Filed under: Ripoffs and Scams

You’re standing there while a store cashier is ringing up your buy, and you see that the price you’re being charged is wrong. Or… maybe you’re not paying attention and so you never see that the price is wrong. Tiny did you know that you’re probably being over- or under-charged on a regular basis when you go shopping.

Data from state price-accuracy inspections shows that 38% of Wisconsin stores failed their tests in the last two years. In order to pass, a store must charge customers the correct price (not a penny off) on at least 98% of products.

Most of the errors detected in stores were of a relatively small magnitude, amounting to only a few dollars and a small percentage of buys. Of a total of 48,000 products price-tested in the last two years by state investigators, though, 4% had incorrect pricing.

Investigators state that the price problems are usually unintentional - personal aren’t updated to reflect sale prices, or store personnel forget to remove a sale sign after a promotion ends.

But the dollars can add up. Watch your buys carefully, especially if you’re budget conscious. With post-holiday sales right around the corner, you want to make sure you’re getting the correct discounts on your buys.

Forensic accountant Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations through her company, Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners honored Tracy as the 2007 winner of the prestigious Hubbard Award and her first book, Essentials of Corporate Fraud, will be on bookshelves in March 2008.

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Ripoffs and Scams

You’re standing there while a store cashier is ringing up your buy, and you see that the price you’re being charged is wrong. Or… maybe you’re not paying attention and so you never see that the price is wrong. Little did you know that you’re probably being over- or under-charged on a regular basis when you go shopping.

Data from say price-accuracy inspections shows that 38% of Wisconsin stores failed their tests in the last two years. In order to pass, a store must charge customers the correct price (not a penny off) on at least 98% of products.

Most of the errors detected in stores were of a relatively small magnitude, amounting to only a few dollars and a small percentage of purchases. Of a total of 48,000 products price-tested in the last two years by state investigators, though, 4% had incorrect pricing.

Investigators state that the price problems are usually unintentional - personal aren’t updated to reflect sale prices, or store personnel forget to remove a sale sign after a promotion ends.

But the dollars can add up. Watch your buys carefully, especially if you’re budget conscious. With post-holiday sales right around the corner, you want to make sure you’re getting the correct discounts on your purchases.

Forensic accountant Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations through her company, Sequence Inc. Forensic Bookkeeping. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners honored Tracy as the 2007 winner of the prestigious Hubbard Award and her first book, Essentials of Corporate Fraud, will be on bookshelves in March 2008.

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Finance, Productivity, Open Source

SugarCRM has just posted a much-anticipated, much-tested update to its CRM software. Already one of the leading CRM clients in the field, Sugar also has the honorable distinction of sporting the majestic and rare feather of open source in its illustrious and award-laden chapeau. Management for the masses, if you will.

Sugar 5.0 includes improved security, the capability to easily create custom modules, an AJAX email client compatible with the POP3 protocol, and hot new dashboarding abilities.

Following the old carpenter’s adage of “measure twice, cut once,” the Sugar CRM software was put through three beta cycles, and was tested over 30,000 times. In other words, if you think you’ve found a bug in the Sugar CRM software, it might be the one that splattered on your glasses as you cruised to work on your Vespa scooter.

SugarCRM is available as a free Community edition, as well as two commercial editions: Professional and Enterprise. Professional costs $275 per user per year; Enterprise costs $449. The Sugar website offers a wealth of demos, both hands-on and hands-off.

[Via InfoWorld]

Read

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Ripoffs and Scams

A piece in today’s New York Times looks at Robert J. Pyle, a 73-year old retired aerospace engineer who lost everything giving gifts to people he thought were his friends and then sold his home at a steep discount to its value to the first person who made an offer when he needed money.

Now he’s suing, charging that because he is old, he should not have to bear full responsibility for his mistakes. What makes the lawsuit and others like it unique is that Pyle isn’t accusing those who have his money of fraud per se — he just says they took advantage of an old man.

What the courts will do with his lawsuits remains to be seen — But the bottom line is that, for better or for worse, elders can’t rely on the government to protect them from opportunists.

If you’ve elderly parents or friends, offer to help them sort through their financial affairs. Many if not most will be resistant, not wanting to be patronized, but at least they’ll know they have someone to turn to if they find themselves in a pickle.

Here are a few sites that have some tips for preventing elder fraud against loved ones: Fraud.org’s elder fraud site, the Department of Justice’s publications on elder fraud, and perhaps Barry Minkow’s DVD Protecting yourself from elder abuse.

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Finance, Productivity, Open Source

SugarCRM has just posted a much-anticipated, much-tested update to its CRM software. Already one of the leading CRM clients in the field, Sugar also has the honorable distinction of sporting the majestic and rare feather of open source in its illustrious and award-laden chapeau. Management for the masses, if you’ll.

Sugar 5.0 includes improved security, the ability to easily create custom modules, an AJAX email client compatible with the POP3 protocol, and hot new dashboarding abilities.

Following the old carpenter’s adage of “measure twice, cut once,” the Sugar CRM software was put through three beta cycles, and was tested over 30,000 times. In other words, if you think you’ve found a bug in the Sugar CRM software, it might be the one that splattered on your glasses as you cruised to work on your Vespa scooter.

SugarCRM is available as a free Community edition, as well as two commercial editions: Professional and Enterprise. Professional costs $275 per user per year; Enterprise costs $449. The Sugar website offers a wealth of demos, both hands-on and hands-off.

[Via InfoWorld]

Read

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Audio, Business, Design, Developer, Finance, Internet, Video, Blogging, Productivity, Web services, Yahoo!, Beta

Yahoo! is getting ready to take the wrapper off TechTicker, an online program aimed at technology investors.

TechTicker specifically targets technology stocks in a portal type environment. The new program will offer streaming video, blog posts and breaking news targeting the technology investment sector. The portal and show which are stated to be launching in January 2008, pick up where Yahoo! Finance Vision left off in 2002. Thankfully high speed connections are far more common in 2007 and better video compression tools are available to make internet based shows a feasible reality, rather than a pipe dream (no, we’re not poking fun at Yahoo! Pipes, ok, maybe just a little). As for the other financial information that’ll be displayed, we assume it will resemble what Yahoo! Finance already does, but targeting technology specific companies.

With Yahoo! Finance high on the list of financial sites, TechTicker could be headed for great things. Of course, track records aside, we’ll have to wait for the roll out in order to really decide.

Check out what Yahoo! Finance Vision looked like back in the day.

Read

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Ripoffs and Scams

You’re standing there while a store cashier is ringing up your buy, and you see that the price you’re being charged is wrong. Or… maybe you’re not paying attention and so you never see that the price is wrong. Little did you know that you’re probably being over- or under-charged on a regular basis when you go shopping.

Data from state price-accuracy inspections shows that 38% of Wisconsin stores failed their tests in the last two years. In order to pass, a store must charge customers the correct price (not a penny off) on at least 98% of products.

Most of the errors detected in stores were of a relatively small magnitude, amounting to only a few dollars and a small percentage of purchases. Of a total of 48,000 products price-tested in the last two years by state investigators, though, 4% had incorrect pricing.

Investigators state that the price problems are usually unintentional - computers aren’t updated to reflect sale prices, or store personnel forget to remove a sale sign after a promotion ends.

But the dollars can add up. Watch your buys carefully, especially if you’re budget conscious. With post-holiday sales right around the corner, you want to make sure you’re getting the correct discounts on your purchases.

Forensic accountant Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations through her company, Sequence Inc. Forensic Record-keeping. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners honored Tracy as the 2007 winner of the prestigious Hubbard Award and her first book, Essentials of Corporate Fraud, will be on bookshelves in March 2008.

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Recalls, Ripoffs and Scams

If you’re like me, you often find yourself tempted to spend more money on holiday gifts for your four-legged furry friends than your relatives. I know I’ve a lot more fun watching Maggie and Ramsey playing with their rubber balls with biscuits in the middle (called Kongs — a great but costly gift for the dog in your life) than I would watching my dad put together a new grill or inflatable New England Patriots chair.

But there could be trouble on the horizon: With all the talk about recalls of imported children’s toys with high lead-levels, almost nothing has been said about dog toys!

And it turns out that there are no legal standards for lead levels or anything else in in pet toys — and the Consumer Products Safety Commission says it lacks jurisdiction over pet issues, and can only intervene if the health of the owner if being effected. However a lot of pet stores test their products anyway.But as the New York Times says, “Although the concerns are different when it comes to pets - if a golden retriever loses a few I.Q. points, will anyone notice? - the inquiries have continued to pour in during the Christmas season, when people are most apt to buy pet toys. According to the American Pet Products Association, 56 percent of dog owners and 42 percent of cat owners buy their pets toys or other treats for Christmas, in an industry with $40 billion in annual sales.”

I’m not too worried about my dog getting sick from lead in her toys. She has eaten dirt, TV remote controls, electrical wiring, and grass without so much as a cough.

But given that pet toys are often touched by children playing tug of war with their pets, it seems like the CPSC should be taking a loko.

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Audio, Business, Design, Developer, Finance, World wide web, Video, Blogging, Productivity, Web services, Yahoo!, Beta

Yahoo! is getting ready to take the wrapper off TechTicker, an on the internet program aimed at technology investors.

TechTicker specifically targets technology stocks in a portal type environment. The new program will offer streaming video, blog posts and breaking news targeting the technology investment sector. The portal and show which are said to be launching in January 2008, pick up where Yahoo! Finance Vision left off in 2002. Thankfully high speed connections are far more common in 2007 and superior video compression tools are available to make internet based shows a feasible reality, rather than a pipe dream (no, we’re not poking fun at Yahoo! Pipes, ok, maybe just a little). As for the other financial information that’ll be displayed, we assume it will resemble what Yahoo! Finance already does, but targeting technology specific companies.

With Yahoo! Finance high on the list of financial sites, TechTicker could be headed for great things. Of course, track records aside, we will have to wait for the roll out in order to really decide.

Check out what Yahoo! Finance Vision looked like back in the day.

Read

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Business, Finance, Internet

There are plenty of ways for small business owners to create and track invoices. You could just fill out a Word template every time you need to bill a client, or you could use free software like Microsoft Record-keeping Express or QuickBooks Simple Begin. But as with everything these days, there are also online solutions.

Invoice Journal is a easy web site that lets you create and track your invoices. There’s a easy form for entering new clients, and another for sending invoices to those clients. Easy as pie.

Invoice Journal lacks some of the bells and whistles you’d get with a more complex service like FreshBooks. There’s no time tracking feature for example. But sometimes you want a service that does one thing and does it well.

If Invoice Journal doesn’t do it for you, we’ve also looked at Invotrak, another free invoicing startup, that quite frankly, works pretty much the same was as Invoice Journal.

[via makeuseof]

Read

Share This

Share This