George Mindling Column 2-21-2003 - New Twist on an Old Scam

A Brand New Twist on an Old Scam

To direct dial an international telephone call to friends and family outside the United States. you usually dial 011 first to let the telephone system know you arc dialing an international call.

However, there are many area codes in foreign counties that can be called with just an area code, without first dialing 011. The AT&T telephone card response line even has an instruction. "to call within Canada, the U.S. and the Caribbean, please dial a 1."

One area code in particular, 809, has caused grief to some unsuspecting callers - which some people assume is a toll-free line much like the 800 and 888 area codes. It is an international call and it isn't toll-free. There is an Internet scam update currently going around the Web warning of incredibly high telephone bills if they call the 809 area code. There is a real scam, but a little truth may help telephone users understand what to avoid and what is really going on.

The 809 area code is in the Dominican Republic. Obviously, if you need to call someone in the Dominican Republic, you must dial the 809 area code. Just dialing the area code does not generate the staggering telephone bill!

There are firms that use this area code to charge in-bound tolls, just like the notorious 900-numbers here in the states. However, it appears that in the Dominican Republic those numbers reside alongside the many legitimate telephone numbers in the 809 area code. The trick is to get you, the telephone customer, to call one of these toll numbers without your suspecting the call is more than just a long distance call .

Once you make that call, you are legitimately required to pay the bill. Remember, the bill is not from your long distance provider, but from the number you called. Your long distance provider submits the bill from the foreign number on your monthly bill. They are obligated to collect it by International telephone and commerce agreements. Disputing the bill can be a challenge, as the disagreement will be with a foreign telephone company, not a U.S. long-distance provider. The long-distance carrier may help, but don't bank on it.

The 809 area code was splintered in 1997 into several different codes, with the Dominican Republic maintaining the original 809 area code. The 473 area code is now Grenada, while 284 is the British Virgin Islands, and 868 is Trinidad and Tobago. All can be dialed without the international "011" code.

Go to http://thedirectory.org/pref/ for a complete list care area codes. There are other sites to check for help, including the AT&: T fraud site at http://www.att.com.fraud/home.html.

An "urgent message" on your answering machine is but one of the myriad variations to get you to call for more information. If the number is one of the toll numbers, you are not the one who is going to get rich.

George Mindling © 2003

George Mindling Column 1-17-2003 - Back It Up

Remember, It's Important to Back It Up

Nothing is more devastating at tax time than to lose your records. Losing all of your business or personal data is one the worst things that can happen when you need the information for tax reporting.  It happens daily and not just to the other guy. Personal computer hard drives fail. It is not a matter of "if," it is a matter of "when." Component manufacturers use a term called "MTBF," Mean Time Between Failures, as a yardstick of reliability, usually measured in hours of usage. Those numbers have climbed in recent years to the multi-thousands as the overall maturity of products has led to higher reliability. Just don't tell that to two recent victims of hard drive failure in my neighborhood.

Hardest hit was a laptop user who works from home. The data lost was not replaceable; it had to be recovered. The hard drive suffered a catastrophic failure and could no longer be found by the laptop PC. The only recourse was to send the hard drive out to an Orlando company that specializes in hard drive recovery. Depending on the damage to the drive, it may not be able to do the work there. The company's "clean room" laboratory in Nevada is used when the platter must be pulled from the unit.

It isn't a cheap service. The company charges $695 for the first gigabyte of data, and $145 a gigabyte thereafter, if it can be recovered at all. The company also charges a nonrefundable $150 assessment fee, even if the data can't be saved. These fees are on the low side, compared to some of the services available. The fees for recovery of a PC hard drive can go as high as many thousands of dollars.

The other drive failure, while just as complete, had been backed up on CDs using a software back-up program that allows using the CD-RW, or CD burner, instead of the slow, time consuming tapes. The restoration process is not as quick or painless as it should be, but the data has been restored and, with only a few glitches, is again in use.

Most operating systems have backup programs, but typically, they are slow and limited as to what you can use as a medium. There are many ways to back up your data and programs. One of the most popular is the Zip drive. and recently, the rewritable CD has gained a strong following. The old 3.5-inch floppy disks and tapes have all but fallen by the wayside as too small or too slow.

Future programs will allow use of DVD writers as a backup medium. There are several versions of the DVD format and they may not be compatible, so DVDs should only be used to back up the unit they were created on. The advantage is the huge amounts of data that can be stored on a DVD. There are optical drives that can also be used.

Having your data backed up is a smart move.

George Mindling © 2003

George Mindling Column 11-15-2002 - Computer Potato

I'm Rapidly Turning into a Computer Potato

Yes, I'm addicted to the PC! So are a lot of other people who have found a way to express themselves or indulge themselves as never before.

I amaze myself with astonishing graphics that were impossible to predict back when I was in the U.S. Air Force and-could only afford black-and-white film for my first 35mm camera. I now write and submit articles and photographs without talking to or seeing anyone. I sit, and with a few strokes of my keyboard, upload photos and new pages to my Web site where anyone in the world can stop and take a look.

I send files to my relatives by uploading graphics files that now take the place of paper photos. I haven't had a roll of film developed for more than a year. That reminds me, I have to finish off that last roll of film before Christmas.

I do marvelous things with the PC that perhaps pleases only me; but that's OK, I didn't know I enjoyed my own talents. If I want to share my electronic compositions, it only takes a few keystrokes or a mouse click or two. I can chat with people in Germany, England, as well as a few GIs who used to be stationed there all at the same time. Do I watch television? Only a few sporting and news events, and once in a while a Star Trek rerun.

Listening to the arguing, screaming and gunshots of today's programming is hazardous to my health. TV doesn't pay me to be stressed like a piano wire, so I'll just tootle over to the PC and see what's going on. Maybe I can download the biking video my daughter put together up in Athens, Ga. The quality of the video and audio is just astounding. That is the best sounding bad music I have ever heard.

It doesn't take my daughter long to adapt to the new technology. She has already seriously begun looking at converting her old VHS tapes to DVD. Sounds, just like me about 15 years ago when I was trying to save all the family Super 8mm films by transferring them to VHS tape! I saw so many shots of birds and flowers while doing the transfer that I wondered if I had any relatives at all.

Even without any sound, except the clackety whirr of the old Bell & Howell, the old films did manage to preserve several fond family moments. Many of them took place off-camera, however. When the camera batteries died, for example. We had used up the batteries and the film shooting the birds and flowers we were so thrilled to capture on film.

I watch my daughter shoot digital photographs and videos with ease. I know that she will watch the DVDs get transferred to something else. some other new technology that saves time, weight and space, in not-too- many years. .

Only then will she know if she took too many photos of flowers.

George Mindling © 2002

George Mindling Column 10-18-2002 - Too Young to Live in Port Charlotte

Too Young to Live in Port Charlotte

One of our new neighbors has been melancholy, almost morose, ever since moving to Port Charlotte from up north. Recently retired, she and her husband eagerly moved to the land of fun and sun, hoping to lead a new, energetic life. However, she has the blues.

"We're too young to live here," she confided in us. "We had no idea everything here was so old-fashioned and so backwards. Local politics is a typical small town farce, a lot of the local population lives just above the poverty level... and everyone wants to live here for free!"

We tried to console her, telling her getting through the first year is the hard part. Then it becomes hard to leave our odd little version of paradise.

“Competing with retirees who work for free is out of the question, I'm and not driving 75 miles round trip to Fort Myers to work 35 hours a week at $9 an hour!" she continued. “They keep it under 40 hours so they don't have to pay benefits!"  When I asked why she wanted to go back to work, she simply stared and said, "Obviously, your, 401 (k) is not funded by the stock market!"

The economic development of Charlotte County is the key to our future. We need to plan now for the water and sewer, roads and traffic control to support urban growth. We already know that newcomers want to build away from the old, established areas that reflect the older-style homes and retirement area atmosphere, regardless of financial consequences dictated by the county.

It appears fewer of the homes are being built by retirees and more by younger child raising families. The retirees coming into our area now are as different from the retirees who first moved here as they are from their parents.

Some of the revenue for seeding the economic development is in jeopardy. Ten percent of the state sales tax surcharge, locally called the "extension," is devoted to economic development. It is a ballot item for Nov. 5. Charlotte County has a new look this election. Economic growth is no longer the taboo subject it was only four years ago. The 1-percent sales tax extension is up for renewal.

Some opponents want to scare every voter into thinking this is a new tax. It isn't. We already pay it. So do 51 of the other 67 counties in Florida. There are several large counties that don't collect the surcharge, such as Brevard, Broward and Orange counties. They use the huge amounts collected by their respective bed taxes to collect non-advalorem revenues.

There are those who want to forgo all responsibilities of citizenship once they move to our area. No more taxes, no more new streets or schools, no more police or firefighters or stations. No more anything.

My neighbor is right, these people want to live here for free. If the opponents kill the sales tax extension, then my neighbor is right again: We are too young to live here.

George Mindling © 2002

George Mindling Column 9-20-2002 - Pop-Up Ads

Pop-Up Ads on the Net are Moving Targets

Many of today's Internet users are distressed over a new form of Internet advertising that is becoming increasingly thrown at them. The newest type of Internet advertising is called "Interactive advertising." You certainly don't request it, and it is sometimes hard to remove or close when you try to move to another page. The most prominent of the current pop-up ads, although recently toned down, is the overpowering ad for the wireless X-10 video camera. At least now you can shut down the Window it opens in. Prior versions simply popped up on your screen and you had to close the window or the URL you were working in.

Now, the next generation Internet ad is popping up. the animated ad. This was really unique in the film "Moulin Rouge." A worker appeared on your screen, and posted a flyer for the movie. No matter where you scrolled, the ad stayed on your screen. It dissolved after several aggravating minutes, but no action prior to that would remove the ad. You could not see what was on your screen behind the ad unless you scrolled to a screen position the ad didn't cover!

Where is the Internet going in its increasingly difficult advertising market? The banner ads that adorn most sites simply are not pulling the "click-throughs" to increase Web traffic the way Web advertisers claimed, so the forced ads seem to be the answer. Their usefulness has yet to he determined, yet just about everyone on the Internet knows what the X-10 is.

The problem is most Web users see the Internet as a free resource. They paid for their PCs, telephone or cable lines and modems, the software, and learned how to negotiate the Web without your help, thank you! Putting up advertising to view during the trip along the Internet was at first actually enjoyable, but now it looks like Interstate 75 in Georgia. Nobody pays any attention. The banner ads and splash boxes visually overpower many sites. Some sites have become so cluttered with visual garbage that it is difficult to tell the function or even the purpose of the page!

Some of the new Web pages assume that all users have 19-inch monitors with a minimum screen size set at 1280 x 1024 pixels, Unfortunately. those very large monitors are most often found in corporate America, where someone else foots the bill. Most home users arc still set at 640 x 480. or 800 x 600 screen size to fit their 15· or 17 -inch monitors. The result is many of the new pages look terrible to the average surfer, The overcrowding becomes overpowering. and the site is ultimately removed from users "bookmarks" or "favorites" files.

Perhaps the advertisers think if you can't read the Web page, you would like to watch an animation video of a car manufacturer's latest SUV roll across your computer monitor, At least you can see it without a magnifying glass.

George Mindling © 2002

George Mindling Column 8-16-2002 - Financial Scams

Watch out for Financial Scams

Twice this week my firm has been solicited by e-mail to help two different widows, both of whom lost their husbands to "bad guys" who apparently still run the respective countries, to help "save" or "retrieve" fortunes that they can't touch without our help.

The e-mails were labeled "Business Investment" and "Immediate Response Required." "I am Mrs. Maria Vusi, wife of late Anthony Vusi who was murdered by the Zimbabwean veterans and irate black people," starts one letter. "I am MRS MARIAM ABACHA, wife of the late Nigeria Head of State, General Sanni Abacha who died on the 8th of June, 1998 while still on active duty," begins the other.  One has a fortune worth $18 million, the other has one worth $25 million, that oddly enough, only we can help save!

I sent both c-mails to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs to see what the official stand is on these solicitations. According to Susan Counts at DOACS, financial scams are thought to be between the third and fifth largest industries in Nigeria!

There are many legitimate businesses in Nigeria, but we are talking about scams here. According to Counts, “The scam operates as follows: the target receives an unsolicited fax, e-mail, or letter concerning Nigeria containing either a money laundering or other illegal proposal. Common variations on the scam include: 'over invoiced' or 'double invoiced' oil or other supply and service contracts where your Bad Guys want to get the overage out of Nigeria; crude oil and other commodity that needs to be 'chemically cleaned' before it can be used and he needs the cost of the chemicals.

"Or the victim will just be stiffed on a legitimate goods or services contract. The variations are very creative and virtually endless. At some point. the victim is asked to pay up front an advance fee of some sort. be it an 'advance fee, 'transfer tax, performance bond: or to extend credit, grant COD privileges, whatever. “

“If the victim pays the fee, there are many 'complications' which require still more advance payments until the victim either quits, runs out of money, or both. If the victim extends credit etc. he may also pay such fees ('nerfund,' etc.), and then he is stiffed with no effective recourse."

This information is from the 419 Coalition. a group based in Harrisonburg. Va. Its home page is at

https://419coalition.org/

According to the group. there are five rules for dealing with any Nigerian company:

1. Never pay anything up front for any reason.

2. Never extend credit for any reason.

3. Never do anything until the check clears.

4. Never expect any help from the Nigerian government.

5. Never rely on your government to bail you out.

Oddly, both letters offered us 20 percent of the "held" funds, with 5 percent to be used for expenses if we "helped" free the "frozen' funds. Some industry!

George Mindling © 2002

George Mindling Column 7-19-2002 - Drug-Free Workplace

Implementing a Drug-Free Workplace

When Governor Jeb Bush signed Senate Bill 264 back on April 11, he signed into law a new requirement for everyone doing business with the state of Florida. Being certified as a Drug Free Workplace is no longer just a way to get a 5-percent discount on a company's worker's compensation insurance. Being certified will be mandatory, as of Oct. 1, if a company, even a subcontractor, wants to work on property or projects from the state of Florida.

The new law stipulates that an employer must implement drug testing for employees and job applicants in order to qualify as having a drug-free workplace program. In addition, construction, electrical, and alarm system contractors must implement a drug-free program to qualify to do business with the state.

For the small business owner who does business with the state, this may seem to he an burdensome and costly new process to be added to the task of running a small business. There is help, however, and it comes from the Small Business Administration.

During the recent Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan presentation at the Charlotte County Airport. Todd Shoulberg gave an unexpected, but very welcome, overview of the upcoming changes in Florida's drug- free workplace program. Shoulder's firm, Florida Drug Screening Inc., of Palm Bay, offering assistance in setting up a company's Drug Free Workplace Program under a grant from the Small Business Administration.

Currently, Florida Drug Screening is offering a turnkey program/policy in compliance with the code, including Drug Free Workplace Notice, written Drug Free Workplace policy, 60 day notification to employees, set up of collection site, lab and Medical Review Officer who reviews the test results, customized pre-printed chain of custody forms, drug testing of applicants. Also included are annual drug and alcohol education as required, supervisor training materials, post-accident and reasonable-suspicion requirements, and access to an employee assistance program.

The one-time fee for the above services is currently waived and the $38 individual testing fee for employees/applicants is waived until Dec. 31, under the SBA grant program. To be qualified as a drug-free workplace, five conditions must he satisfied. First, there must he a written drug policy in place and available for employee access. There should be no surprises to an employee about a company's drug policy. Secondly. there must he an employee drug education program. and thirdly, there must be training for supervisors.

There must he employee assistance, as determined by the drug policy. Lastly. there must he a drug test. Existing or current employees are "grandfathered” for 60 days without action, then are subject to testing. The testing may be at random, but must he stipulated in the company's drug policy.

Contact Todd Shoulberg at (888) 441-4599 for more information about the SBA program and the application form for small businesses. This is a great opportunity for a small businesses to become certified without cost, and is smart business to boot. Even the 5-percent discount on worker's compensation insurance carrier filing is included in the package.

George Mindling © 2002