Archive | Scams
THE STRESS OF DEBT
If you are someone who is struggling under a mountain of debt, then I imagine the stress of even contemplating a solution may be next to impossible to bear.
It goes without saying that the best method of clawing oneself out of debt is to increase your income so that it at least matches your income.
However, doing so isn’t always possible, at least in the short term, and may be impossible for some people due to their personal and domestic circumstances.
Therefore, tackling debt requires other measures too.
FAKE DEBT ELIMINATION SCAMS
It should come as no surprise then to realise that there are thousands, if not millions, of people who are searching for debt reduction or debt elimination plans every day, both locally and on the internet.
Scam artists, as ever, have an eye for an opportunity and anything financially related is always going to catch their eye.
A recent development in the field of debt elimination scams is for companies, or individuals, to trade under names that have a similarity to established financial institutions, thereby allowing them to trade upon the reputation and goodwill associated with these other businesses.
Some debt elimination scams also happen to trade under the guise of networking marketing schemes. This often means that the agents who are peddling such services have very little knowledge of legitimate debt reduction or elimination techniques.
This may mean that they will be blissfully unaware that the service they are selling is a scam. Others, however, know exactly what they are doing and continue to sell the service anyway.
IDENTIFYING A GENUINE DEBT ELIMINATION SERVICE
The most effective tool in identifying whether a debt elimination service is legitimate or not is common sense.
If their service sounds too good to be true then it almost certainly is.
The majority of debt elimination scams are based upon the (false) principle that most, if not all, credit card and other lenders are somehow operating illegally and so therefore do not have the legal right to lend you money.
The scammer will then explain that this means you are not legally compelled to repay any of it.
This is, as you should realise, a complete fallacy.
A court has never ruled that a debtor does not have to pay back sums owed under any credit arrangement that has been correctly set up.
The reality is that leaving debts unpaid for this, or any other reason, is just a quick means of becoming blacklisted, bankrupt or getting sued.
Debt elimination scammers will say that their methods will write off the majority of someone’s debts. All they want in return is a percentage of the debt they make disappear, typically 20%.
Anyone who falls for this scam will be paying out large sums of money that they are unlikely to see again. Additionally, their financial situation will likely end up being far worse as a result, with creditors chasing them and their credit rating looking far less favourable.
FAIR CREDIT BILLING ACT
Scammers behind these sorts of schemes will often try to quote laws in order to try and add an air of legitimacy to their claims.
Title 15 United States Code, Section 1692; the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act, Section 1601; the Fair Credit Billing Act; and the Uniform Commercial Code, Section 203 is a piece of legislation that often gets referenced.
What exactly that means is never made clear though, which is fortunate for the scammers as it is has no real relevance to getting out of debt in the ways they imply.
The scam artists will be relying upon the fact that most people will not bother to check such a detailed law.
REMEDIES
If you have fallen foul of one of these debt elimination scams then you should, in the first instance, try to reclaim your money from the company that sold you this misleading advice.
As such a course of action is likely to fail, the next stage should be to try law enforcement or the courts, though they may not be much aid in recouping your money either.
Contact creditors - they are often sympathetic in such circumstances and will work with people to come to a repayment agreement they can afford. After all, receiving some money is of more benefit to them than none at all.
Also, for a creditor, receiving a proportion of their money is preferable to pursuing someone through the courts or via debt collection agencies.
Be extremely wary of companies that promise to completely eliminate any type of debt, or who simply state that such debts are illegal in the first place.
Never respond to any unsolicited emails regarding your finances, credit card or other debt.
Use only legitimate companies and services and find means of keeping your spending under control.
IS THERE A ‘CANCER CONSPIRACY’?
There are many people who believe so.
Typically, I would imagine that those who believe that there is some sort of conspiracy surrounding cancer base their views on the premise that cancer is big business.
That is, for the pharmaceutical companies that offer expensive treatments that can act as a control, rather than a cure.
There are also those who believe that there IS a cure for cancer, but that it has been repressed because it is a natural solution and therefore cannot be patented and used for huge profits.
VITAMIN B-17
Vitamin B-17, as just one example, has been touted as a means of curing cancer. It is thought, by some, that changes in our diet have led to a decrease in the naturally occurring vitamin and that this has left our bodies susceptible to contracting cancer.
The site I linked to above would appear to suggest that the simple act of introducing a balanced level of vitamin b-17 into our bodies would be sufficient to stave off the threat of cancer.
Critics, however, have labelled the prospect of a natural cure as quackery, at best.
“The pharmaceutical multinationals, unable to patent or claim exclusive rights to the vitamin, launched a propaganda attack of unprecedented viciousness against B17, despite the fact that hard proof of its efficiency in controlling all forms of cancer surrounds us in overwhelming abundance.”
WHICH IS THE FRAUD - THE CURE OR THE CONSPIRACY?
Cancer is big business.
Around the world, the majority of cancer research is funded by governments and undertaken by universities and teaching hospitals.
The costs associated with the treatment of cancer patients takes up an ever increasing proportion of government health expenditure.
Conspiracy theorists would have you believe that governments and pharmaceutical companies are in cahoots in order to perpetuate the need for expensive cancer treatments.
Those who say that there is currently no cure for cancer available may suggest that it is a claim put about by practitioners of alternative medicine who are, in fact, peddling a cure in order to push their own brand of medicine.
Whilst I may be cynical enough to believe that pharmaceutical companies go a long way to protect their interest, by which I mean their bottom line, I would still have to concede that the huge cost of treating cancer patients is an area that a government would likely wish to reduce, not increase.
Finding a cure would be the best financial solution?
Where cancer treatment resides in the private sector, rather than in the government-led public arena, it should be obvious that those firms offering treatments are not likely to do so without seeing a profit on the tremendous amount of investment they have undertaken.
This usually means that they will treat cancer with patented drugs rather than so-called ‘alternative medicine’.
That said, it is still a fact that private companies do invest millions, or maybe even billions, of dollars into cancer research every year. To suggest that they do not wish to find a cure for cancer would seem somewhat inhuman and quite ridiculous to me, the most cynical of people.
IS ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE THE ANSWER?
If there is one certainty about cancer it would be that it is not an easy disease to cure.
First recorded around 400B.C., by Hippocrates, it is likely that cancer existed even before that time and that the medical practitioners of the day actively sought a cure.
Surely, if an alternative medical solution had been found then it would have been well publicised and put to use as an effective solution by now?
Perhaps, then, one could conclude that alternative medicine does not have the ability to negate cancer either?
If that is the case the perhaps it would be prudent to question the motives of those that promote this type of therapy, in much the same way some question the profits of the pharma companies?
Just a thought.
I’ll preface this post by saying that I don’t hold much faith in the psychic world at all.
A good many people do, however, so…
Here are 10 ways to differentiate a good psychic from one trying to scam you -
THE GOOD PSYCHIC
1. Will guide you through your options, allowing you to choose what, if anything, to change.
2. Will remind you that you are in control and so won’t tell you what to do.
3. Will offer hope through the choices you could make.
4. Will bring new perspective to your life, through those choices open to you.
5. Will never predict your death.
THE PSYCHIC SCAMMER
1. Will predict doom & gloom and offer to change that.. for a fee.
2. Will make you believe your destiny cannot be altered.
3. Will scam you into thinking you need a repeat reading every week.. at a cost.
4. Will read from a script, telling you what they told the last person and will tell the next.
5. Will tell you that you are jinxed and need repeat hearings to overcome it.
If you believe in psychics then you probably already have an open mind.
Use it!
Don’t get scammed.
USS Arizona
Pearl Harbor, 1941
07:53, December 7th.
2,403 Dead
1,178 Wounded
Did President Franklin D. Roosevelt allow the attack to take place?
UNSURPRISING SURPRISE
Whilst the attack on Pearl Harbor seemed to take the U.S. Pacific Fleet by surprise, there are those that believe that President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) was not only aware it was coming but, in fact, welcomed it.
By 1941 the US Administration was itching to get officially into World War II.
Prior to that date there are claims that suggest America was violating International Law and selling munitions to the Allies -
March 1941 - FDR sold munitions and convoyed them to belligerents in Europe — both acts of war and both violations of international law
Pearl Harbor, Mother of all conspiracies.
The sticking point, preventing Roosevelt committing troops and hardware to the war against Germany, however, was domestic public opinion.
Though the American public people were obviously aware of what was going on in Europe, they had no pressing reason to need, or want, to become involved.
Did Roosevelt therefore conclude that a major event, directly involving the American people, was required in order to sway their opinion and secure their backing for his war plans?
WAS JAPAN ON THE ROAD TO GERMANY?
FDR wanted to pursue a war against Germany but knew that both his people and the Congress opposed such action.
Unable to entice Germany to declare war against the US, he may have seen a war with Japan as a means of getting into battle with Germany via the back door.
Germany, Japan and Italy were allied, via the Tripartite Pact and Axis Power articles.
This meant that if Japan and the US were at war with each other then Germany would surely enter the fray.
THE TRIPARTITE PACT
The US couldn’t be seen to be aggressors
With a war against Japan seemingly more possible than any sort of declaration from Germany, FDR would then have needed a way to bring such a conflict about.
With public opinion what it was, an openly aggressive move by the US would not have been politically wise, and may have even pushed public, and Congressional, opinion further off track.
Recently declassified NSA documents suggest that the Roosevelt administration had prior knowledge of an attack by the Japanese fleet, and that they may well have meticulously orchestrated events in order to ensure it.
As history shows, a surprise attack, by Japan against America, would immediately guarantee America’s entry into World War II.
‘Japan was provoked into attacking America at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history to say that America was forced into the war.’
Olivier Lyttleton, MP, Minister of Production, 1944
Just 4 days later, as predicted, Germany upheld their end of the Tripartite Pact and declared war on the US.
‘For a long time I have believed that our best entrance into the war would be by way of Japan.’
Harold Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, October 1941.
ROBERT STINNET
Robert B. Stinnett, a World War II Navy veteran and author of ‘Day of Deceit : The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor’ has obtained numerous relevant documents through the Freedom of Information Act.
In his book, Stinnett claims that Roosevelt’s plan to provoke Japan into a conflict began with a memorandum from Lieutenant Commander Arthur H. McCollum, head of the Far East desk of the Office of Naval Intelligence.
The memorandum contained 8 actions that were thought to be key in leading Japan into attacking the United States.
‘If by these means Japan could be led to commit an overt act of war, so much the better.’
Lieutenant Commander Arthur H. McCollum
Ultimately, Roosevelt utilised all 8 of McCollum’s provocative steps and more besides.
‘We face the delicate question of the diplomatic fencing to be done so as to be sure Japan is put into the wrong and makes the first bad move - overt move.’
Diary entry - Secretary of War Henry Stimson, October 16th, 1941
Admiral J.O. Richardson, the fleet’s commander, flew to Washington in 1940 in order to protest the President’s decision to permanently base the fleet in Hawaii, rather than on the West Coast which had always been the more usual location.
Richardson was concerned as Pearl Harbor was extremely vulnerable to attack - US air force exercises had simulated the total destruction of the fleet in that locale a few years previously.
Richardson was almost immediately relieved of his command.
Richardson’s replacement, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel soon found himself on the outside looking in as he and his army counterpart, General Walter C. Short, were left out of the communication process.
Without a ‘Purple’ decoding machine, Pearl relied upon Washington to unscramble Japanese radio traffic and then feed it back to them.
During wars, spies attempt to get everywhere and report on just about anything of significance.
This would have included ship movements in and around Pearl Harbor.
However, when, on October 9, 1941, the War Department decoded a dispatch asking for Pearl Harbor to be divided into five specific areas, along with exact ship locations, and for coordinates to be added to that grid, then any military man should have understood the significance.
Applying coordinates to a grid serves one purpose - target pinpointing, in readiness for an attack.
This information was never passed onto Kimmel or Short.
WERE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DECEIVED?
Did FDR scam his own people into a war they weren’t looking for?
If so, was the death of so many servicemen necessary for the greater good of America and the free world?
Or
Was Pearl Harbor simply an outrageous surprise attack by the warmongering Japanese, undertaken of their own volition, without any political skulduggery by the US?
What do you think?
Big Pharmaceutical companies are, like most businesses, constantly on the lookout for new opportunities in order to increase sales and, hence, profits.
Some might argue that the pharma companies pursue the populace with a desire to make them into lifelong customers, regardless of the ethics of such a course of action.
One of my previous posts, ‘The Devil’s Guide To Modern Medicine‘, questioned whether medicine was always the best cure.
Pharma companies would surely have you believe so.
ANTI-DEPRESSANTS
Assuming that anti-depressants work, then their target market should only be depressed adults shouldn’t it?
Why then, when that market became saturated, did drug companies then begin selling the notion that antidepressants were ‘happy pills’, suitable for both serious depression states, but also as a prevention for depression?
Was this a clever marketing ploy, designed to enable pharma companies to promote their drugs not only to those who are ill, but also to those who don’t actually need them?
Why, also, did pharmaceutical operations begin targeting children?
Was it because they saw both the ill, and not ill, adult markets becoming saturated with their products?
Children are increasingly being diagnosed with various forms of depression, or merely sadness, all of which require drugs to manage their effects.
Have you noticed how, in the last decade or so, that the number of children diagnosed with bipolar disorder has skyrocketed?
Is this because there is a better understanding of the condition, or better doctors, or is it because pharmaceutical companies have some vested interest and ‘persuade’ doctors to draw such conclusions?
IS YOUR DOG DEPRESSED?
What does the pharmaceutical industry do when they have saturated the market in terms of both adults and children?
Perhaps they target another segment of society?
If every possible person in a house is taking medication then who is left?
Yep…you guessed it… the dog!
In February 2007, after extensive lobbying from the drug companies, the FDA approved Prozac for dogs.
Why?
Well, apparently, dogs can also suffer from the same causes of depression as humans do, such as having ‘chemical imbalances in their brains’, which obviously require treatment via expensive chemical solutions.
DOCTORING THE TRUTH
Personally, I find it rather curious that conditions such as depression and attention deficit disorder suddenly seemed to become extremely common, almost as if overnight.
Has anyone examined these conditions in detail or are we just supposed to accept that expensive pharmaceuticals are the only solution?
What about the causes?
Do a large number of children now suffer from ADHD because they are born with chemical imbalances in their brains, or is their some facet of their lives contributing to their condition?
Perhaps it is due to the fact that the world is constantly changing, at an ever increasing rate, and children are responding in their own natural way?
Whatever.
Who cares?
Just drug them right?
That way they’ll become dependent upon legalised drugs and the companies that manufacture them can make a lifetime of profits from them.
JUDGE OF REALITY
I think it is a sad world that we live in when I see boisterous, active and excitable children labelled as somehow being abnormal.
Worse, they then get labelled as suffering from ADHD, as is the case with one of my nephews.
Do you know what one of the treatments for ADHD is?
It’s an amphetamine, known to have mind-altering properties.
That scares me - why does he need his mind altering?
Who defines what his mind should be like?
Who has the right to determine how he perceives reality?
And why the hell is his doctor giving him something that was previously illegal to possess in this country because of the dangers it posed - the amphetamine he has been prescribed is very closely related to the drug known as ‘speed‘!
ARE WE ALL DESTINED TO BE TURNED INTO DRUG ADDICTS?
Now that taking drugs, legal or otherwise, has become such an accepted way of life for many, from the adult to the child, and even to the family pet, can we conclude that the pharma companies have saturated their markets again?
If so, what next?
Perhaps there will be new drugs released, to cure new ills, or simply to make us feel happy or euphoric?
What’s that I hear you say?
Oh… yes… we have those types of drug already don’t we!
Thursday, August 21, 2008
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