Just Blogging

Charles Read asked:




Payroll check fraud came calling four days before Christmas. A branch of our main bank called and wanted to verify a check. The young lady who took the call in our office quickly realized that the check was out of sequence and for a person not on the client’s payroll. The check was cut on our trust account. I spoke to the bank employee who had called us. They were stalling the person by having then fill out an account application, more about that later. I took the location of the bank and called the local police department. Of course I didn’t have the right exact city and had to make an additional call. The police finally were dispatched to the grocery store where the branch bank was. The woman trying to cash the check was gone. But the police were fairly sure that they would apprehend her soon. Next day she tried to pass a check on someone else at a different bank. The police were called and she was arrested and turned over on a filed warrant to the police I had called. They had issued a warrant the same day she cashed a check on us and had given the bank as part of the paperwork a copy of her real drivers license. No one ever claimed crooks were smart.

She had cashed eight checks on our account for about eight thousand dollars total. Checks under a thousand dollars are easier to cash.

We have a very sophisticated check with all kinds of safeguards against fraud. Special paper, void pantographs, MICR lock, warning legends, artificial watermarks, colored paper and more. So what happened. The scammer and her cohorts simply copied the information including the MICR information on to new check stock. They actually didn’t need a real check; they could have used a copy. They however changed the identifying information for the particular employee the original check was issued to. We currently have not been able to identify that person but we probably will in the end. The scam artist would not have changed the information if they were not interested in protecting the person whose check it was originally. There was no way to make the information on the check not available to the scammer. The employee, the employee’s bank and our bank need all that information. So what do we do in the future to prevent this? Positive Pay.

Positive Pay is where we now report every issued check to the bank. They keep a list of the check number, date issued, amount and Payee. Also whether that check has ever been presented before. Any check being cashed at a branch is verified against that list before being allowed to clear. Every check being presented to the bank is verified against that list before being accepted for clearing. This should stop checks like this from being cleared in the future. It will not stop scammers from creating them. There is easy availability of check stock and MICR ink and printers. This may seem like a slam duck to scammers but we are not worrying as much now with Positive Pay in place.

How do you stop this completely? 100% Paperless Payroll! If you are not issuing checks there is nothing for a scammer to create or cash. I have not seen where a scammer has been able to get into the Federal Reserve and NACHA to be able to create fraudulent ACH deposits to their accounts. Even then they would be a lot easier to trace and track down. The scammer would have to be bank customer and have been verified by the bank when they set up an account. For employees without bank accounts Payroll Debit Cards work just fine.

We of course have every intention of assisting the local DA in the prosecution of this person and her cohorts in crime.

James Dean asked:




When it comes to the safety and security of your business, knowing whether or not you have criminals working for you is very important. 11% of many new applicants actually have a criminal record. While some of those may only be a parking ticket, many others may have included jail time and even armed robbery. Many applicants who apply for a position may in fact be applying knowing there would be a chance for them to latter steal from your business. Even those who have no theft crimes in the past does not mean that they will not pose a threat, chances are they will because they already have criminal intentions.

When you have a newly opened position in your business, you can have hundreds and even thousands of applicants. Out of all those applicants you will weed out a large percentage based on things like education and their criminal history. Unfortunately the criminals that you would have to look out for are the ones who do not mention any possible records.

Some of those who have some type of criminal background will tell you exactly what that flag will be. These are the ones that have turned over a new leaf and they are just being honest. The ones that willingly hide their criminal history from you are the ones you have to watch out for. Rather than weeding out those with a criminal record based on what they wrote on their application, why not do a full-fledge background check on all of your qualified applicants so you can get rid of those who may end up being a issue in your workplace.

When deciding to do a criminal background check on your applicant you may have decided to search the internet for a free online background check thinking it will save you money. Of course it will save you money because it is free, but then again you do get what you pay for. In general, free online background checks are not only incomplete but on many occasions they are also inaccurate. It is worth spending the extra money to ensure that next employee is a trustworthy asset to your business.

Peter Galaghan asked:




With the news keep telling us about all this crimes that have been committed from child molestation, kidnapping, rape, murder and violence, it is no wonder why there are thousands of people keep searching for a way to do a free criminal background check online.

A criminal background check is something that we should do on a regular basis. Some parents find it a very useful tool to have to make sure that they know what kind of person that always spend time with their children, such as the baby sitter, nanny, day care providers and even teachers.

Even single people before going on a date (especially women) would do a background check on the person they are dating, to make sure they know what kind of person they will be spending their precious time with. The last thing anyone would want is to find out, the hard way, that the person they are dating is up to no good.

What ever your reason may be to do a complete background check, it is equally important that you need to have the correct and complete information. To get a complete and confidential information that you are after, you will eventually need to pay something, even going to your local courthouse you need to pay for a copy of a report to cover their administration cost. I understand that most of you would want to do this for free if possible, but sometimes free is never an option, there will always be catch. Instead of getting nothing for nothing (except the time you spent looking), why not getting something for something?

Michael Russell asked:




Handing someone a blank check doesn’t sound like the smartest thing to do. However, that may be just what you’re doing when you pay your bills every month. You’re probably saying, “I would never send anyone a blank check. That’s absurd!” It’s easier than you think to turn your mortgage payment into a blank check. It’s just one way to commit check fraud. Criminals are “washing” checks in order to fund their dishonest shopping sprees.

Check washing involves taking a check that has already been written, “washing” it with a chemical solvent and rewriting the check so that a criminal can reuse it. Most of the time, they will only change the recipient name. Then when you check your bank statement, you see that your check went through and the amount matches. Think about that for a minute; $300 for your car payment, $1000 for your mortgage, $200 for insurance. It adds up quickly! It’s only when you start getting notices from debtors that you may discover that the checks you’ve written were stolen. By then, weeks or months may have passed. You may have lost thousands of dollars. Just imagine if a criminal rewrites the check for even more than you wrote it for!

The most common place for a criminal to get a check to wash is from your mailbox. And you are probably letting him know it’s there! That little red flag you put up when you want the mail carrier to pick up your mail also alerts criminals that there may be something worthwhile in your mailbox. If you put your bill payments in your mailbox and leave for work, it may be hours before the mail carrier comes to pick them up. That’s an abundant opportunity for someone with the worst intentions to steal your outgoing mail. In the amount of time it takes you to check your mail, a thief could easily steal it and you would be out thousands of dollars!

So how do you protect yourself? The easiest way is to simply drop your mail off at the post office or a postal service mail box. Some apartment complexes have locked mail drops where you can leave your outgoing mail. Basically, you want to make sure your mail is secure, leaving as little opportunity for someone to steal it as possible. Another way to avoid check washing is to change the pen you use. Your standard ballpoint pen is probably the easiest to wash. Felt tip and roller-ball pens are also fairly easy to wash off. Many tests have shown that gel pens are the hardest to wash off. Now you can even find permanent markers with tips fine enough to write a check with. Finally, many checks are now printed on chemically sensitive paper that will discolor when chemicals are used on them, so make sure your checks are printed on this paper.

So, help stop “washing” to keep your bank account safe. Use ink that cannot be “washed”. Use checks that will react with the chemicals used to wash checks and don’t leave your checks in your mailbox at home. Take them to the post office. These simple tips will help to protect you from check washing and the headaches it can bring.

Toni Elizabeth Sar'h Petrinovich asked:




Stress - the popular name for the new American status symbol. Everyday conversation is peppered with references to lack of time to accomplish goals, the frustration of poor communication and a general sense that no matter how fast we go, we will not get it all done and no one understands. Defining the word in one sentence is difficult for it is actually the unification of multiple human responses to life into a single concept that nearly everyone experiences. There are very few people who do not know what stress feels like.

The use of the word has become a catch phrase for all of the pressures we experience in life. Sometimes that can be confusing. Is stress the cause of the pressures or the effect of those pressures? In other words, is stress the stimulus or the response? Most people, physicians and lay alike, feel that stress is a response to pressure or mounting demands. These stimuli can be external or internal further complicating the event especially when the internal feeling is caused by an external event.

As medicine has traveled the path of psychoneuroimmunology (the study of the immune system as it relates to the nervous system and the mind), we have become aware that stress compromises our immunity. It stimulates the perpetual release of the hormones adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol which tear through the body like a firestorm. If not controlled, chronic stress, together with the anger and depression it perpetuates, leads to illness and even death.

Research at the Institute of HeartMath in Boulder Creek, CA has concluded that the amount of stress we feel is based more on our perception of an event or a person than on the actual event itself. Our ability to respond to disastrous events or changes in our life is directly related to our perception of what occurred. It is the daily accumulation of little stressors, much like the termites that finally eat their way through the foundation of the house, that take the major toll on our health. We must learn how to neutralize our reactions as they occur or risk compounding the stressful interactions within our bodies’ systems, draining our health. How much daily stress we live with determines how much resilience we will have when a major crisis occurs.

Clinically, stress can be analyzed on three levels - psychological, physiological and social. Each person combines these states of being in different ways and it is this combination that creates the individual options for handling stressful circumstances. We have built into our psychological and physiological makeup the power to affect a point of balance between our resources of coping with stress internally and the daily stress that we encounter. By consciously exercising this ability, we can control our perception of life’s events and the degree of stress that we might experience. The first step in beginning this process is learning to recognize what causes the stress initially. Then, we can develop a general way of dealing with pressures, changes and the issues of life.

Often, simply knowing that it is possible to have some sense of control over a situation can lead to a dramatic reduction in the stress level experienced. By becoming conscious of the options inherent in a stressful situation and by being aware of the effectiveness of our responses to these situations, we may be able to exert more control over what we experience and thereby influence our own stress level.

To handle stress effectively, we must understand what we are going through. We must cultivate an ability to perceive the entire experience, not only the piece that is personal. In this way we can begin to understand the relationship of the whole and receive feedback that we would have otherwise missed. This allows us to see our life situation more clearly and directly influence the level of stress we habitually create. It is helpful that we keep in mind that it is our perception of situations and how we react to them that determines our stress level. If we are able to change our perception, we are able to change our response.

Joseph Horn asked:




When trying to get a free criminal background check, are you looking in the right places? Chances are you’re not. The majority of people, for the most part, do nothing more than frantically scour the Internet clicking on various links in hopes of finding what they’re looking for.

The fact of the matter is there are very few ways to get an accurate and complete criminal history on someone. There is however a huge amount of misinformation and bad advice given on the subject.

The one saying that you need to understand is that even though arrest records, police reports, as well as arrests and convictions are supposed to be public records they are not easily accessible by the general public.

In fact, there are only a couple of different methods that can be used to try to access these types of documents without being a member of some type of investigation company or a part of the law enforcement community.

One of these methods involves using search engines and other information tools that can be found online. Basically, what you do is use the information that you know such as someone’s name, address, phone number, or Social Security number to query a search engine’s database in an attempt to see what has been indexed on the Internet. While this method has proven to be effective in the past, it is important to understand that you often do not get all of the information that you need. This is because search engines by nature are designed to return a lot of results. Therefore, often times when searching for someone’s name you might end up with as many as one million pages of results to sift and sort through.

Another method that many people use, is to visit a courthouse in the jurisdiction in which they knew that the person that they were investigating has lived. Using this method involves filling out an application for information and then waiting anywhere from three to five business days to see whether or not your application has been approved. If and when your application is approved, you will be responsible for digging through boxes and boxes of different documentation in hopes of finding police records or arrest reports that tie into the person that you need information on. The downside here is the fact that in order for this method to be effective you may have to visit several courthouses in many different cities or states in order to compile a comprehensive reporting of somebody’s criminal past.

There is an easy out, when it comes to getting a free criminal background check. Unfortunately, it’s not free. This particular method involves using a criminal records database that is maintained and updated by professional investigation companies and is available to anyone to use online. The definite upside to using these directories, is the fact that you can have a criminal record report in your hands to be reviewed in a matter of only a minute or two. While this method is not free, it is an effective way to find out exactly who you’re dealing with without doing a ton of legwork on your end. At the end of the day a free report really is a free due to the fact that it often takes up hours if not days of your time.

John M Campbell asked:




Are you overcome by the choice of checks available and are you looking for advice about how to select a reliable online supplier?

Designs

There are so many great designs for both personal and business checks available these days. Obviously there is more scope with personalized checks than there is for businesses, but the option to have the latter stylized is always available and many have taken it boldly and with great success. But whatever subject you choose for your personal banking checks, someone somewhere will be able to make it available for you.

Check Printing

The beauty of the online check suppliers is that they will print exactly what you order. You may decide you want NASCAR checks, or perhaps you would prefer a country scene. Whatever it is, you can be sure of a very high quality product. All check printing companies have to be ruthless in their application of security procedures. This is an integral part of their service to you.

Ordering Checks Online

This is as simple as ABC. You must also consider the style of check and checkbook you want. Some prefer top stub checks while others will always take side tear. Both will be available so it is just a matter of stating your preference as part of the check ordering procedure.

Delivery

You will want to know that once your checks have been printed they will be delivered securely to your home or office with no chance of interference from any third party. Any check printing company that failed to adopt the highest levels of security with your personal details and printed checks would be liable to prosecution and would not last in the business for long.

Repeat Orders

Once you have an account established with a reputable check printer online, re-ordering is a very straight forward process.

What Does it All Cost?

If you want cheap checks the answer is never to go to your bank for them. It’s true! You can save as much as 50% by being careful where you buy checks and which printer you use, without any fall off in security or quality. The secret is in choosing the best supplier for your purposes.

Tony Joy asked:




So, I believe you have made several tests from speedtest. Now, let’s start to check broadband speed results.

Results Menu

You will easily find a menu on top of the website after you finish your broadband speed check.

* My Results: Will show all your broadband speed check result as a history list.

* My Summary: Will analyze your test result history and give you some summary information.

* Global Stats: We will discuss this part later.

Results History

Firstly, you will see all your broadband speed check result history on the list like the following picture.

This result will show your ISP company name and IP address. This list has 8 columns which have all the detail information about your broadband speed check result.

* Date: Your testing date

* IP Address: Your Computer’s IP Address

* Download: Your computer’s Download speed

* Upload: Upload speed from your computer

* Latency: the response time after you click on the “Test” button.

* Server: The Test server you have chosen. e.g. San Francisco, CA

* Distance: The distance between test server and your home computer.

* Share: See whether this result is shared with others or not.

Compare Results

Moreover, you can also compare or filter your previous broadband speed Check result.

There is a toolbar above the Test result panel.

* Hide Result Before: this will let you filter your broadband speed Check result by date.

* Preferred Server: You can select the server around the world.

* Timezone: Select your own time zone.

* Date Format: Select your preferred date format.

* Distance Measure: You can choose “miles” or “km” here.

* Speed Measure: kilobits/kilobyte, megabits/megabyte. (Note: 1 megabit = 106 = 1,000,000 bits which is equal to 125,000 bytes or 125 kilobytes.)

The megabit is most commonly used when referring to data transfer rates in network speeds, e.g. a 100 Mbit/s (megabit per second) Fast Ethernet connection. — Wikipedia.org

Share Your Detail Results

Speedtest will display a detail panel result when you click on every record. But the cool thing is that you can share your result as well.

Simply copy the text in the following textboxes and put it into your blog as html format, then you can share your broadband speed Check Result with your friends.

Wish you have fun when you check broadband speed.

Steven Gillman asked:




My first time overseas, I had to exchange cash in $200 of travelers checks to pay a mountaineering guide who hadn’t heard of American Express. The bank charged me $8. During the same trip, I used my debit card at an ATM to get $200 from my checking account. Once home, I saw that the charge for this was one dollar, and that was the last time I used traveler’s checks.

Debit And Credit Cards When Traveling

I usually carry a debit card and a credit card when I travel now. I keep them well-hidden in two separate places. If they are stolen, which has never happened yet, they have either zero liability, or a fifty dollar liability limit for any unauthorized charges. Ask your bank or credit card company about this.

When an Automated Teller Machine (ATM) won’t take one of the cards for some reason - and this will happen - I use the other card, which usually works fine. Credit cards may be less trouble than debit cards. Your liability could be zero on your stolen debit card, but you probably won’t have access to your account until the matter is sorted out.

Of course, on longer trips it’s a hassle to pay the credit card bill on time, which isn’t a problem with debit cards. Carry both, and on longer trips you can wait until you’re a few weeks from home to use the credit card. That way you’ll get there before the bill does.

An important advantage credit and debit cards have over travelers checks, is that when you need the local currency, you’ll almost always get a better exchange rate with your cards. Also, the cash you get from the local ATM will truly be accepted everywhere, something even American Express Travelers Checks can’t promise.

I have nothing against American Express. Once, when I was robbed in Mexico, they quickly and curtiously replaced my stolen traveler’s checks. Also, at times it is appropriate to carry money in several forms, including theirs. However, times change and ATMs are everywhere now, so my policy is : Travelers checks; don’t leave home with them. You can take an American Express credit card instead.

Ann D. Gill asked:




Before, you have to go through several lengthy procedures just to be able to run a background check on an individual. You have to dial a number, enter the required details into the system, and to a certain extent, you will have to actually speak to a representative to pass on the information necessary for the process. What’s more, you will have to wait for several days to be able to obtain the desired result as the company running the background check conducts the procedure manually.

Now, you don’t have to go through all of the hassles just to be able to get vital information about your subject individual. All you just have to do is browse the net and go to a website dedicated for background check services. In just a few minutes, all the information that you want or need about the subject individual, including criminal records if any, will be at your disposal.

Using a background check website offers plenty of advantages; not to mention that you can always verify the background check company itself before availing of their services and shell your hard-earned money. You can verify among others how they do business, what costs it will entail to avail of their service, what advantages you can get from availing of their service, and how fast you can get the desired result. This enable you to do your due diligence of choosing the right background check company that you will be dealing with.

Perhaps the greatest advantage of using a background check website is time management. If you are running on a tight schedule, a background check website is just right for you. You won’t have to spend so much time since the website will provide you all the information that you need with just easy-to-follow steps and in a few minutes. The whole process of the background check including the output only takes an average of thirty minutes cutting tremendously on your working time for the process. A comprehensive check will take approximately 24 hours, still significantly faster than doing the check in any other manner.

Background check website also empowers you to run different checks all at the same time. For instance, you want to run a background check on your prospective employee on one hand and rental tenants on the other hand, you can do both at the same time just by inputting the required information on the website. Results are delivered on the same time allocation.

When you need detailed information about a subject individual, and you need them right now, there is just no other better way than using a background check website.