Scams, Swamps and Sinkholes

Our Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson recently stated, “All nations should take a strong public stance against North Korea by maintaining and strengthening U.N. sanctions to ensure North Korea will face consequences for its relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.” He also confirmed that it is now possible that North Korea can launch a missile that would put our mainland at risk.  Too bad previous leaders did not take North Korea as seriously before this! Since the 90's, our leadership has kicked the can down the road. Bill Clinton, G. W. Bush, and Barack Obama provided A LOT of taxpayer dollars to keep the North Korean regime happy, while they went along their merry way trying to achieve the capability to commit Armageddon. This has led to a situation where our very homeland is at risk today.  BUT who ORIGINALLY enabled the despots in North Korea to obtain nuclear technology? Most of the nuclear technology that rogue a...

There is no doubt that Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a very interesting politician. The problem is that she is also one of the premier examples of a bonafide "Swamp Creature" in what has become a sewer called Washington. After getting caught fixing the election for Hillary in the primaries at the expense of a much more popular Bernie Sanders -- Debbie fell from the powerful post of DNC Chairwoman.  While I am not a Bernie supporter, he was treated unfairly (and very dishonestly) by Wasserman Schultz and the DNC. This is the United States of America and we should be able to expect that certain standards are met in our electoral process. Wasserman Schultz is a Democrat -- and it never ceases to amaze me -- that she and her colleagues from this party keep calling for the impeachment of President Trump -- when there is no actual proof he ever did anything wrong. In fact, she recently went after Jared Kushner's security clearance , when there is also no actual proof ...

The BBB Scam Tracker is a robust interactive tool to track fraudulent activity in throughout North America. The data I viewed from Mexico seems to be minimal at this point, although this might be because Mexico was added after the United States and Canada. The site collects data from users, who were the victims of a scam, or from smart people who figured out someone was trying to scam them. The tool enables the user to search potential fraudulent activity by keyword, type of scam, location, and time frame. Please note that scams are most successful when they hit a new geographical area because the "word is not out yet." Because of this, scammers frequently travel and even rotate the particular scam in order to catch innocent people/businesses off guard. Just because the particular scam is not showing up in your geographical area doesn't mean it isn't a scam. The scam activities tracked include home repair, tree trimming, tax, advance fee, job, lottery, collectio...

Fraud using the telephone is nothing new and has probably been around as long as there have been telephones. After all, a telephone is merely a communication device and can be used to dupe someone into doing something they might regret later. Saying that telephone technology, which has grown rapidly in recent years, has given fraudsters a wide array of new tools. More and more frequently, these tools are used to depart common people and even large businesses from their hard-earned money. Take Caller ID  for instance, which is marketed as a means of protecting our privacy. When I say marketed, it's normally sold to us for a fee so we can see who is calling us. The irony of the situation is that for a fee (over even for free) -- just about anyone can make the caller ID appear to whatever number they desire. The ability to spoof (fake/impersonate) caller ID has been around for a few years. Collection agencies, private investigators, telemarketers, and even law enforcement a...