Shysters, Scam Artists and Snake Oil Salesmen

To paraphrase an old saying - "When the going gets tough, the con men come out of the woods." Don't get me wrong, I don't believe in much of the media doom and gloom regarding our economy. (I'll have to save all my thoughts on that for another blog.) But, should the down trends continue, I think it only inevitable that the trend toward scamming and conning will continue as well. The unfortunate truth is that swindlers and crooks have been around forever and they will be around from now till doomsday, but when people are at their most desperate is when they are at their most vulnerable as well and the tricksters love to prey on that.

Last week my boss asked me to go with him Tuesday (yesterday) as his guest to a seminar that he had signed up for. The topic - website development. Hmmm....right up my alley. He is looking for any way to make a buck these days (who isn't?) and he had attended a 90 minute session put on by these guys during which they sold him a software package and access to their website where they give you some tools to put together a website with merchant services, a shopping cart, etc. Sounded interesting. Supposedly, they were going to teach you at the all day seminar how to use that software he had purchased and tell you about how you could upgrade to more of their services. Uh-huh. What we walked into was a fast-talking, high energy sales pitch designed to convince you to part with $6000 of your hard earned cash that day. Before you walk in, they insist that you fill out a form telling them if you have access to a line of credit, credit cards, personal loans or other means of financing. My hackles went up on the spot. Why are they asking that question as a prerequisite of letting me in the door? They proceeded to tell me why - not long after I sat down, actually. Lo and behold, folks, they are making me an offer and it's a today only offer. If I didn't take them up on this offer right now, then I can never take them up on it again. I don't have any time to go and do my due diligence (as an intelligent business person should do) to research this company, talk it over with my spouse or find out if anyone has ever even heard of these people. No, I must buy their product today. And, wonder of wonders, if I don't have the cash, can't put it on a credit card and can't borrow it from my great-aunt Margaret, they have the perfect solution! I can finance through them today (I read later that their interest rate is around 18% - I don't know from personal experience.) My boss and I left at the first break they had around 12:00. About twenty minutes of surfing the internet last night convinced me that we made the right decision. The name of this company is Storesonline and their parent company (from the research I could find online) is iMergent. You can Google them if you care to. There are a few success stories floating around out there and a ton of unhappy customers with lawsuits. I found one article dating back to 2002 (http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/team4/1419114/detail.html) claiming that attorneys general in seven states had opened investigations against these guys. Before they did business as Storesonline, they operated under the name Galaxy Mall. As I said, the shysters have been around for a long time (as evidenced by this shady company), but right now people are really feeling the need to "do something" and are, I think, more susceptible to this stuff. As my boss said yesterday about a very nice lady who sat next to me, "It's like they're just wanting to take her social security check right out of her hands."

I heard another story today about the latest in credit card scams. Apparently prescription medicines and cameras are the hot scammers commodity in recent days, according to a family member who was just scammed last week while trying to purchase a video camera from a disreputable online company. She was told by a customer service representative of her credit card company to be wary of the television ads promoting the first three months of your prescription free. By the time you figure out you aren't getting the medicines in the mail, they are long gone with your money. In my cousin's case, she found out the next day after ordering that she was being had and when her husband called to demand a refund or some proof that the camera was being shipped he was told that a shipping confirmation number would not be available for another 48 hours. The credit card company rep explained that this is because the credit card companies will not help you out after 72 hours, so the scam artists were trying to buy enough time to make a clean getaway.

Here are some tips when considering buying anything in person or online:
1. Know your seller - Is it a reputable company? Have you ever heard of them? Do you know people who have done good business with them before?

2. Don't be fooled by high pressure sales pitches - If you have to make a decision right now, it's probably a bad decision.

3. Do your research - If you don't know the company, a quick look online at the Better Business Bureau (http://www.bbb.org/) or often just a simple Google search will give you all the information you need.

4. When using your bank card, as often as possible, choose "credit" instead of "debit." - This will increase your level of protection in most instances (http://www.kiplinger.com/columns/fitness/archive/2001/ff20010808.htm) (If you are dealing with a small, local merchant that you know you can trust, you may want to stick with debiting your card as a courtesy because they are charged higher fees on credit transactions.)

5. Stay informed - Check out websites like Scambutsers.org (http://www.scambusters.org/) or Snoopes.com (http://snopes.com) to find out the facts about anything that sounds too good to be true.

There has to be a better way...

As I have mentioned, I'm coming off of a long writing dry spell. One of my long term goals over the years has been to write a novel. I've attempted to start and gotten bogged down quite a few times. Over the last few months the idea that there has to be a better way has continually come to mind. I consider myself a character-based writer. I think up characters. I write about characters. I explore them inside and out and get to know them like I know my best friends. And then I start trying to plot around them and I get totally lost. I get halfway through a novel and am so confused I can't remember where I was going in the first place. There has to be a better way. I need plotting help!

I own a book that I bought a number of years ago called The Weekend Novelist by Robert J. Ray. I have browsed through it a few times over the years, but never actually sat down and worked through it until recently. I also subscribe to a blog by Randy Ingermanson (http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/blog/index.php) that I feel always has some fantastic information and help for fiction writers. Both Ray and Ingermanson offer a design process to use before beginning the novel and I've finally come to the conclusion that I need to employ just that type of process if I'm ever going to make sense of this whole plotting thing. Ray has you start with character sketches based on strangers in public places. Ingermanson has you start with a basic plot synopsis boiled down to a sentence. Both agree that it is well worth it to do extensive plotting and synopsis work on the novel before you ever start writing the first draft. One way or the other, I feel that the idea of the advance design process is the Better Way that I've been looking for all along. So...here goes nothing. By choosing to learn a new way of novel writing I will gain, if nothing else, a new perspective on this craft that I have chosen as a way of life.

For those interested in more information on these methods, here is the info. Randy Ingermanson devotes a page on his website to his process called the Snowflake Method. You can look at it here: http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php Be sure to check out all of the other great information that he gives away on his website and blog as well. Robert J. Ray's original edition of The Weekend Novelist is no longer in print and from what I've read in the reviews at Amazon, the second edition (with a co-author) is not nearly as worth the investment. You can, however, still purchase used first editions on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Weekend-Novelist-Dynamic-52-week-Finished/dp/B001DF9HM8/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233178099&sr=1-4) For a great review of this book check out http://fmwriters.com/Visionback/Issue26/bookreview.htm

Poetry Contest

Here is a poetry contest that I thought some of my regular readers would be interested in. The contest is sponsored by Writecorner Press. Poems must be a maximum length of 40 lines, the entry fee is $5 for the first poem and $3 for each additional poem and the awards are a $500 first place award as well as some $100 editor's choice awards. The winning poem and editors' choices will be published on www.writecorner.com and are eligible for inclusion in the permanent website writecorner.com anthology. (By submitting work to this contest, authors give permission to Writecorner Press to publish the award winning poetry and editors' choices on the writecorner.com website. Authors retain all other rights to their works.)

For full entry guidelines, take a look at http://www.writecorner.com/poetry_guidelines.asp

(I'm already trying to decide which poems I'll submit!) :-)

New Year, New Opportunities

It has been about six months since I posted anything on this blog. I can completely identify with my fellow blogger Gina Conroy calling herself a Writer Interrupted. Six months is a long interruption. My writing has not been totally interrupted during that time. But this blog unfortunately was. Since we have an active three year old living with us and are expecting a new born in May, I imagine that much in my life will continue to be interrupted for some time to come. I am going to do my best, though, to keep up with regular postings here. I just went through a long writing dry spell starting just before the holidays and lasting until just last week. I know that a regular schedule of posting on here will help to combat that. Coming up with great new ideas to share here always jump starts my brain and gets me thinking of new and great things I can write in other areas. I've also decided to write a personal blog. Once again, I think that any writing, including the diary type, helps to get the fingers moving and the brain going. If you want to check out my personal blog, you can take a look at http://joescitygirl.blogspot.com. I look forward to starting a new year here with all of you!

Writing Critique Groups

For the last month or so, I have been participating within a writing critique group and I have to say that it has added a much needed dimension to my creative writing experience. The group grew out of the shared experience of doing the Poem-A-Day Challenge on Robert Lee Brewer’s blog Poetic Asides. One of the ladies that also participated in that challenge sent messages to two of us other ladies and asked us if we would be interested in forming a group. And just recently we added our fourth member. Our group consists of women who live in three different countries, some who have children at home, some who have grown children and all of whom have a tremendous passion for writing.

If you are a writer and you would like to add a new dimension of understanding as to how your potential readers will view your work, then I highly recommend joining a similar group. Whether you meet with local friends every week or get together with some regional folks once a month or do as I do and “meet” online, your writing will benefit greatly from the insight of trusted and talented people. Not only has this group helped me perfect my work based on the other member comments, it has given me insight in to how others write as well as inspired me to write different types of things than I have ever written before.

Here is how our group is set up. We have decided that we will keep our group small. We currently have four members and I don’t believe that we will be adding any new members any time soon. Each member has a certain week that they submit some piece of written material – in our group, it can be any written work: poetry, short story, part of a novel, an essay, even query letters if someone is needing help with the correct wording. That person submits their work on Sunday, then the other members of the group critique within a few days and send comments back to the author. At that point, the author reviews the group comments, makes revisions based on what they feel does or doesn’t make sense from the comments and sends revisions back to the group for another round of comments. Next week is another member’s turn and we begin the process again.

e.l.f. & False Forwards

I got my e.l.f. cosmetics order in today. I am super excited. I have tried a couple of the lip products already and they are nice. I have yet to know if I can recommend any of the other products. There was a little bit of a problem with the order in that they didn't ship a couple of things, but I called them, got a person to answer on the first ring, explained the problem, got a good response and shortly thereafter had a credit refund show up on my card for those items.

BUT, while I was searching on their site for their contact information, I came across a little About Us section which included a note about why they sell their products for $1 and it listed an entirely different reason from the one that they had stated on the Fox 10 morning show back in May. According to their site, they sell their cosmetics for a dollar for the simple reason that they don't sell in any retail outlets, but strictly from their own site. Hmmmm....this is a bit different from the information I garnered from our local Fox station. So I did a little digging at one of my favorite sites - Snopes - and apparently the morning gals over at Fox got duped by an email or one of the numerous blogs (I found about 4 in a cursory search this morning) that have picked up on this false email rumor. Now as any of my email friends can tell you this is one of my pet peeves…false forwards I often call them. Almost any email forward that comes my way that claims to be a true story gets checked by me on Snopes.com or truthorfiction.com. Both of these sites do fact checking and try to get to original sources to get the information straight. Nor do I believe any email that comes to me with the claim that ‘this email has been checked on Snopes.’ Too often I find that some prankster has included this line just to make you comfortable about passing it on without doing the fact checking yourself. This particular instance is not a major situation. I went to e.l.f., ordered some of their products, and will now enjoy them. In fact, now that I know that this site exists and that they are actually quite good at customer service as opposed to some internet based companies, I will be likely to order from them again. However, I have been forwarded emails which were either full of downright lies told about a political candidate or full of indecent rumor that could ruin an innocent person’s reputation or full of silly confusion such as the one that purports that a mid-eastern hotel is the palace of a sheik making millions off of us poor duped Americans buying all of his oil. Though they range from slanderous to silly, they are all false and far too many people see fit to just hit Forward and send them on without ever stopping to consider the consequences.

I am highly disappointed today. Not with my order or the quality of the product I received. Nope. I’m disappointed with myself. I fell for one of the oldest lines in the book and one that I now for a fact is patently untrue – “If they said it on the news it must be true.”

*If you are interested in seeing the e.l.f. line for yourself, you can go to www.eyeslipsface.com. As I said, I haven’t yet tried all of the products that I ordered, so I can’t make any recommendations. If you’d like to read what snopes has to say about this erumor, you can go to http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/elfcosmetics.asp.

Summer Savings Idea

Gina Conroy at Portrait of a Writer…Interrupted has instituted a new Summer Savings ideas share on her blog. The idea is to go to her blog and post a link to your summer savings idea post. Here is mine. My mom and I were just discussing it this morning as we trekked into town to get our groceries. We live in a rural area with only one very small grocery mart, so we travel to the nearest town to do our big shopping runs about once a week. Because of that we came up with the idea of starting a neighborhood grocery buying co-op. This idea is ideal for our rural neighborhood, but with the rising cost of gasoline and groceries it would work just as well in a town or city neighborhood. The idea is that once a week everyone turns in their grocery lists to the ‘designated buyer’ for that week. Then that person drives to town, buys everyone’s lists and brings them home. One thing that we are also going to take advantage of in this co-op is our Costco membership. We will be able to save a ton by splitting our Costco purchases between multiple households. Just this morning we compared Del Monte cans of corn - $0.88 a piece at Wal-Mart or $0.48 a piece at Costco. One household might not want a case of corn, but two or more can split it and save $0.40 a can! The grocery savings, coupled with the gas savings of only having to drive to the stores every few weeks instead of every week combine to make a real money saving idea. The other aspect I like of this plan is that instead of dragging my two year old out for an all day shopping trip every week, we will only have to go every few weeks, so the aggravation factor drops tremendously as well.