January 31, 2006
According to a study that was just released by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), identity theft is the most-complained-about consumer fraud. Of 686,683 complaints that they receieved, 37% (255,565) were about identity theft. Number two on the list was online auction fraud, weighing in at 12%. Third? Foreign money offers (ahhh, the famous Nigerian bank scam). All in all, 46% of all complaints were somehow related to the internet. The top three major metro areas in terms of the per capita rate of consumer fraud were Washington, D.C., Tampa/St. Petersburg/Clearwater, and Seattle.
[Via: The Checkout]
January 30, 2006
I stopped for gas at Sam’s Club the other night and noticed a sign on the pump saying that, as of February 1st, gas sales will be limited to members only. Thus far anyone has been able to buy, but Club members have received a $0.05/gallon discount. I’m curious to see what (if anything) this will end up doing to their prices. When they first started selling gas at our local Sam’s, it was a pretty good deal… The ‘list price’ was the same as all of the local stations, so we really were getting a nickel off per gallon. Their base price has, however, floated upward over time, such that we’re now only saving a penny or two per gallon relative to ‘typical’ prices in our area. This hasn’t been a problem, though, as our local Kroger has since opened a gas station. Not only do they have low prices, but we also get a $0.10/gallon discount for every $100 worth of groceries that we buy. Needless to say, we buy most of our gas there. Still, it sure would be nice if Sam’s Club would couple their move to members only gas with more aggressive pricing. I doubt it’ll happen, but a guy can hope, can’t he?
Last week I had an epiphany… Life is far too short to drink cheap beer. Unless, of course, that’s what you prefer. Me? I’m fine with certain cheap beers. Miller High Life is currently my favorite low-end brew but, when I was in college, I drank an awful lot of Old Milwaukee. What it lacked in terms of quality, it more than made up for in terms of price. But I actually much prefer beers along the lines of Newcastle Brown Ale. So what’s the problem? Around here, a six-pack of High Life goes for less than four bucks, whereas a six-pack of Newcastle goes for a good bit over eight bucks. But then it finally dawned on me. I like good beer. And we can afford good beer. So I’m going to drink good beer. And that brings us to the question of the day, dear readers… What’s your poison? Good beer or cheap beer? Or maybe a good, cheap beer? C’mon, jump in and leave a comment. Name names and spread the word about your brew of choice.
January 27, 2006
Today marks the end of a busy first week at the MoneyBlogNetwork… What follows are some links to articles that I found to be particularly interesting around the network and elsewhere… [more]
While I’m generally against using retirement funds for anything but retirement, it’s not uncommon for people to quit their job and go back to school. And a common source of funds for this sort of endeavor is… Yep, you guessed it… Retirement accounts. As it turns out, though, not all retirement accounts are created equally when it comes to making withdrawals for various non-retirement related expenditures. For example, you can make penalty free withdrawals from an IRA for eligible education expenditures or for a first-time home purchase (although the latter is subject to a $10,000 lifetime limit). [more]
North Carolina-based BB&T, the ninth-largest bank in the country, has announced that it won’t provide financing for private development that takes place on land that the government has seized through eminent domain. In case you’re not familiar with the concept of eminent domain, it refers to the power of the government to seize property for its own use without the owner’s consent. [more]
January 26, 2006
I feel like I’m a bit late to the party on this one, as a lot of other people have already reviewed it, but… I just finished reading Freakonomics (actually, I listened to the audio version), and I thought I’d write a few words about it… [more]
I ran across this awhile back and promptly filed it away into the ‘cool gadgets to check out later’ corner of my brain. Well, this weekend it finally resurfaced. So… If you’re interested in cutting down on your electric bills, might I suggest that you check out the Kill-a-Watt. [more]
January 25, 2006
I just saw a story on the local news about a guy who got scammed out of close to $2400 last fall, and then got scammed again for $15k just recently. Apparently a man and woman claiming to be police detectives (complete with badges) showed up at his door earrlier this week claiming that they were following up on his previous fraud claim (from the first scam). They said that they had now had suspects, and had reason to believe they might be involved in a counterfeiting ring. They went on to say that they needed this poor guy’s help… They accompanied him to the bank where he withdrew $15k that he had been saving for retirement, handed it over to them, and agreed to meet them at the police station. Not surprisingly, the ‘detectives’ never showed up. Clearly, this guy wasn’t too bright, as the story that the scammers fed him definitely didn’t add up… But it was pretty sad just the same. I have to hand it to the victim, though… He was clearly humiliated, but he still went on TV to warn others about the scam and caution them not to fall for it.
