During the first few months of our stay in the US, the days spent at home left me with so much time to surf the internet. Work from home deals, promos, get-rich-quick marketing, etc... the net is teeming with all these stuff. I was still gullible at that time. I got scammed a couple of times. And I have learned my lesson painfully. I had to call my credit card company a couple of times to cancel transactions that were not authorized by me.
Now, whenever I see an offer that is too good to be true, my initial reaction is... it is not true. There will always be a catch. And it is very easy to check out if the offer is the real deal or not. I simply log on to http://www.bbb.org/us. That is the website of the Better Business Bureau. It monitors all the established businesses in the US and rates them from A to F. If there are a lot of consumer complaints, they get a bad rating. So I know that I should avoid these companies at all costs no matter how grand the seduction is. Hey, I just received a free trip for two to the Bahamas via Caribbean Cruise Line. How cool can it get. Of course, I did not start jumping up and down, celebrating my luck. Where in the world did this free trip for two come from anyway? When I searched the BBB, at http://www.bbb.org/hawaii/business-reviews/sweepstakes/sweepstakes-and-prizes-general-information-in-honolulu-hi-22000317. I got my answer. It turned out to be one of those timesharing promos rated with an F.
The BBB is useful for monitoring charitable institutions, too. When I donated to one of the charitable institutions in the parish, I suddenly got numerous mails from other charitable institutions asking for donations. I guess my name was shared with these other institutions. Although these donations are tax deductible, it is still wise to choose where to give. I want to put my money where it will serve the higher purpose better. I just look up the name of the institution at BBB to make sure it is legitimate and doing what it claims to be doing.
The net is a very useful place to get information from. But it can also be a place where I get a lot of garbage. Spam mails and hoaxes can flood my inbox. Whenever I get these forwarded emails containing hyped up news of cancer-causing stuff, or cancer-curing stuff, I google the topic first to check the reliability of the material. The most useful website for me is http://urbanlegends.about.com/
I think it is our responsibility to filter whatever comes to our mailbox before we send out the information to the rest of our families and friends. Of course there is always the chain emails that we receive claiming to be originating from a particular saint and if you break the chain, you will receive bad luck. Just wondering which saint ever got to live to use the internet. Whenever I receive such an email, I don't even bother reading to the last because I know there will be a threat looming ahead. I simply hit delete with a prayer, "In Jesus' Name, I cast you out of my life." I don't know what could be more powerful than that.
Of course there are always materials worth circulating but before I hit send, I delete all the email addresses in the message to protect these names and use BCC instead of TO or CC because BCC will block the email addresses from being seen by other recipients. BCC stands for blind carbon copy. FYI.
Now, whenever I see an offer that is too good to be true, my initial reaction is... it is not true. There will always be a catch. And it is very easy to check out if the offer is the real deal or not. I simply log on to http://www.bbb.org/us. That is the website of the Better Business Bureau. It monitors all the established businesses in the US and rates them from A to F. If there are a lot of consumer complaints, they get a bad rating. So I know that I should avoid these companies at all costs no matter how grand the seduction is. Hey, I just received a free trip for two to the Bahamas via Caribbean Cruise Line. How cool can it get. Of course, I did not start jumping up and down, celebrating my luck. Where in the world did this free trip for two come from anyway? When I searched the BBB, at http://www.bbb.org/hawaii/business-reviews/sweepstakes/sweepstakes-and-prizes-general-information-in-honolulu-hi-22000317. I got my answer. It turned out to be one of those timesharing promos rated with an F.
The BBB is useful for monitoring charitable institutions, too. When I donated to one of the charitable institutions in the parish, I suddenly got numerous mails from other charitable institutions asking for donations. I guess my name was shared with these other institutions. Although these donations are tax deductible, it is still wise to choose where to give. I want to put my money where it will serve the higher purpose better. I just look up the name of the institution at BBB to make sure it is legitimate and doing what it claims to be doing.
The net is a very useful place to get information from. But it can also be a place where I get a lot of garbage. Spam mails and hoaxes can flood my inbox. Whenever I get these forwarded emails containing hyped up news of cancer-causing stuff, or cancer-curing stuff, I google the topic first to check the reliability of the material. The most useful website for me is http://urbanlegends.about.com/
I think it is our responsibility to filter whatever comes to our mailbox before we send out the information to the rest of our families and friends. Of course there is always the chain emails that we receive claiming to be originating from a particular saint and if you break the chain, you will receive bad luck. Just wondering which saint ever got to live to use the internet. Whenever I receive such an email, I don't even bother reading to the last because I know there will be a threat looming ahead. I simply hit delete with a prayer, "In Jesus' Name, I cast you out of my life." I don't know what could be more powerful than that.
Of course there are always materials worth circulating but before I hit send, I delete all the email addresses in the message to protect these names and use BCC instead of TO or CC because BCC will block the email addresses from being seen by other recipients. BCC stands for blind carbon copy. FYI.
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