Monthly Archives: January 2007

Writting off that Move

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Recently I moved to Florida for work reasons, a new job. Anyways, I saved all my receipts and that was a good thing. If you moved because of work then you are in luck. Get this, it’s not just people moving because they got new jobs. College students can take advantage of this for there first job too! So here is the deal. If you moved more that 50 miles from your previous job and are going to work 39 weeks in the first 12 months then you qualify. Easy as that. So what can you deduct? Well here is a list of deductible items;

  1. Cost of packing
  2. Gas, or mileage. For 2006 its $0.18 a mile.
  3. Storage expenses for 30 days
  4. Fees to start and turn off services. Such as gas, electric, cable.
  5. Lodging and much more.

I will be taking advantage of this and you should too! For more information on how to deduct your moving expenses check out the IRS and SmartMoney.com

Teddy Geiger Doesn’t Own his Name!

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Teddy Geiger a Pittsford, New York Native, Music Song Writer, and Sony spokesmen, (just outside of Rochester, New York) is suing a Minnesota man for his name specifically www.TeddyGeiger.com and www.TeddyGeiger.net.  Greg Sheldon owner of a music management company signed an agreement with Geiger just under 3 years ago and still owns the rights to those domain names.  Geiger claims he was a minor at the time and the contract was not approved by the courts.  All in all, Geiger has been using the domain of www.TeddyGeigerMusic.com.  Sheldon has offered to sell the domains to Geiger for a small $20,000 dollars.  The outcome of this should be interesting.
More on this store from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

Web Scams and What to Look For

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Recently I have noticed more and more web scams coming into my inbox. The latest one that I have seen is one for Bank of America. The email goes something like this

Hello,

We here at Bank Of America are working 24 hours a day to keep you protected from identity theft.
It has come to our attention that you must update your Bank Of America account.
Please fill out this form below
to verify your information. If you do not update you Bank Of America account
within 24 hours the account will be suspended until further notice.

NOTE : Bank Of America will never ask for your personal pin , dont give it to anyone.

Please Click Here ToFill OutThe Form.

Rick Hamilton
Bank Of America Fraud Division
www.bankofamerica.com

This one is sorta different from other scams because most scammers do not use that same language as the company would. For instance, most banks including Bank of America (BOA) always say that they will never ask for your pin number nor should you give it to them. In this case the scammer includes that exact wordage in his email.

Here are some tips so you don’t get bitten by the bullet;

  1. Look at the From email address that you received. Does it look bogus? Look at the text after the @ symbol. However, scammers are now able to mask the email address the letter is sent from.
  2. If it looks fake or your feel something odd about it then don’t do it. Most companies will contact you by postal mail if they need information.
  3. If the site requires you to log in to see your account, then everything you do to your account should be when you are logged in. Example – BOA requires a log in to access account information. You are not able to change your address or phone number with BOA unless you are logged into your account.
  4. Look at the address bar of your browser. All sites will be “something.com ” if the address is an IP address (###.###.###.###) then its a fake. They use the IP address because they are unable to us bankofamerica.com. To check where the IP address is registered to click here and place the IP address into the text box at the top and click the “Search Whois” button. This will tell you where the IP address is registered to and maybe who. (This scam is out of Amsterdam)
  5. Your browser should prompt you! If your browser does not warn you that this site may be bogus then get a new browser. In Firefox 2.0 they pop up a message. Click on the thumbnails to see!
    • Firefox 2.0 – BOA FireFox
  6. Lastly use common sense. People practicing bad common sense will get bit by the bullet.

FYI – Internet Explorer’s Phishing Filter did not pick up this site. However, it looks like there filter is based on sites that are submitted to Microsoft. So if the site has not been submitted then it will most likely not show up. If a site is phishing for your data then a pop up message warning you about its content will appear.