-If you are in debt up to your ears (as many of us are these days), the most illogical thing to do is to continue spending your butt off. But hey, you are already drowning in debit, might as well keep swimming away from the beach right? Spend away my friend.

–This idea that you are already so far behind the 8 Ball that you are more like Indiana Jones with that big rock is the wrong mindset. Yes, you are in debt, but X more dollars do and will matter.

-You have a house. Using that home equity loan is a sure fire way to get out of your deep debt gallows. Using a home equity line of credit to pay off the monster of credit card debt seems like a smart move. Besides, the rate of the mortgage debt is lower than those high interest rate credit cards.

–Over-spenders make the best money managers. Doing this little tactic will make your woes go away…for now. Then those zeroed out credit card balances will lure your smart-budgeted self  right back into spending on them. Now you are venturing deeper into your debt inferno. For those who take this route and then eventually can’t make the newer mortgage payments, foreclosure comes too fast.

-Borrowing from your loving family worked when you were 16. It should still be able to be tapped into right? Sure. Your loved ones, they, well- love you. They’d be happy to help their struggling family member.

–Never a good idea. Let’s face it, if you have rich family members you are close to, you probably wouldn’t be playing hot potato with Peter and Paul. If they want to help, fine. But accept at your own risk. If they say: “OK, but I really need you to get it back to me soon.” Don’t you dare. You don’t have any true obligations or game plans when paying back relatives or family. You will undoubtedly destroy the relationship with your requested loan.

-What debt? There is no way I saw that. Nope there are no impending threats to my financial position on the horizon.  As long as we are hitting the minimum payments and no bill collectors are calling, we are just fine.

–Wrong Sparky. The worst thing you can do is be unconcerned about the debt red flags. Ignoring the problem doesn’t make it fly far away. Out-of-sight-out-of-mind is not a luxury with financial obligations.

Come back to reality. When In reality, whenever you can only afford minimum payments, you constantly use credit card balance transfers to keep up with your debts, and you’re maxed out on one or more credit cards, something isn’t right. This is where you can still be responsible. How you react to your debts will determine if they eventually spiral out of control through life’s ups and downs.

They are then told that in order to turn the money into using cash yet again, a expensive solution is required. The scammer will happily sell the solution to the victim for a bargain $100,000 or something. It’s a small price to pay for getting your hands on millions.

Here’s the back end of the scam: The bills are real $100 bills, but they are just stacked upon black construction paper and they have not been dyed, but rather they are coated in Elmer’s glue and iodine. The secret solution in the “black money scam” is just water and crushed vitamins. You don’t really need the vitamins to dissolve the glue and iodine, but they add a nice “this is a real solution” quality to it.

These days people call you all the time. You get offered stuff all the time. And you also get promised the fast fixes and the sure fire things. A relatively new scam not only falls on all three, but could also put you, the one being scammed, behind bars.

The scam itself is an illegal scheme that is being used to convince customers with unfavorable credit and huge amounts of debt to go and obtain new taxpayer or employer IDs under false pretenses. These “credit repair” companies con the subjects into going to doing so and then convince them to hide their true credit identities from creditors. THIS IS HIGHLY ILLEGAL.

For a “modest” (really not considering court costs) fee, the companies promise to give advice about performing this file segregation of the client’s credit files.

FILE SEGREGATION IS ILLEGAL AND CONSUMERS WHO EMPLOY IT ARE COMMITTING A FELONY.

Online

On screen keyboards. Use these to combat key loggers.

Data separation. Whether you use another computer without internet access to keep your books and hold your personal information or you use a external hard drive while the internet connection is temporarily downed, data separation is a good first line of defense.

No more SSN at the doc. Get a medical ID card and leave the Social Security card at home.

No debit card online purchases. I don’t care where you are shopping. Don’t use your debit card to buy things online- EVER. Use credit cards or a PayPal account, both will not only stop transactions at a certain amount, their fraudulent policies only hold u responsible for a limited amount. Using the debit card could deplete your whole account.

Check your dang statements. It takes a few minutes every week and is a primary line of defense. Don’t be that lazy.

Order your credit reports. This means do it responsibly three times a year. It will help.

Offline

Shred it all. When in doubt, shred. The dumpster divers are legally allowed to sift through your trash. If you want to do it right, buy a shredder that puts the one from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to shame by cross-shredding everything.  If that doesn’t do it for you, burn it.

Bills go to the post office. If you have a open mailbox, don’t leave the  paid bills in the mailbox for the carrier to pick up.

Contact creditors first before a big move. You don’t want your statements and information going to a new resident.

When you can, go inside the bank. This will cut down on shoulder surfers, skimmers, and the absent minded leaving of a card at the machine.

A credit RATING is a number which most lenders use to determine whether they will extend you a line of credit or give you a loan. The rating is generated by three separate credit reporting bureaus. When applying for a loan, a lender will usually acquire a report from at least two of these sources.  Different lenders favor different bureaus for their needs. The accuracy is a opinion really, hence the reason two or all are used in most cases.

The FORMULA used to calculate this score in-house at these bureaus is known as FICO. So a FICO score is a credit rating based on the Fair Isaac Credit Organization formula. The resulting number is one ranging from 300 to 900. This number outlines the amount of risk you pose to a prospective lender; 300 being the most unfavorable. Your financial history and current assets and liabilities are what are fed into the FICO formula, thereby generating the score.

Sberbank, whose majority holdings are Russian government, intends to install these new machines in the malls and all the bank branches across the country (though nothing has been scheduled).

With this ATM the bank can even take in credit card applications. Consumers that have no existing relationship with the bank can talk to the machine to submit their applications. The ATM asks questions like “Are you employed?” and “Do you have any outstanding loans?” While doing so, it uses a voice-analysis system to gauge the truthfulness of the responses. This particular in the ATM was developed by the Speech Technology Center, a company whose portfolio includes clients such as the Federal Security Service (the Russian domestic intelligence agency descended from the Soviet K.G.B.).

The prototype of the generation next machine is on display at Sberbank’s Branch of the Future laboratory in a common office building just above a Moscow subway station.

“We are not climbing into the client’s brain. We aren’t invading their personal lives. We are just trying to find out if they are telling the truth. I don’t see any reason to be alarmed,” said Mr. Orlovsky, a Sberbank executive.

1) Shut up. Think about your surroundings. It could be a conference, it could be a forum, or maybe its a contest form. Whatever the case may be, watch what you say! Take care not to talk about your SSN over cell phones, or send any account information over emails.

2) Don’t flaunt it. If you want to paint the bulls-eye on your back, talk about your investments, your assets, and your income. If you have a lot of money, its probably not the best idea to let everyone and their dog know it. Dress normal when overseas and limit your credit card usage or get a fixed amount cash card. If someone sees you as a cash cow, the credit card woes that follow could take months or even a year to sort out.

3) Shred everything. More specifically, cross-cut shred everything. If it doesn’t look like it should be tossed out as confetti at the Super Bowl, its not good enough. And when its really dangerously ultra-sensitive info, just burn it. It is actually completely legal to rummage through people’s curbside garbage. The Supreme Court ruled it so. Remember to include new credit card offers in the shredding process.

4) Encrypt and isolate. Almost everyone spends half their days connected to the internet. We practically live a separate digital version of our lives there.   So it makes sense to put your guards up. Disable whatever “cookies” you can.

To further protect yourself, keep your web browsing private, use an anonymous connection service, like Anonymizer Hushmail, Zero Knowledge Systems’ “Freedom”,  or Pretty Good Privacy, which all use a ultra-powerful 1024-bit encryption.

Also isolate your data on a external hard drive or a different computer. These would not be connected to the internet or to a computer that had internet access.

5) Get A Medical ID Card. Medical Identity theft is a spreading issue. Every time you go to a clinic, the doctor, or a hospital they demand your Social Security Number. They usually use this to file and locate your medical records. The alternative is to get a Medical photo ID from someone like ID Network that doesn’t require you to provide your SSN.

There are bogus flyers being left on cars and distributed in the Orlando area for bogus pizza places. The idea is that tourists don’t know any better and thus, the criminals can obtain their credit card numbers. What’s worse is that these scams are now gaining popularity and are essentially running unchecked.

This is the breakdown:

The tourists/travelers get to their hotels to jovially find flyers for pizza on their cars and under their doors. The helpful person who answers to take the order gets the customer’s credit, or worse, debit card numbers and then they politely let the customer know their pizza pie will be delivered to their room shortly. Your credit or debit card number is immediately tossed around the world to purchase things as part of a criminal ring.

A ban of the use of flyers was considered by the Florida legislature, but it was realized this would have a severely negative impact on the state’s free market. So now there is a reporter who was in Orlando and came across the scam. Even though the reporter is from Detroit’s WXYZ-TV, he followed up on the scam while he was in town.

What’s the fix?

While you are traveling, and when you get what looks like a excellent promo flyer, take a few seconds to call the front desk and ask if the flyers are legit. Google search the name of the company. If you are really skeptical now that you have read about this, try just asking the front desk for recommendations for legit restaurants.

This could just be the beginning. I mean, this type of spam-scam isn’t new to the world of Facebook. Whether we see the emergence of fake “Support Calls” or some good old “Stranded in Brazil/Spain/Austrailia/etc.” scams with a goodwill price tag on the end will all be played out in time. The fact is that it is a whole new way to target victims.

For now, just make sure to avoid clicking on the “Enable video calls.” posts and be sure to send your friend who sent it a message, making them aware of the issue.

People often forget that their services are integrated and that even though what they post on Facebook automatically posts to twitter, which is viewable to everyone as a default. This means that when you checked in at Pita Pit downtown, which is 45 minutes away from where you live, someone could have realized they had enough time to break into your house and physically steal from you or just rummage through your waste bins looking for personal identifiers.

Enjoying social media is a responsibility just as much as it is an entertainment. The next time you tell the world or just your FourSquare crew you are at Starbucks or that your party has been moved to your house at 5555 Mulberry Lane (and your profile already gives a ‘hometown’), consider the worst case consequences.