Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Credit Card Fraud: An Attorney's Advice

This was forwarded to Just-a-Sec by e-mail today:

Read this and make a copy for your files in case you need to refer to it someday. Maybe we should all take some of his advice! A corporate Attorney sent the following out to the employees in his company.

1. Do not sign the back of your credit cards. Instead, put "PHOTO ID REQUIRED."

2 When you are writing checks to pay on your credit card
Accounts, DO NOT put the complete account number on the "For" line. Instead, just put the last four numbers. The credit card company knows the rest of the number, and anyone who might be handling your check as it passes through all the check processing channels won't have access to it.

3. Put your work phone # on your checks instead of your home Phone. If you have a PO Box use that instead of your home address. If you do not have a PO Box, use your work address. Never have your SS# printed on your checks. (DUH!) You can add it if it is necessary. But if you have It printed, anyone can get it.

4. Place the contents of your wallet on a photocopy machine. Do both sides of each license, credit card, etc. You will know what you had in your wallet and all of the account numbers and phone numbers to Call and cancel. Keep the photocopy in a safe place. I also carry a Photocopy of my passport when I travel either here or abroad. We've all heard horror stories about fraud that's committed on us in stealing a Name, address, Social Security number, credit cards.

Unfortunately, I, an attorney, have firsthand knowledge because my Wallet was stolen last month. Within a week, the thieve(S) ordered an Expensive monthly cell phone package, applied for a VISA credit card, had A credit line approved to buy a Gateway computer, received a PIN number from DMV to change my driving record information online, and more. But here's some critical information to limit the damage in case this happens to you or someone you know:

5. We have been told we should cancel our credit cards immediately. But the key is having the toll free numbers and your card Numbers handy so you know whom to call. Keep those where you can find them.

6. File a police report immediately in the jurisdiction where your credit cards, etc., were stolen. This proves to credit Providers you were diligent, and this is a first step toward an Investigation (if there ever is one).

But here's what is perhaps most important of all: (I never even thought to do this.)

7. Call the 3 national credit reporting organizations Immediately to place a fraud alert on your name and also call the Social Security fraud line number. I had never heard of doing that until advised by a bank that called to tell me an application for credit was made over The Internet in my name. The alert means any company that checks your Credit knows your information was stolen, and they have to contact you by Phone to authorize new credit.

By the time I was advised to do this, almost two weeks after the theft, all the damage had been done. There are records of all the Credit checks initiated by the thieves' purchases, none of which I knew about before placing the alert. Since then, no additional damage has been done, and the thieves threw my wallet away this weekend (someone turned it in). It seems to have stopped them dead in their tracks.

Now, here are the numbers you always need to contact about your wallet, if it has been stolen:

1.) Equifax:800-525-6285

2.) Experian (formerly TRW): 888-397-3742

3.) Trans Union: 800-6807289

4.) Social Security Administration (fraud line):800-269-0271

We pass along jokes on the Internet; we pass along just about everything.

If you are willing to pass this information along, it could really help someone that you care about.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Bored with Drinking Water?

PhotobucketYeah, I know. You try to get your water in every day. It does wonders for your complexion. It flushes out toxins and fat. You probably keep a great big water bottle on your desk and sip from it often. But boy oh boy, are you bored with it.

Some of those powdered flavorings for water are fun -- Crystal Lite, for example. But they're loaded with sodium. (How convenient! Drink water AND retain it, all in one sip!) Some have caffeine. Even if they're sugar-free, maybe sugar substitutes give you a headache.

And maybe you've even tried those fancy flavored waters like Vitamin Water, only to discover they're loaded with calories.

I recently found a brand of flavored water I just love: Hint. (And they didn't pay me to write this!)

Hint is water with just a hint of natural flavorings added. NO SUGAR. NO CAFFEINE. NO PRESERVATIVES. And they taste divine. Not too sweet, just a refreshing kiss of fruit essence. My favorite is Peppermint, but Hint also comes in eight other flavors, including Pomegranate-Tangerine, Strawberry-Kiwi, and Raspberry-Lime. E-mail info@drinkhint.com to find out where to get it near you (because unfortunately, it's not something everybody carries -- yet.) You can also order them by the case and have them delivered directly to your home or office at www.drinkhint.com.

Duane Reade Can Cause Seizures

Photobucket
If you care about your health, take your prescriptions to your local mom-and-pop pharmacy. STAY AWAY from the Duane Reade pharmacy counter.

Do you enjoy having your time wasted? Your health toyed with? Neither do I. Choosing to take those prescriptions to a small neighborhood pharmacy could save you dozens of needless headaches in the future. Why invite trouble? Make it easier on yourself.

Little independently-owned pharmacies find it difficult to compete with the big chains, so they tend to go out of their way to give good service and keep you as a customer. They're a lot more willing to do you a favor (say, keeping you alive and out of the hospital) than the big impersonal chains, like Duane Reade.

I've had so many bad experiences with Duane Reade pharmacies around the city, I've lost count. Today was the last straw; I just had to write and save you the agony I've experienced.

I take a medication that I can't stop taking suddenly. Doing so could cause me to have a seizure, maybe even die. I can always tell when I've forgotten to take my medicine, because within three hours, I start seeing flashing lights and getting sensations inside my brain like someone's zapping my cranium with an electrified cattle prod.

Pharmacists are supposed to know about these things, right?

Yesterday I dropped my prescription off at the Duane Reade near my workplace -- Broadway & Park Place. I knew I was making huge mistake, based on past experience. But stupid me, I was looking to save some time. Since Duane Reade was nearby, I dropped my prescription there, trusting that THIS time, things would run smoothly.

Like I said -- stupid me.

The woman at the pharmacy counter told me they were out of the drug I needed, but that they'd have it back in stock by 10:00 AM the next day. I said I'd come back tomorrow.

When I returned to Duane Reade at 12:15 today, I was told the drug hadn't arrived.

"Well what am I supposed to do? I'm completely out of pills. You told me this would be ready at 10:00 today."

The head pharmacist came out to talk to me -- identified only as "Kathy" -- and said I'd have to find another pharmacy that had the pills in stock. She said she "did her best" but that the medicine just didn't come.

"Why didn't you call me?" I asked.

"Well it just happened this morning."

"And you didn't call me this morning?"

Had she really done her best?

They took my number when I dropped off my prescription. What did they want it for? In case there was a problem with my prescription? Well, what did they call this? Did it occur to anyone to give the customer a heads-up that her crucial medication wouldn't be ready when promised?

Kathy said the best she could do was call another pharmacy to see if they had the drug in stock.

I've been through this before, at another Duane Reade location. They failed to tell me they were out of this particular drug until I came wandering in to pick it up. It took about ten phone calls before I found a pharmacy that had the pills on-hand.

To her credit, Kathy made a lot of phone calls to track down my medication. Unfortunately, it was too little too late. I couldn't call into my office and say, "Hey, I know I said I was just going to lunch, but I've decided to take the rest of the day off...to go look for some pills."

And I didn't appreciate having to take 50 minutes of my 60-minute lunch break to just stand around in the middle of Duane Reade and wait for this woman to make a dozen phone calls while I waited.

I never did get my prescription filled. I still don't have it.

Kathy should not have put me -- or herself -- in such a frenzied position. Duane Reade should have better systems in place, and higher performance standards. They should have been more aware of what was going on with the day's orders -- who needed what, and by when. Who might get sick without their meds; perhaps make a simple phone call to head off disaster. Unlike CVS (which in my experience tends to have better-organized pharmacies and more alert pharmacists -- for a chain), Duane Reade is staffed by boobs -- clueless, hapless boobs, uniformly, city-wide. They've lost my prescriptions. They've given me the wrong prescriptions. They're just plain ridiculous. I can't believe I gave them another chance.

Duane Reade is OK when you need to make a shampoo pit-shop or stock up on ibuprofen. But do yourself a favor and take your prescriptions somewhere else. Anywhere else.

On a side note, as I was standing in Duane Reade waiting for Kathy The Pharmacist to finish her phone calls, the cashier left a 2-inch-thick STACK of bills -- 10s, 20s -- on the counter in front of the cash register, and WALKED AWAY for about five minutes. It could have been a stealthy thief's dream come true.

So I guess sloppiness and incompetence at Duane Reade are pretty steady policies.

At least you can count on that.

We Want YOU!

Hey, secys and admins! We want to hear from you!

Have you had a great lunch?

A fabulous spa treatment, at an even better price?

Do you love where you work?

Hate it?

Want to warn other hardworking peeps not to waste their money at an overpriced eatery?

Need to vent about some aspect of office life?

Tell Just-a-Sec and tell the world! We're looking for tips, tricks and guest bloggers. Write to us about everything and anything. The info you share just might inspire a blog item on Just-a-Sec!

E-mail us today!

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Seven Keys to Get Out of A Rut

By upinder singh negi2

Rut -- a routine procedure, situation, or way of life that has become uninteresting and tiresome... And not surprisingly, unprofitable.



They say a rut is a shallow grave with two open ends. The good news (good news?!) is that the ends ARE still open, which means if you act fast, you just might out of it. How do we get into these ruts anyway? Who would voluntarily lie down in that grave, shallow or otherwise?



Dr. Edward Debono suggests that thoughts are pathways literally "etched" in our brain as electrical connections that get strengthened each time we think them -- thus limiting our mental options. Just like cow paths. It all begins when one of the cows wanders home from the field along a new path. Being cows, others naturally follow, nicely beating down the grass. The next evening our intrepid cow is a bit less bold, and follows her own freshly trampled path, fellow cows in lockstep behind her. And so on, night after night, widening the path into a footpath, which over time becomes hardened into a dirt road?



More time passes and the road are paved into a street, then an avenue, a two-lane highway, and ultimately an interstate. By the time you come roaring up the onramp in your shiny SUV, your direction is all mapped out in front of you. There's no way to turn, and nowhere to go but towards the next exit.



If you want to chart a fresh direction you are going to have to grab the steering wheel and give it a hard, gut-wrenching yank to the right. And so it is with your thoughts and actions. Repeating them a few times all but insures you will comfortably repeat them indefinitely unless you take deliberate - possibly disruptive -- action to do otherwise.



Here are 7 rut busters I use with my business coaching clients that you can apply immediately to get yourself and your business out of a rut.



1. Shift your mindset from self to customer. Most business people think of themselves first. They craft product and service offers from their own perspective and consider themselves the beneficiaries of their actions.



While that's not wrong, to get out of your rut does this: put yourself into the mind of your customer. Who are these people anyway? What are they concerned about? What are they trying to accomplish?



If you were your customer, what would you think of that new product, marketing campaign, or mail piece? Are you selling your wonderful "stuff", or are you providing them tangible, meaningful benefits. Ask, "If I were the customer, would I care?" And if not, consider, "What WOULD I get excited about?"



2. Shift your mindset from customer to client. A customer is someone who buys your goods or services. The original meaning of client is entirely different: someone who is under your care and protection.



Now that's a switch, isn't it? If they're customers, your goal is to get them to buy something. But if you were to think of them as under your care - would you approach your business from another angle? How would you take care of them? How would you "protect" them? What new programs would you want to implement immediately?



3. Revisit your vision. Whenever I feel like I'm in a rut I return to my vision and I do 2 things. First, I make sure it still inspires me and that it is pointing me in the direction I want to go. Once sure, I put pen to paper and rewrite it. Not just once, but over and over. And I keep writing until I can't write it anymore because I'm jumping up and down with a new idea I must do something about right away.



4. Conduct a Survey If you don't know what to do next, ask your clients. (They are clients, aren't they?) Conduct a survey about anything that interests you. Ask them what's bothering them. Ask them what they're stuck on. Ask them what they like about your company and what they'd like you to do next. Ask them about new features, or new products, or new services.



If you're not happy with your current customers, conduct a survey among the kind of people you'd like to have as customers. And, if you can't do that, conduct a survey online. Write an attractive search engine ad, promise something of value, and drive people to a survey page. Ask them anything you like - the answers will almost always provide you with a neat mind-shift.



5. Focus on building your strengths and dump your weaknesses. From the time we are little children we are taught to better ourselves by working on our weaknesses. This is often both frustrating and fruitless, and certainly not as much funs as practicing our strengths.



Try this on: What if you focused 100 percent of your energy on being world-class in those few things at which you are already very good and out-tasked or outsourced those things at which you were mediocre. Imagine if you never had to face any of those things again and could spend all your time doing the good stuff. Would that change the way you felt about your business? Would that bust you out of your rut?



6. Not if, but how. Think of that wild and crazy idea you had recently. The one where you said to yourself, "That would be great, but there's just no way." Well, I know there's no way - you just said so -- but if there was a way, what would it be? Answer that question as if you believed it was possible - probable even -- and then get busy making it real. That's power, you know -- turning your vision into reality. Talk about a breakthrough!



7. What are you willing to sacrifice? Some important things are more important than other important things, and trying to keep all those plates spinning in the air saps your vigor for the ones that truly matter. Dissipated energy - lethargy -- is one of the reasons we lie down in that rut in the first place, and dropping a few of those plates can really help things break loose.



So let go. Make the sacrifice. Clear your plate and give up some of those precious things you've been holding on to. Focus your vitality on plans which will really rock your world. Ruts? Who needs 'me?

www.greatindustrialguide.com



Free Articles provided by The Free Library

Saturday, March 8, 2008

How to Use Punctuation

By mandeep

The most common mistake people tend to make while writing is in the use of Punctuation. Wrong punctuation can damage the flow of ideas and change meaning, but properly used punctuation not only helps readers understand your meaning but also makes them engrossed in your writing. The following discussion is about some of the frequently misused punctuation marks and what actually their correct application should be.

Use of Apostrophe - Use an apostrophe to show possession, but never put apostrophe in case of possessive pronouns. Always remember that when the word "it's" is used, it is actually for the contraction for the two words: "it has" or "it is". On the other hand, "its" is a possessive pronoun, and the word being already possessive should not contain an apostrophe in it.

Example

It's the same thing happening over and over again.

(Contraction of It and is: It is the same thing happening over and over again).

Wrong: That car is yours.

Right: That car is yours.

Note: Rewriting is sometimes the solution for an awkward possessive.

Awkward: A friend of mine's cap.

Better: A friend's cap (or the cap of a friend of mine).

To show possession in the case of singular nouns, add 's, and for plural words that end in s, add only an apostrophe. Don't forget to put 's with plural words not ending in s.

Example

Singular: nurse's uniform

Plural: nurses' uniforms (plural word ending in s)

Plural: children's uniforms (plural word not ending in s)

Use of Comma - Use commas to separate three or more items in a list. Though journalists most of the times omit the final comma before the word "and", but retaining the final comma avoids confusion.

Example

Poor: In this website, you can read articles about how to do business online, the woman who daily eats 45 eggs and Tom Cruise.

Better: In this website, you can read articles about how to do business online, the woman who daily eats 45 eggs, and Tom Cruise.

Use a comma to separate two independent clauses joined by coordinating conjunctions.

Example

Wrong: I am not good in writing but I love writing.

Wrong: I am not good in writing, but, I love writing.

Right: I am not good in writing, but I love writing.

Note: If the clauses are long and already contain commas, separate them with a semicolon rather than a comma.

Wrong: If a man begins with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. - Francis Bacon

Right: If a man begins with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. - Francis Bacon

Run-on sentences - Where Run-on sentences are concerned (in case you don't know what it is, a run-on occurs when two independent clauses are not separated by punctuation or conjunction), add a period, or a semi colon, or a comma in places of separation.

Example

Wrong: A good student can score full marks in Mathematics it's his analytical ability that will help him achieve that.

Right: A good student can score full marks in Mathematics. It's his analytical ability that will help him achieve that.

Use of Quotation Marks - Use quotation marks to indicate direct quotation.

Example

"That guy knows me," Mr. Wong said, "very well."

Note: Never use it for indirect quotation (a restatement of someone's words).

According to Mr. Wong, that guy knows him very well.

Use single quotation marks to indicate a quote within a quote.

Example

Wrong: Richard wrote, "When Berkeley said, "esse est percipii", he meant that the existence of a thing consists in its being perceived."

Right: Richard wrote, "When Berkeley said, 'esse est percipii,' he meant that the existence of a thing consists in its being perceived."

Note: Always put the comma and final period inside the quotation marks, and put other punctuation marks outside unless they are part of the thing being quoted.

There are many other frequently used punctuation errors, but the above-discussed ones are those I have mostly encountered in several writings. Before putting punctuation marks in your sentences, always ask yourself what meaning you want to convey to the readers. Accordingly, put the marks. In case the sentence becomes difficult to punctuate, consider rewriting it, because when a sentence is well written, it almost punctuates itself.

For More Free Resources visit www.allfreereports.com



Free Articles provided by The Free Library