We often think of identity theft as something that happens to individuals via stolen wallets, credit cards or bank account numbers.  But it can also happen to businesses given the free services the Internet provides.  Our office has come across a company who has allegedly spammed a few consumers with e-mails regarding international wire transfer services.  Unfortunately this particular company is not doing the spamming but has had their Web site reproduced by scammers out of China who find nothing better to do than try to ruin the reputation of a real business.  From our investigation, we can see that using this internation wire transfer service does put personal information at risk of being harvested by filling out a form so we strongly discourage the use of online wire transfer services unless it is an absolute emergency.

First of all, it's very hard to get money back from a wire transfer, let alone one that goes international.  Secondly, your web browser will give away the nationality of the Web site that you are on.  For instance, Web sites from England will have a "co.uk" extension while ones from China will have a ".cn" attached.  You can find a list of extensions here in case you see something fishy you've never come across before.  This will often tip you that the business is not legitimate or is stealing the identity of another company.  So be careful out there and always check with BBB for the real truth to whether a business is real or not.

Lately I've been posting information to this blog dealing with subjects that come across my desk that don't quite meet my press release needs.  This forum is a great way to inform you all about other issues going on with our BBB and in the community.  But now it's time to hear from you directly which is why I'm asking for feedback here.  What do YOU want me to address?  What do you care about the most?  What can I do to inform/answer/entertain YOU the reader on this blog?

It's pretty simple.  I moderate comments on these blog posts but I'll freely let your comments slide on this one in order for everyone to see what the issues are that matter to them.  Simple respond to this post and I'll start addressing each question or comment one by one throughout the next few days.  Lets make this a little change of pace and take this blog back to 100% interactive.

 

From the department of "Don't Believe Everything You Hear" comes a new radio ad our Executive Director in Corpus Christi alerted me to.  It basically says if you call the promoted phone number, you can get $1,000 in free groceries so that this company can do a study on what people are buying from the grocery store.  Now who wouldn't want that?  Problem is that the ad is rediculously deceptive and you have to subcribe to 2 magazines and pay shipping for each of them.  After that, you would get the grocery card.  WRONG again!  You get a membership card to an online coupon company where you can get a slew of coupons that will eventually save you $1,000.

The scary part of this scheme is that to subscribe to these magazines, you have to give your bank account info so automatic montly withdraws can occur if you don't catch it right away.  So as we've said before, if you hear a deal like this over the air or see it on TV, don't automatically assume it comes without any catches or exceptions.  The cliche of "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" comes into play here once again so just do what normal folks do and sit in front of the TV with your scissors in hand on Sundays and clip coupons from the newspaper at your heart's content.

 Everyone has their favorite TV channel they watch when they get home from work.  The same with that great radio station frequency that rarely changes on the dial (FYI it's called a P1 listener).  So throughout the day when you're swamped with the commercials on TV and radio, you may hear about a company or a deal that sounds pretty good.  And why not?  It's on your favorite station and maybe your favorite personality endorsed it.  Well you still have to be careful becomes sometimes the TV and radio stations can be duped too.

Most TV and radio stations make the majority of their money through advertising deals with companies.  These stations are not going to do business with a shady company on purpose, but sometimes if the company mis-represents itself or deceptively advertises its product, there can be issues.  So it's very important that when you hear your favorite anchor or DJ spreading the word on how much they love a product or company, to still check with BBB and make sure they're legit.  Who knows, your favorite on-air personality may end up having to file a complaint with us while you were able to avoid the scam.