disney complaints back in October, but because there doesn’t appear to be any other sort of dispute or controversy that may have caused it. Even after the eviction order, the Judge Baker center and the CCFC were jointly planning a gala to be held in March, where one of the CCFC’s officials was to be the honoree. (The CCFC honoree withdrew from the gala in early February, and the event was canceled.)

A letter from the Judge Baker center said the CCFC’s methods were out of line with its mission, but that the center never accepted any money from or made any promises to Disney.

“After Victory Over Disney, Group Loses Its Lease” [New York Times] (Thanks to Adam!)

RELATED
“University Of Washington Stands Up To Disney, Will Not Retract “Baby Einstein” Press Release”

Kiplinger has advice on on how to maximize your medical expense deductions at tax time. You can only deduct out-of-pocket expenses that exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income, so you should try to bundle medical procedures in the same year if possible.

Additionally, you can sometimes claim expenses for parents or others who aren’t dependents but who you provided significant financial support for. You can also claim miles driven for medical procedures. The biggest thing you should do, however, is take advantage of any medical savings or flex account offered by your work–“the effect is the same as allowing you to deduct medical costs” without dealing with complicated IRS rules.

“The Challenge of Deducting
Medical Expenses” [Kiplinger]
“Making Medical Deductions Work” [Kiplinger]

If there’s one thing every crack dealer hates, it’s being paid in Monopoly money. A 33-year-old man in Wichita, KS, was pulled over by officers last week and found bleeding from the head. He told police he’d just been tricked by his angry crack dealer into coming over to his house, whereupon the dealer pistol whipped his face. According to the police report, the victim told them that “a couple of weeks ago he bought several hundred dollars of crack-cocaine with Monopoly money and now the dealer was ready for pay back.”

This man is ridiculous–everyone knows you have to have two ores and three bricks to get a rock.

“Wichita man pays crack dealer with Monopoly money” [KSDK] (Thanks to !)

Last week, Jon wrote to us asking how he can help protect his grandmother from falling for any more direct mail scams. She’d answered a piece from psychic Maria Duval, and subsequently her mailing address was sold to all sorts of scammers who thrive on easy marks. We suggested filing a prohibitory order via the USPS, but the core problem remains: how do you convince someone who wants to believe in psychics that she’s being lied to?

First, get the paperwork out of the way. In addition to a prohibitory order, make sure you file complaints with your Attorney General, the FTC, and the Postal Inspector.

Realistically speaking, filing complaints isn’t going to stop the worst scammers. It may not stop any of them. But it’s important to do this because it’s the only way you can let official agencies know about possible mail fraud. If enough people complain about the same scam that a pattern emerges, the odds are much higher that someone will be able to investigate it. You also never know whether they’re already investigating a scammer, so your report might provide valuable information.

Next, as we’ve mentioned in past direct mail posts, do what you can to stop direct mail in general. If you’re a caretaker for an elderly person, you can put their address on the Direct Marketing Association’s Do Not Contact List for Caretakers. For pretty much every other type of legitimate direct mail, you can find opt-out info on this page.

But everything above about is about attacking the direct mail. The real problem is that when you’re not there to intercede, your gullible relative might decide the next friendly/urgent letter from a psychic is the real deal. Here are some other ways to address the problem:

1. Sit your grandmother in front of a laptop and show her this Maria Duval website

Your grandma thinks she’s so special, huh? Well show her this online presentation of a Maria Duval pitch. Maybe she’ll notice some similiarities between it and her letter, enough so that she’ll realize the “personal” nature of it was fake.

If it’s some other scammer she’s fallen for, try to find evidence of it online so you can show it to her. If you can’t, remember that it’s easy to set up a Blogspot page.

2. Create a weekly scan-and-shred session.

Show up with your scanner and an eagerness to visit with grandma for an hour, and together go through all the junk mail that week. If you can, each time you spot a scam offer, try to connect it to a story you read online or saw on the news so you don’t look like you’re arbitrarily being suspicious of every Good Samaritan trying to help your grandmother. To get her more involved, buy her a custom stamp she can use between visits to mark suspicious letters.

3. Scam her yourself.

The problem you’re going to have with using reason is you can’t dismantle someone’s belief in the supernatural with logic. If she wants to believe a psychic, give her a psychic she’ll listen to and then use that persona to educate her on scams.

Take a look at the direct mail piece that convinced your grandmother to participate, or check out the Maria Duval site above. Then use it as a template to create your own awesome scam on grandma, where you pretend to be a psychic. Instead of asking for money, though, you’ll ask her to participate in some other way, and you’ll use the letter to warn her away from “competitors” who aren’t as serious or as psychic as you.

Some example messaging you could work in:

• Money changes so many hands that it actually interferes with my psychic connection with you. Instead of money, I want you to [pray every day for a week at 4 o’clock in the afternoon] [buy some random new age book on Amazon or at a bookstore] [volunteer at a local organization that supports the psychic’s larger mission].
• Beware the fake psychics! There’s a whole branch of psychics who broke off from the teachings of [Madame Blavatsky] [Edgar Cayce] [Siouxsie Sioux]. They tend to be connected to organized crime, and what’s worse their psychic abilities can sometimes lead to misfortune for their innocent clients.
• Straight up anti-fraud messages such as: you will never win a foreign lottery; if you have to pay anything for a prize, it’s not a prize; a check from a stranger is the financial equivalent of a live hand grenade, and comes loaded with bad mojo.
• Eerily accurate predictions about her life and her family–stuff that a stranger shouldn’t be able to know without some level of pyshic ability.

Look, I’m not sure running your own scam is legal, and there’s certainly some ethical issues with it, so this probably isn’t technically a good idea. But the goal isn’t to get a dime out of grandma. Instead, your goal is to entertain her and get her attention, so you can shift her away from trusting other direct mail pieces without asking her to stop believing in pyschics altogether.

I realize that this is my most brilliant and idiotic idea ever, but wait, I can go farther: if you’ve got the programming chops, why not set up a fake psychic’s website? A person can enter her email address and the system will periodically send out “customized” messages over the course of a year or two, each one written to provide psychic advice and predictions but also to continue warning her away from real scammers. You can drive her to the site with a glossy full color postcard printed from Zazzle or Cafe Press.

#

Okay, maybe the first two ideas are a little more realistic, but I do think there’s value in finding a way to capture the attention of the mark and use that moment to entertain and educate. If you’ve got real problems–an elderly relative who can no longer control her finances, for example–this sort of hands-on interaction may not help much.

If you’re dealing with someone with a lot of free time to fill and who wants to believe in psychics, getting involved indirectly might give you the credibility you’ve been lacking as a skeptic.

If you want to try human breast-milk cheese, make sure you stop in at Klee Brasserie in New York City the next time you visit. It’s made from the chef’s own wife, and he tells the New York Post, “It tastes like cow’s-mik cheese, kind of sweet,” and changes flavor depending on “what the mother eats.” His wife says, “The breast is there to make food.” Maybe, but I’m thinking this is a good way to shave a little off the cheese budget.

(I’m so sad nobody can comment on this post for now.)

“NYC Restaurant Serves Breast-Milk Cheese” [The Daily Beast]

Wisconsin’s lemon law for cars is pretty strict. If a customer demands a refund on a newly bought car that won’t run and can’t be repaired, the manufacturer has to comply within 30 days or pay double the purchase price plus legal fees. Marco Marquez has been fighting Mercedes-Benz for 4 years now over a $56,000 E 320 he bought in 2005 that immediately stopped working. He says the company deliberately stalled on giving him the refund in time, and last week a judge awarded him $482,000.

Because the lawsuit keeps dragging on–a judge ruled in his favor in 2007, then an appeals court overturned it and a jury sided with Mercedes, the last week another judge overturned the jury verdict–the cost of the payout keeps ballooning. In 2007, the award was $202,000. Of that $482,000 awarded last week, only $168,000 covers the car (double the purchase price plus interest).

Marquez says whether he ever sees the money or not, he’ll never buy another Mercedes–although he says he’s still driving this one until the company gives him a refund.

“Mercedes-Benz hit with large ‘lemon law’ judgment” [Associated Press via Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Does the milkaholic baby named Lindsay in the latest E*TRADE commercial remind you of a certain celebrity? Lindsay Lohan says it’s supposed to be her and is a jab at her own milkaholism, and she’s suing the company for $100 million and seeking an injunction to get it off the air. I agree that the baby playing the milkaholic doesn’t give a very good performance, but I always assumed it was supposed to be Lindsey Buckingham.

The ad agency says it was actually the name of someone on the account team, who probably should sue her employers for implying that she’s a functioning milkaholic.

“Lindsay Lohan sues E-Trade over ad baby” [USAToday]

Replacing an iPhone is expensive, which is why this guy decided to buy a heavily used and damaged one and clean it up himself. You might find the screen replacement side too daunting, but the procedure for turning a dull, scratched case into a glossy smooth one is something pretty much anyone can do.

“[DIY] Restoring an Iphone ( Front and Back)” [Macrumors via OhGizmo!]

A longtime reader sent in a couple of links to websites that let you find out more about your food supply chain, if you’re into that sort of stuff. Where is my milk from? matches carton codes with a list of dairies published by the FDA. FoodLogiq is less user-friendly and requires free registration, but you can apparently use it to track produce from participating growers. (Thanks to Cy!)

John Tedesco of the San Antonio Express-News was badgered last week by a telemarketer who wouldn’t take no for an answer. He decided to keep her talking for a while to see how many ways she’d try to get him to hand over his credit card number for a “free” cruise. Here were all the tricks she used during her sales pitch.

• He was lucky to get this offer “because the computer doesn’t pull everybody up.”
• There were a limited number of cabins available for this offer.
• Paying a $118 “port taxes” fee now would enable him to take 75% off of an “extended stay package” should he decide to trade up later.
• She couldn’t call back at a later time. “You have to understand this is a promotion. It’s not going to last long.”
• It’s right to be concerned about giving credit card info out over the phone: “We should all be concerned.” But the cruise line couldn’t stay in business if it defrauded people.
• Paying the $118 gauranteed a saved room on the ship.
• We’re with the Better Business Bureau.
• “I’m a grandmom. I wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t proper.”
• The cruise line is a certified company with the credit card companies.
• “Trust me.”
• You have 16 months to take the cruise, so you have all the time in the world to mull it over and plan it after you pay the $118 today).
• “There’s nothing that’s going to hurt you.”
• “It’s only $118. It’s not a whole bunch of money.”
• “Let’s just get you signed up.”

FINALLY after all of that, she hung up. She was defeated but will certainly go on to fight another day, and probably manage to bully that $118 out of some bewildered person.

Tedesco looked into her company and the claims she made and discovered that in fact she misrepresented a considerable amount of information, including the owner of the cruise ship, her company’s association with the BBB, and the real reason for the offer: a time-share presentation is involved.

“Offer for free cruise not so free” [My San Antonio]

If you want a good deal on a high-end bottle of wine, a new study suggests you should look for wines that clearly indicate they’re made from organic grapes. An economics professor and an environmental science Ph.D. candidate compared wines made with certified organically grown grapes to conventional wines, looking at both price and taste rankings, and found that the organic ones scored on average one point higher on Wine Spectator’s rankings. For some reason, telling that to consumers seems to devalue the wine: high-scoring bottles that advertised their organic nature sold for less at retail, while bottles that withheld this info scored just as high on taste but also were priced higher than average.

The authors say they suspect organic wine still carries a bad reputation due to lower quality stuff from the 70s and 80s, and due to the fact that really hardcore organic wine doesn’t use preservatives and tends to turn to vinegar much faster that regular wine. This doesn’t hold true for wines made with certified organically grown grapes because they can and do contain the normal preservatives–they’re just made with higher quality grapes.

Don’t expect the same pricing behavior at the lower end of the market, though. The study says both certification and eco-labels had no impact on price or taste for cheaper bottles.

“For California Vintners, It’s Not Easy Being Green” [Science Daily via Vinography] (Thanks to Vivek!)