I think it’s safe to say that all credit card charges are unwanted, but today I’m talking about so-called “grey charges”—those out-of-the-blue credit card charges that sneak up on us and require our time, attention, persistence and aggravation to get rid of. A study by BillGuard shows the average dollar amount lost by grey charges…
It seems that almost every site on the Web requires a password. At least twice a week, I get an email from someone who wants me to join yet another site, which requires yet another username and password. You can cop out and use the same username and password combination, but that’s always possible since some…
Time isn’t just money. Time is what you spend with your family, on a vacation or watching a kid’s dance recital. Time can be gained or lost based on how efficiently or inefficiently you use and implement mobile technology. First and foremost, your mobile phone is a communication tool. It should be set up to…
A good friend of mine called me recently to ask what I knew about scams from online sales. He had placed an ad on CraigsList for something he was trying to sell and had asked for $150 for the item. He had received a call from a woman and she offered to send him a…
Last year, 2012, marks the first year in which the FTC received more than two million complaints overall, and 369,132, or 18 percent, were related to identity theft—an increase of 30% over 2011. Of those, more than 43 percent related to tax- or wage-related fraud. As the internet grows ever more pervasive and essential, we…
One fourth of all global information workers use their own devices at home and at work for work purposes. A recent survey report, commissioned by Unisys and conducted by Forrester Consulting, involved 2,600 IT workers and 590 business and their IT executives. CIO Insight points out that these are the “mobile elite,” a class of professionals who overwhelmingly…
Grey charge: When you buy something with your credit card and you get charged for something you didn’t want. Often a merchant will tack on additional products and services to a legitimate purchase you make, and you “sorta” know about the charge…but not really. For example, you might be in the process of purchasing something…
Wi-Fi was born to be convenient—but not secure. More than anything, though, it depends more on what kind of wireless we’re talking about. Public. Free, unsecured Wi-Fi is the least secure. Shared Wi-Fi in public, at home or in the office lacks encryption of the data packets streaming from the connected devices. In other words, your…
The holidays are over, the Consumer Electronics Show has passed, and now you have all these new shiny wireless gadgets you’re just itching to play with. Now, before you go and connect to the internet, please understand that it’s all fun and games until someone gets hacked. And many times, this means when you are…
Wireless connections can cost hundreds of dollars annually, so it makes fiscal sense that many people seek out free connections when they are out and about. But free doesn’t necessarily mean secure. By now you’ve heard all the warnings that publicly connected Wi-Fi, such as that found in coffee shops, airports and hotels, are vulnerable to sniffers. Sniffers read the…
