Filed under: Retire, Ripoffs and Scams, Saving, Technology

Writing yesterday about new options for the ashes of departed loved ones caused me to remember how shocked I was to learn of the cost to run an obituary in my hometown newspaper. I naively thought that these commemorations were news, covered by the paper as part of its service. Not so.

My local, the Columbus Dispatch, charges $5.73 per line per day, M-Sat, and $8.21 per line on Sunday. An additional $30 charge is added to each to extend the obit to the Internet, via the site Legacy.com. Legacy.com is a web site owned by a group of newspapers. A typical 50-line obit in the Dispatch running twice during the week would cost $603. A one-timer in the Sunday edition would set you back $440.50. This is typical of other papers, indexed against circulation.

One look at Legacy.com shows just how primitive the newspaper obit is, and why it won’t last much longer. On the internet, the information can be accessed anywhere, any time, in perpetuity, and length is only a matter of electrons. More importantly, richer content, such as pics, movies, and recordings can be added to the memorial with a mouse click. This site also offers readers the opportunity to contribute their memories and tributes.

The only added-value feature newspaper obits can offer is lamination.

While Legacy.com is only available as a part of newspaper obits, there are other sites that offer similar services without this stipulation. With the advent of Googlepages and Facebook, though, anyone with a modicum of design sense can put together a free tribute site with all the family links and rich content imaginable.

When I die, I’ve instructed my wife that my newspaper obit is to read “See TomBarlowisdead.com for details.” That should fit on one line.

Addendum: In my research for this piece, I ran across an announcement for the 10th Great Obituary Writer’s International Conference. If my career counselor had only told me about this…

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Filed under: Ripoffs and Scams

I’ve always been a believer that if “you broke it, you bought it.” If you cause someone to lose money, you should pay them. If you’ve incurred a bill, the business has a right to collect the money. But this kind of stuff can be taken a little too far. And The Westin Casuarina Hotel & Spa in Las Vegas has done exactly that.

Here’s how the story goes. A bunch of people attended a four-day dental conference at the hotel in October. The conference was organized by the Coaching Center of Austin, a consulting group that reportedly ended up not paying about $50,000 owed to the hotel. But The Westin apparently found a handy solution. They’d just collect the money from those who attended the conference.

What? You heard it right. The hotel started charging the credit cards of attendees over $600 each, calling it a “pro-rated amount per attendee,” according to the story. Their reasoning? The hotel’s fine print states that guests can later have their credit cards charged for unpaid charges. Yet, guests say that they thought it meant their personal unpaid charges related to their rooms, not unpaid charges by the conference organizer.

And I’m pretty sure that’s what we all believe when we sign up for a hotel room. That we’ll be liable for our own personal unpaid charges, not those of a broke consultant who isn’t paying their conference charges. What a crock!

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Record-keeping, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.

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Filed under: Business, Finance, Web services

Zillow is taking the wraps off its new service today, the Mortgage Marketplace.

Designed as a meeting ground between mortgage borrowers and lenders, Zillow Mortgage Marketplace aims to solve most of the common complaints that borrowers and lenders have with the normal mortgage process.

For starters, the marketplace does not require that borrowers provide extensive personal information up front. In place of personal information are detailed loan request forms, where you can customize the offering you are looking for. When a lender sends a quote, you’re alerted by e-mail to view, then accept or decline, the customized offer.

Lenders can register for a small fee; once registered, they have the ability to submit quotes to potential borrowers, and view any competing quotes for the same borrower. Zillow requires full disclosure from the lender; that’s, any quote must include all fees, as well as estimates of taxes, insurance, the whole kit and kaboodle.

The Mortgage Marketplace is an excellent idea. It allows the borrower to shop extensively without having to reveal all of their personal information, and saves them the time of filling out form after form. Zillow’s full disclosure policy insures that there will be no surprise costs. Lenders will also benefit from having a huge pool to pull customers from for a relatively low cost.

The question is: is anybody even buying a home right now?

[via CNet]

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Filed under: Finance, World wide web, Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Productivity, Mozilla, Freeware, Browser Tips, Unix, Search

Safari always had an interesting and convenient way of searching for text: it dims the background and highlights text-matches throughout the page. It’s too bad Firefox can’t couldn’t do that. It’s now possible to easily add that functionality to everybody’s favorite open-source browser thanks to a recent mozillaZine post.

The install process is pretty easy if you use the superior set of instructions and files, and it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes of duplicating, pasting, and mouse clicking to complete. The animation process in between “Next” clicks is also fun, and if you’re still on the fence about it, you could check out a video or two on the custom feature.

[via CyberNotes]

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Filed under: Management, Movers and shakers, Engagements, Private equity industry

Private equity firm Behrman Capital has announced that General Peter Pace, retired USMC and former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, took the role as Operating Partner with the firm. General Pace was also named as Chairman of the Board to Pelican Products, an advanced lighting systems and valuable equipment case manufacturer. He’ll also direct ILC Industries, Inc., a company that provides defense electronics (of course the defense angle).

Allow Behrman of the firm noted that General Pace has forty years tenure in the Marines and then as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Pace graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and has an MBA from George Washington University.

Behrman Capital is a private equity investment firm with more than $2 billion of capital under management and it invests in management buyouts, leveraged “buildups” and recapitalizations of established growth companies. If you look through the private equity firm’s portfolio companies, you can see why having a former general and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman would be a good thing.

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