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thehill.com/opinion/finance/529675-after-5-decades-of-private-credit-reporting-its-time-for-a-change?rnd=1607626407 You can apply for food, cash and other assistance from home during Oregon two-week freeze11/19/2020 All Oregonians can apply for food, cash and child care assistance provided through the Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS) from home without having to visit an office in person.
To apply from home, visit govstatus.egov.com/or-dhs-benefits for information on how to apply for assistance using an online application, email, mail, telephone or application drop off. Oregonians who need urgent and ongoing food assistance can visit needfood.oregon.gov. For more ways to connect with ODHS or to find other types of assistance, contact 211info:
Deadline to get your payment has been extended until 21 November 2020 -- so if you are an adult who didn't receive the $1,200 check or direct deposit, make sure you don't miss out! Free money doesn't come along often, this is one time when it sounds too good to be true but it really is true -- $1,200 per adult, but you have to make sure they know how to get your money to you.
Some shady folks look at disasters and see dollar signs. Oregon DOJ has some useful information to help you keep from becoming a victim to those folks. You can download them below. No Veteran Should Be Without a Place to Call Home
Free Help for Homeless Veterans Dial 1-877-4AID-VET (1-877-424-3838) for 24/7 access to VA services for homeless and at-risk Veterans Homeless Veteran Chat Confidential, 24/7 online support for homeless Veterans and friends https://www.va.gov/homeless for more information Are You a Veteran in Crisis or Concerned About One? Did you know that VA offers same day services in Primary Care and Mental Health at 172 VA Medical Centers across the country? Make the Connection Resource Locator Contact the Veterans Crisis Line (1-800-273-8255 and press 1, Chat, or Text 838255.) "Spear Phishing" or just "Phishing" is the term for email-based internet attacks by scammers where they trick you into clicking on a seemingly safe link or attachment in an email and that then causes all hell to break loose. There is pretty much no limit to the kinds of nasty things that can result, from infecting your computer and remailing the attack to everyone in your address book to locking up your computer entirely unless you pay thousands in ransom.
There's no easy answer to protect yourself. The open nature of email means that anyone who has your address (or has a computer capable of generating millions of addresses randomly) can send you a spear phishing email. Thus, the only real solution is learning to be extremely skeptical of any emails you weren't expecting and always remembering to keep your hands away from the mouse -- that is, DO NOT CLICK on any unexpected email links or attachments unless and until you have verified (preferably from a trusted person known to you) that you aren't about to do the internet version of stepping on a land mine. Today I got a pretty formidable phishing example that made me think the scammers are getting better all the time. And this one was extra potent because I have been dealing with First American Title lately. The scammers don't know that -- they sent this to millions of people, and of millions of people, some share of them are going to be dealing with any large company (such as First American, or Chase Bank, etc.). See below. Luckily, the scammers are still not fully up to par -- and I know that September only has 30 days (the "9/31" was what first tipped me off to the fact that this email was just another scammer trying to make a buck at my expense). There are many other, more subtle, clues that this is a fraud (notice that there is no city or state in the address block for "Carin Wear," to name just one). But, even with those errors, this is several times more convincing than the phishing attacks I used to get, and it suggests that it's just a matter of time until I am fooled. The only thing that will protect me then is if I remember to stop before clicking and to get on the phone and call the local branch of whatever institution is supposedly sending me this email, and verify verify verify before clicking anything. So, I urge you to join me in my rule: Assume any unsolicited or unexpected email is a ticking time bomb just hoping to explode on you. So never click attachments. Contact the supposed sender (NOT using the contact info in the email), and ask that the files be shared another way. Straight Talk: Don’t fall for foreclosure rescue scams Reuters carries a good "hoist on their own petard" story about textbook company CHEGG, which imposes a forced arbitration clause on students using its products. When CHEGG's negligence exposed the sensitive financial information of thousands of students, some filed suit, and CHEGG obtained a ruling that they all had to be kicked out of court and go file in arbitration. And guess what, more than 15,000 of them did. Suddenly CHEGG sees the wisdom of class actions, which allow people with similar cases to band together to have one procedure determine the result for all, at far less expense. Except that CHEGG also imposed a class action ban along with its forced arbitration clause! So now CHEGG is trying to evade the $7.5 million arbitration filing fee it agreed to pay for all those students it forced to file arbitration demands. More proof (as if more was needed at this point) that companies don't use forced arbitration for any of the reasons they claim they do -- it's not "better for our customers" or any of that crap these companies like to spew. They use forced arbitration because, most often, consumers will throw up their hands and walk away, letting the wrongdoers keep their ill-gotten gains. But in this case, CHEGG's greed is going to get the better of them. Good. The background: As I told you in May, the plaintiff firm Z Law filed a class action in 2019 on behalf of millions of Chegg customers whose personal information was allegedly compromised in a 2018 data breach. Chegg’s lawyers at Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe moved to compel arbitration, citing a mandatory arbitration provision in the user agreement its customers are required to accept. In April 2020, U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett of Baltimore granted Chegg’s motion. |
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LAWYERLY FINE PRINT:John Gear Law Office LLC and Salem Consumer Law. John Gear Law Office is in Suite 208B of the Security Building in downtown Salem at 161 High St. SE, across from the Elsinore Theater, a half-block south of Marion County Courthouse, just south of State Street. There is abundant, free 3-hour on-street parking throughout downtown Salem, and three multi-story parking ramps that offer free customer parking in downtown Salem too.
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