MyLife.com is actually in the midst of a lawsuit in California. Click HERE to download the PDF court document for details.  - (It’s a good read)

MyLife.com is the new name for Classmates.com, Reunion.com, and Wink.com . Those of you who were on the internet years ago will remember those annoying image ads for Classmates.com.

Utilizing the concept that “someone is looking for you,” in their advertisements is how they attempt to lure people to sign up. After someone signs up for free, they discover that you must pay for a monthly membership to even see “who’s searching for you”. One month starts out at $13.95.

Lets do a search on MyLife shall we….oh take a look at these quality results!

Click on image to enlarge.

It has been reported that they have been accused of over billing people by substantial amounts after signing up. They have also been accused of hosting a database of fake names which are used as “people”  that have been “searching for you.”

In my opinion (of course), MyLife.com is an absolute worthless ripoff website, and a piece of complete and utter junk. The purpose of the website is not clear to the consumer which is a dead giveaway.

I took this excerpt from the court document (link above):

RIP OFF. STAY AWAY. This website emailed me that 41 people were looking for me. I have a very unusual name. I went online and clicked to pay $7.95 to see the names. mylife promptly debited my card for almost $100.00. The “41 people” were NO ONE that I have ever heard of and they would not be looking for me by accident with the unusual name I have. This is a complete SCAM.

If you would like to read more, I have compiled several links to other information related to MyLife:

Article on DailyFinance.com

Complaints Board

Courthouse News Service

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The email wants you to click on a link to reply to a “complaint”. The link is directed to an index file on the IP 38.106.32.183. Huge red flag right there as it is not even a link to the proper BBB domain name (bbb.org).

The IP address belongs to a hosting company. Since the link doesn’t resolve anymore, it looks as if the hosting company closed down the account.

I suggest you don’t ever click on links contained in emails, without first hovering over the link and verifying that it is directing you to the correct domain name.

The grammar mistakes in these emails are a dead giveaway. Plus if you search for each of the “employees” names, none actually work for the BBB.

Hello,
The Better Business Bureau has received the above-referenced complaint from one of your clients in respect of their dealings with you.
The detailed information about the consumer’s concern is contained in attached document.
Please give attention to this case and let us know about your point of view.
We kindly ask you to click here to reply this complaint.

We look forward to your urgent attention to this matter.

Faithfully yours,
Paula Tap
Better Business Bureau

Hello,
The Better Business Bureau has been sent the above-referenced complaint from one of your associates concerning their dealings with you.
The detailed information about the consumer’s concern is included in attached file.
Please give attention to this matter and advise us of your standpoint.
We kindly ask you to click here to reply this complaint.

We look forward to your urgent attention to this matter.

Sincerely,
Anita Emil
Better Business Bureau

Hello,
The Better Business Bureau has got the above-referenced complaint from one of your clients in respect of their dealings with you.
The detailed information about the consumer’s concern is contained in enclosed file.
Please review this issue and advise us of your point of view.
We kindly ask you to click here to answer this complaint.

We look forward to your urgent attention to this matter.

Yours faithfully,
Roland Dani
Better Business Bureau

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Beezid is just one of the several “penny” auction websites online. It is true that these auctions go up by a penny at a time, BUT the trick is each penny actually translates to a dollar amount. Misleading a bit huh?

As stated on their website:

Bids are available in packs of 30, 50, 100, 200, 500 and 1000 and range from $0.55 – $0.90 per bid.

This means each penny you use to bid with will cost you anywhere from $0.55 to $0.90 to place, depending on the bid package you buy.

The bottom line is, it looks neat that you can buy something with “pennies on a dollar,” but you are actually paying for the ability to even place the bid.

Also, even people who don’t end up winning the item still have to pay for the bids they placed. How ridiculous is this?

Think long and hard about this.

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This is why you commonly see “ACH” in front of banking transactions on your statements.

But don’t be fooled and fall for these ridiculous phishing attempts. The particular email I received today (shown below) contains a link to a supposed Microsoft Word Document that explains why I apparently have a “failed” payment transaction.

Whatever you do, don’t click on any links found in any email like this. It will only lead to malicious code which will compromise your security and most likely cause you a lot of unwanted headaches.

I checked the email headers of this particular message which came from the IP address 85.156.169.13 which is out of Finland. NACHA is located in the United States.

Here is the particular message I recieved:

The ACH transaction (ID: 655072295785), recently initiated from your checking account (by you or any other person), was rejected by the other financial institution.

Rejected transaction
Transaction ID: 655072295785
Reason for rejection See details in the report below
Transaction Report report_655072295785.doc (Microsoft Word Document)
13450 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite 100
Herndon, VA 20171

2011 NACHA – The Electronic Payments Association

I also received this follow-up message a little later:

438a474d1b6f2397 Your_Direct Deposit-payments-were_disallowed
ACH Network-Rules Department romerocpj69@yahoo.com
QXLPEKLRPAQDThe-details-regarding_this-matter_are-available in-our_secure-section:čā

This last message I received came through a United Kingdom Yahoo Mail server. Maybe the two emails are connected? Maybe not?

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1) Plug in the iPod Touch so that it remains charged during the entire process.

2) Open the “Settings” app on the phone.

3) Navigate to the “General” section.

4) At the very bottom there will be a “Reset” option, open this.

5) Hit the option titled “Erase all Content and Settings”.

6) When the warning pops up reconfirm “Erase iPod”. You will have to reconfirm twice.

The previous instructions may differ slightly between different versions of iOS. By resetting the iPod Touch this way, it securely erases all data by over-writing everything. The entire process could take several hours depending on how much data you have on the iPod, so make sure you keep it plugged in.

This video (not created by me) will guide you through the same process as I listed above.

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WEP or Wired Equivalent Privacy has been around since 1999, which is a long time ago if you consider the speed of technological development. A couple of years later exploits were found against WEP which allowed it to be cracked extremely fast. There are tons of videos on Youtube displaying how fast and easy a WEP crack is.

If you are looking to get up-to-date with the new security standards, I highly recommend using or switching to WPA2.

In order to switch to WPA2, your wireless devices must all be compatible with this type of encryption. Some older computers may need a simple software update to be compatible. Everything manufactured within the last few years support WPA2 out of the box.

WPA2 is still crackable to an extent. But with a few modifications to your encryption settings, you won’t have a problem.

If you have a home network you will probably be using WPA2 PSK (Pre-Shared Key). Aircrack-ng, a popular wireless cracking program can only crack WPA2 networks that use PSK. Therefore it is very important you set up your PSK properly. WPA2 networks with dictionary words or short length words can only be cracked.

Your PSK can contain anywhere from 8-63 characters. You don’t necessarily have to use all 63 characters, but your PSK should be fairly long containing random characters including several special characters. This will ensure your wireless network is safe and secure!

In Summary:

*Ditch WEP

*Use WPA2 Encyrption

*Setup a secure PSK as I explained above

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Years ago, I used to sell things a lot more often on eBay since Craigslist was not created/widespread (not sure which). Lately, eBay has been upsetting me since almost every item I have sold in the past year (maybe 5) has had an issue.

One of my recent problems was when I tried to sell an unopened Xbox Live subscription card. A buyer purchased it and then immediately sent me payment. He then sent me a private eBay message requesting that I just send the subscription code over email. His reasoning was that it’s faster than mailing it, and cheaper. That was a HUGE red flag right there.

He immediately filed a charge-back on Paypal to get his money back. I had to notify Paypal and eBay who suspended the account. Paypal tried to charge me a $20 fee for the charge-back the guy filled, since that’s apparently what the credit card company charges Paypal when they take their money back.  I called Paypal and they refunded me the $20 and everything was alright. I tracked his Facebook down, and he was not from the U.S. so there was not much else I could do.

This is just one example of the many scams that haunt eBay users everyday. I understand eBay is doing their best at preventing it, but it’s a losing battle with the technology these days.

There are serveral things you can do, and watch out for when you are using eBay:

1) Set buyer requirements – This will ensure your buyers have quality feedback in the past.

2) Use Shipping Tracking – Always ship your items with tracking and then upload it to Paypal. This shows Paypal that you did ship the item, and makes it extremely hard for someone to file a charge-back on you.

3) Don’t trust any eBay emails – If you receive an email from eBay don’t click on any links inside of it. Instead, log into eBay and check your “Messages,” if the email was legitimate, it would be listed there as well.

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I currently use a WD TV to play my movies off of a USB drive on my TV. It supports just about every video format without any issues. Mine is a basic device that is now getting older since it does not play HD movies or connect to a network. I am definitely considering upgrading to a newer device that does all of this including stream Netflix, which to me is a big plus. Netflix recently announced their new streaming plans which has got me thinking about trying it out.

One of the latest Western Digital WD TV devices is only $89 brand new, and will plug into your TV via HDMI, composite, or component. It also has an Ethernet port to plug into your network, or you can purchase a wireless USB adapter as well for about $12.

You have the choice to connect to your network to access your files, or plug in your external hard drive or USB drive and play your media. The WD TV definitely gets a lot of use by me.

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I quickly researched several free plugins available for WordPress that will automatically detect, and display a mobile version of my blog to users with mobile devices. I needed a free plugin that could automatically create a great looking mobile version of my blog. It needed to be able to automatically detect and display an optimized version to user’s with mobile browsers.

The absolute best plugin that I could find is called WP Mobile Detector. I am currently using it on this blog as it was very simple to set-up. I just installed then activated the plugin, and it immediately started working without having to insert code anywhere else on my WordPress install.

It comes with several mobile themes to choose from. There is also a paid version where you are able to perform advanced customization, including a built-in interactive theme editor.

To the creator of WP Mobile Detector, great job on a fantastic plugin!

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I found out after having this problem twice, that you will be billed for data on the feature phone that you never used. This will add up fast and your bill will certainly surprise you. The first time I called about it they immediately reversed the charges since they have a one time data charge reversal. The second time this occurred I did not get a courtesy data charge reversal right away.  After an extensive call to Verizon’s customer support I was able to get the charges reversed. I also found out that when you switch off your unlimited data plan that you have with your smartphone, and don’t carry over any data plan to your feature phone they are unable to track which phone actually used the data. The one with, or without the data plan.

The second time I called Verizon’s customer support, I was told that the charges were legitimate and I had to pay. They told me that the smartphone was probably not turned off and continued to access data when I had switched to my feature phone. This was not true since I pulled the battery in my smartphone before even activating my feature phone. But, I was able to talk to the supervisor and she explained to me what was happening.

The easiest way to prevent this is to make sure that when you switch to your feature phone you also add a data package. I recommend you just add the unlimited data package again since you already pay for it. This will insure you will not receive any unnecessary data charges.

I wish Verizon would correct this issue because I am sure I am not the only one who switches between my feature phone and smartphone.

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