Category: Advertising

Funeral Expenses Insurance -- almost as big a ripoff as house waterline insurance

2/18/2013

Should have a Skull-and-Crossbones watermark

Mixed in with the many honest businesses, I'm sad to say that there are a TON of ethically challenged businesses out there too. They especially prey on elders, offering them outrageously overpriced goods and services, using all the time-tested tricks of the trade, trying to make it look like they are doing you a favor, and that you might have to "qualify" to do business with them -- when the only qualification is excessive trust in strangers by you, and a willingness to give out private information to total strangers. These people will use any information they can get to take advantage of you (and they will sell and trade that information to similarly exploitation-minded outfits -- along with the key fact, that you were so foolish as to respond to their mailing).

There's a good saying that "Good deals don't call you on the telephone" and the same goes in spades for junk mail like this. Honest businesses don't try to make money off you by selling you wildly overpriced insurance. I wish there was a way to require outfits like this to put a skull-and-crossbones watermark on every page of every letter they send out, because then you'd have a chance of realizing what pirates they are.

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A behind-the-scenes peek at an industry chock full o'scammers

9/6/2012

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So, this is interesting. Because I've posted warnings for consumers (such as here) about the perils of entrusting your household goods to one of the many scammers who infest the interstate moving game, some sloppy online marketing company apparently thinks I'm a moving company (see screenshot of email, click on it to enlarge it).

That email may not seem like much, but it's really quite revealing: it shows that, when you do a typical Google search for long-distance moving companies, the sites you are most likely get from your search are precisely those sites where the scammers buy their leads (that would be you). They buy leads from these facade websites, and when you call them, you don't realize that you're already halfway to being scammed.

The only surefire way I know of to avoid these moving scammers is to NOT find your mover via an internet search; I'm afraid it's just asking to be ripped off.

Remember: The interstate moving game is entirely unregulated Somalia hiding in plain view in the middle of America. Every year, thousands of Americans are victimized, and they shake their heads and wonder how it's possible that there are organized crime gangs operating in interstate commerce in America and the feds do nothing. Long story short, we're getting another taste of the bitter harvest from the deregulation mania, the delusion that if streamlined, smart regulation is good, no regulation at all must be even better. When the Gingrich Congress killed the Interstate Commerce Commission, they killed the only agency with a mandate to prevent the interstate moving scams; in theory the FBI should be on the case, but they're too busy infiltrating peaceful demonstrations.

Bottom line: You have no reliable protection from any government against these scammers. You're on your own, so the only smart thing to do is avoid them in the first place. Ask anyone who's been ripped off by the moving scammers; they'll tell you that it's much better to pay more up front to a reputable mover than to pay the same or even more to the scammer who may or may not eventually decide to give you your goods back after a anguishing months- or even years-long battle.

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"I need a trust."

5/26/2012

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      It is remarkable how many people tell me "I need a trust," even though they can't tell me why they need a trust.

     Here's a little bit of information on trusts that I prepared for the "Preparing for Departure"(TM) seminar that we're giving right now:

Trusts and Living Trusts

      Trusts (and living trusts) are often sold (hard) as an alternative to wills and probate, even for people with modest amounts of property. Despite any hype via the media or that you may hear at an "estate planning seminar," living trusts are not for everyone. It depends on what you own and how you own it, as well as what you intend to happen when you die.
   Trusts avoid probate (for the property held by the trust only) because the trust, not you, owns the property. In living trusts, you (the grantor) usually set yourself up as both the beneficiary and administrator (the trustee) of the trust, with a successor trustee and successor beneficiaries. While you're alive, you are the business agent of the trust, and you use the trust for your own benefit, such as to pay your bills. If you can’t act as trustee, the successor trustee uses the trust assets for your benefit while you are alive. Then, on your death, the trust assets are used for the benefit of, or turned over to, your successor beneficiaries. Because you did not own the assets solely in your name at your death, they do not need to go through probate.

   One downside of trusts is that you need to spend money up front to have the trust created by an attorney and to prepare all the legal documents to change the ownership of your assets (your home, stocks, bank accounts, etc.) to the trust. If you miss something, and you die with assets in your name, a probate may still be required on your death, which is why you still need a pour-over will to "pour" any remaining assets you forgot about into your trust.

   The main problem with living trusts is that it's more complex for you to pay taxes, buy and sell things, and just generally to have this separate legal entity in place owning your stuff. It can also just be more expensive.

   In fact, in one sense, trusts really don’t avoid probate—they just let you do it yourself while you are still alive, with the extra burden of making sure that every time some circumstance changes in your property or wishes, you do a little bit more probating.

     I'm not saying nobody needs a trust. And trusts aren't all bad. I'm just saying that you shouldn't have a trust until you know what problem you are solving by having one, and what the alternatives were, and how much they cost, so that you could compare those alternatives to the care and feeding of the trust.

      One reason that some people use them is that they learned about the big, big problems that can result from I call “home brew estate planning,” where people make their someone else a joint owner of their major property, just so that they can "avoid probate." This is often a disastrously bad idea, so if a trust keeps you from doing that, it's a good thing.

   For example, if you make your daughter a joint owner with right of survivorship, she can move in with you, she can stop you from selling by refusing to sign off on the deed of sale, and you cannot change your mind and take her off the deed unless she agrees. And if she gets into trouble with debt or legal judgments against her for accidentally injuring someone, you may find yourself co-owning property with someone you never intended.

     But you don't need a trust to avoid the home brew estate planning problem. Between Oregon's recently adopted "Transfer on Death Deeds" and a will, you can pretty much do everything you need to do without the bother of a trust.

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NEVER BUY ANYTHING from an outfit like this

3/23/2012

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This is the mice type from the postcard above. You basically need a Hubble telescope to read it. But that's the point - they don't want you to read it. They just want your brain to lock up on the word FREE! And the cute puppy.

The local Dish TV folks are a great example of everything wrong with businesses today, and they deserve a resounding non-response from anyone unlucky enough to get their junk.

   These guys not only mailed me their junk postcard at home (ignoring my vigorously expressed wish to not get junk mail, including listing our house and each adult in it on the Direct Marketing Associations "Do Not Mail" directory, and adamantly refusing to purchase anything from a junk mail solicitation).

    They also had the gall to send me this incredibly deceptive "offer," with its gigantic FREE and the picture of the adorable puppy -- and an entire paragraph of mice type so small that I simply cannot read it; I'm not saying it's hard for me to read, I'm saying that despite my transition bifocals, there is no way I can physically resolve print that small, glasses or not.

    By scanning the postcard and then blowing up the scanned image 300%, I was able to make out the following:

There is a $17.50/mo early cancel penalty (meaning you are screwed if you lose your job or your apartment and have to move before you've paid for 24 months. If you only use it one month, you could have to pay $402.5 in cancel penalties);
PLUS there's a one-time $99 setup fee -- that one is guaranteed to be "no-how, no way" for a refund, come hell or high water;
Oh, and did you see the $10/mo in hidden -- well, ok, disclosed in 4-pt type -- equipment rental fees? So every price shown is BS by at least $10/month.
Don't forget that the mice type also says that there are taxes and fees added --- Not that they could bother to tell you what they are before you sign up. After all, they only use huge computers to track the residents and consumer behavior of each and every person in some 100 million households in America in incredible detail; they couldn't possibly be expected to manage up to FOUR (gasp!) numbers on top of all that data. (Four? Yup -- the taxes and fees from (1) federal government; (1) one state government; and, at most, (1) county and (1) city government. Why, their little computer circuits would fry just thinking about being expected to manage all that complexity and having to tell consumers what the bill would be before they're on the hook for the early cancel fee!
Best of all, the mice type also says "Prices subject to change." What the hell does that mean?? If they double the price and you decide you have to cancel, are you still on the hook for the $17.50/mo? Probably -- because they told you, right there in 4 point microscopic type!

Any business that markets this way is sending you a clear, simple message:

"We don't respect you. The only thing we care about you is how much money we can make off you.

Moreover, we think our service is so overpriced that we'd never sell any unless we use BS teaser rates and microscopic disclosures to screw you out of your hard-earned money. We'll hide some pretty important details in tiny mice type, and then play hardball when you have to cancel early because you can't afford the service after we've finished jacking up the fees and you see the government fees and taxes added on for the first time . . . with your first bill.

And since we don't respect you, or our offerings, or ourselves, we'll ignore all that and just put cute puppies and the word FREE in big, bold letters everywhere, and rake in the cash from people who are way too trusting of people like us."

As a consumer, you should print that red text and keep it next to your mailbox or the chair you use when reading your mail. Every time you get a postcard or letter that looks like Dish's flyer here, remind yourself of what that kind of advertising is really saying.

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Funeral Expenses Insurance -- almost as big a ripoff as house waterline insurance

A behind-the-scenes peek at an industry chock full o'scammers

"I need a trust."

NEVER BUY ANYTHING from an outfit like this

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