VETS - DON'T LET YOUR PENSION GET STOLEN

Do not let someone redirect your pension payments.  Pension theft can occur when someone convinces you to shift your payouts to a new bank account or a separate financial product such as (annuities or trusts) 

Warning Signs

• A financial adviser tells you that you’re entitled to additional benefits simply because you’re a veteran.
• An adviser guarantees that they will get you an enhanced VA pension.
• Don’t trust an organization or individual that contacts you out of the blue and offers to assist you with a VA claim.
• Don’t hesitate to say “no” if an adviser pressures you to act fast.
• Don’t be swayed by a name. Words like “veterans” or “military families” in an organization’s name doesn’t necessarily mean it’s legitimate, the FTC says.
• Don’t settle for vague or evasive answers. If a financial professional won’t definitively answer your questions, walk away.

https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2019/pension-poaching.html 

Also, for more information of Identity theft visit https://www.va.gov/identitytheft/

MAKING THE CHANGE TO INTERNET TV

 Everyone hates their cable company.  The cost for simply watching your favorite channels is simply crazy.  Here's why.  Cable companies know what people watch the most.  They bundle the most watched channels into several different tiers so that you have to purchase the highest package in order to get your favorite programs.

You would think that making the change to a streaming TV service would offer a better and cheaper option.  Here are some bullet points to be aware of when choosing a streaming service

• You will still need an internet connection.  Either Spectrum or Frontier for this area or cellular for your tablet.
  
• No one offers an a-la-carte option for picking only the channels you want to watch.
• There are MANY choices for streaming companies and all of them make it difficult to decide what package to chose.
• You can't simply stream the few channels that you want to watch.  Current equipment doesn't allow you to turn off the channels you don't want.
  

None of this is totally the fault of the TV company.  It is the fault of the big media companies like Disney. Each media company owns several channels.  They force by contract their content on the TV providers.  Even if the user doesn't want a particular channel, if you buy a package you are given all the other content offered.

HOW TO AVOID FAKE BANK SCHEMES

 You get a text from your bank saying some fraud has happened.  Or they may even call or send you an email.

DON'T FALL FOR THIS.

Anyone can call or text you.

Here's how to react if you get a call or text.  

Call:  Tell the caller you will call the bank back.  Do not call a phone number they give you.  Look up your banks 800 customer service number and call that directly

Text:  Call your bank directly.  Do not click any links or call any phone number listed on the text.

email:  Call your bank directly.  Do not click any links or call any phone number listed on the email.

BOTTOM LINE:  Do not give out personal information to anyone who contacts you directly.  Do not verify credit card numbers or social security numbers to anyone who may call you no matter how convincing they may sound.

TECH ITEMS FOR SALE

Contact me at sr.pc.user.club@gmail.com

HP Laserjet Pro M118dw - $30.00 firm - STILL AVAILABLE
Works great

User guide - User Manual

___________________________________________

Oculus Quest 2 - Advanced All-In-One Virtual Reality Headset - 64 GB  - $100.00 Firm  SOLD

FACEBOOK SCAM ALERT

Yet another Facebook-related scam is making the rounds, but this one isn’t being perpetrated on the Facebook website.

It’s actually taking place on Messenger app instead.

As Facebook scams go, this one is pretty simple but it’s also unusually widespread.

In a nutshell, the scam goes something like this…

Several of your friends start receiving strange messages that appear to have been sent by you via Facebook Messenger. These messages can vary quite a bit but they are almost always messages that are out of character for you.

Some messages will try to trick your friends into signing up for some “deal”. Others will try to get them to click a link or watch a video.

Regardless of the actual messages they receive, they are almost always the types of messages you wouldn’t normally send. That should be a huge red flag for your friends, and luckily it usually will be.

Most people who receive these messages recognize right away that they’re out of character for the sender and message them to let them know what’s going on.

That’s why in most cases the messages themselves aren’t really the problem. The real problem is the “sender” usually thinks their Facebook account has been hacked when it actually hasn’t.

Understandably, they change their password thinking that will fix the problem, but it doesn’t.

Messages continue being sent out in their name even after they change their password, which of course has them pulling their hair out trying to figure out why someone is still sending messages to their friends from their account.

Well, if your friends start receiving messages that appear to have been sent by you, don’t panic. Your account probably has not been hacked.

What’s happening is someone has created a fake account using your name and photo and they’re using that account to make it look like the messages they’re sending came from you.

This scam is very similar to the one I wrote about in this post, but the big difference is this scam takes place entirely on Facebook Messenger, not on the Facebook website.

Unfortunately, Facebook makes it easy for scammers to impersonate you on Messenger, and that can cause a ton of confusion when a scammer decides to target YOUR friends for mischief.

The good news is your Facebook account has NOT been hacked.

The bad news is your friends are receiving messages from a scammer that make them believe your account has been hacked, and when they message you to tell you about it YOU also believe your account has been hacked (even though it hasn’t).

Luckily, this is one of the easiest scams to detect. Here’s how…

When one of your friends messages you and says “you’ve been hacked because I’m receiving strange messages from you“, send them a message back and ask them if there are two accounts in your name showing up in their messages list.

If they see your name on the list twice that means they’re receiving messages in your name from two different accounts – your real account and the fake account that was created by the scammer.

Unfortunately, there isn’t really anything you can do to prevent this type of scam, or even put a stop to it because it’s very easy to impersonate another user on Messenger.

What you can do is warn your Messenger contacts about the fake “you” so they can be on the lookout for those strange messages and block the fake account one they discover it.

And now, one final recommendation: Even though your actual Facebook account hasn’t been hacked, I still recommend that you follow the steps in this post to enable Two-Factor Authentication on it to prevent it from being hacked in the future.

original article - https://www.ricksdailytips.com/imposters-on-facebook-messenger-scam/

THE TEN(10) STEP TACTICAL JOB SEARCH

 If you are looking for a job, you need a plan.  You can't send out your resume to 100 places and hope that one of them is a good fit for you.  Also, how do you figure out what companies are hiring someone with your experience?  In order to make it easier to find what you need, plan your attack.

Here are some steps that you should take - beyond making your resume

1.  Make a list of your top skills

2.  Make a list of how those skills intersect with your interests

3.  Eliminate the skills that are least interesting to you

4.  Now use the remaining skills as your keywords

5.  Now that you know what to look for.  Next decide where - local, another location or remote work

6.  Create or update your LinkedIn profile in order to reflect the keywords you picked above

7.  Use job search Web pages to search for companies hiring for jobs that meet your keywords

8.  Use LinkedIn to find people who work for companies hiring for your interests.  Specifically, look for people who could one day be your boss, or a team member.  Add those people to your LinkedIn followers and engage them

9.  Participate in job fairs and hiring events.  Research the companies that will be participating and target your time to the companies that meet your criteria

10.  Have a daily goal for how many companies you will apply to.  Try to stay under that daily goal and not overdo it

FINALLY, When you're unemployed, looking for a job is a gut wrenching humbling experience.  Every no can be a soul crushing experience.  Take time away from your job search in order to recharge your batteries and step away from the depressing realities.  Go for a walk, or head to the gym.  Exercise can boost your body and your mind.

CONNECT WITH SOCIAL MEDIA

TERMS

SOCIAL MEDIA - An online platform that allows you to communicate thoughts, ideas, and information with other people

NETWORK - A group of people who you follow and interact with

FOLLOWERS - The people who follow an online person

DM aka DIRECT MESSAGE - Allows you to directly interact with a person online

IM aka INSTANT MESSAGE - Allows you to send messages and communicate with someone else who is live and online at the same time.  Note:  this is the old school term.  Most people just say DM these days

 

Here is a brief list of social media pages and their uses.  It is in no particular order

 ______________________________

FACEBOOK - Facebook is a social networking site that makes it easy for you to connect and share photos, messages and updates with family and friends online.  There are over 1 Billion current users worldwide.

INSTAGRAM - Instagram specializes mostly in photographs and short videos

LINKEDIN - LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network on the internet. You can use LinkedIn to find the right job or internship, connect and strengthen professional relationships, and learn the skills you need to succeed in your career.

TWITTER - Twitter is an online news and social networking site where people communicate in short messages called tweets. Tweeting is posting short messages for anyone who follows you on Twitter, with the hope that your words are useful and interesting to someone in your audience.

TIKTOK - TikTok is a short-form, video-sharing app that allows users to create and share 15-second videos on any topic

PINTEREST - Pinterest is a visual discovery engine for finding ideas like recipes, home and style inspiration, and more. 

YOUTUBE - Allows you to share videos of any lengeth

Other social media sites include: Snapchat, Whatsapp, reddit.  

BONUS POINTS

Some other terms that you might hear from time to time.

CONTENT CREATOR - The person who creates interesting content in order to share it online.  Some of these people make very good money doing this.

INFLUENCER - A social media user who has established credibility on a specific topic such as beauty or fashion.

VIRUS SOFTWARE - HOW SAFE IS TOO SAFE

 Recently, I had occasion to assist someone with their computer.  It was running very slow and loading applications very slowly.  Normally, this is a symptom of older versions of Windows.  Specifically pre Windows 7.  However this was a Windows 10 machine, so it shouldn't have been a problem.

After reviewing his installed applications we discovered he had 3 installed virus applications.

You might think that having more than one will really make you safe.  However, what was happening is all 3 of these applications were running at the same time actively scanning the drive for problems.  Because of this the system was bogged down.

We removed 2 of them and the system started functioning a lot better.

While we were working on this problem, an email came in for a 4th virus software saying the registration was being renewed.  Luckily it wasn't installed.

My advice.  Stick to 1 scanner.  They all do pretty much the same thing.  Just in different ways.  Adding more virus scanners doesn't give you more protection.  Just more headaches.