Duelin’ Deals Blog by Marlaine

Since Identity Theft is becoming more and more prevalent, I’d like to help by giving some tips to protect yourself. This article is also published on eHow, along with an ever growing list of articles on various subjects on my page – MarlaineMarie.

Here are 7 great ways to help you protect yourself against this growing threat…

Make sure you shred or cut up all paperwork with your personal information on it before you throw it away. Use a dark marker and/or a pen to black out the file numbers and account numbers even before you cut it up. There are people out there who are experts at putting jigsaw puzzles together. When cutting up a credit card, cut through the numbers a few times and don’t put all the pieces in one trash bin! Just breaking or cutting a credit card in half is not enough!

Don’t give your personal information out over the phone, in an email or over the net unless you absolutely know who you are talking to. Ask for hard copy information to be sent to you if it is a legal & binding agreement – everything should be in writing.

Keep personal information in a safe place, especially if you have roommates, have a lot of company coming and going, are having work done inside your house, or have regular services done within your home such as housecleaning, etc. Get a lockable file cabinet or desk – or rent a safe deposit box.

Don’t use passwords that anyone could guess like birthdays, pets’ names, family names or favorite things. If everyone knows you plaster your space with hearts – well, you get it……..

Do Not click on links in emails from people you don’t know or do not recognize. Don’t fill out forms that the links open up to either, if you couldn’t resist clicking the link. Email spoofing is pretty easy to do for some people, too, so don’t believe it when you get an email from the President of the United States unless you do business with him regularly. In other words, if someone sends you an email and you are shocked to learn you’ve won 10 million dollars if you click HERE – don’t – because you haven’t!

Don’t use your Social Security number as an ID! Memorize your number and do leave home WITHOUT your card. Do not write your number on your personal checks and do not have your phone number printed on your checks unless it is a business number. You can always write your phone number on your check if you have to but that pimply checkout clerk doesn’t need to be able to call at 3am if they are so inclined.

Protect your computer with firewalls, anti-spy ware, and anti-virus programs and keep them updated automatically if possible. Having more than one anti-virus program is a plus because sometimes, one does not catch what another one might. Even if you have only one computer, running it through a router is a great idea, especially if you have DSL. You can find great free programs on the Duelin’ Deals Free Stuff page.

Extra Tips & Warnings

* Familiarize yourself with scams and cons that are currently floating around on the net…. start with the link to the Federal Trade Commision, but do a Google for the newest scams.
* Be careful who you deal with on the net! Brenda in Florida could be Bruno from Hell in reality!

I have been writing articles for eHow – a How To Do Just About Everything kind of site. So far I have been doing recipes but just finished an article about getting someone in Customer Service when you call a company for whatever reason. I will get into lots of other subjects as time goes on. Check out my first articles at MarlaineMarie please and rate them if you think they are worth it. I’ve been trying to simplify everything as much as I can. Those who know me, especially on Marlaine’s Musings, know I can really talk, talk, talk! Smiling! For some reason, I seem to be stuck on doing rice recipes on eHow. I – personally – love buttered plain rice. Shrugs – I don’t know why! It’s plain and bland. Must be a past life thing! One of my favorites is making making a hamburger and putting it on top of left over rice. When Brad wants hamburgers for dinner, I make his the traditional way and put them on nice onion hard rolls. If I have left over plain rice, I heat it in the microwave and put my hamburger on top of it. Again, shrugging, even I don’t know why I like it.

We usually buy a package of good buns or hard rolls at our grocery store and usually use two or three from the 8 pack. I almost always put the rest in the freezer as soon as I’ve used what we need. If they are hard rolls, I usually leave the package on the baker’s rack a day or two. If they are hamburger buns, I put them right in the freeze. For some reason, when you put bread in the refrigerator, they go through a change of taste – they end up tasting stale fast. I think the fridge dries them out too much too quick, even through the wrapping. (Of course, I dry herbs in paper bags in the fridge on purpose so I know the fridge does dry things out fast!)

I had to call Dish Network today. We signed up for a deal about 18 months ago and it was just a waste of money for us. When we signed up, we were told the equipment would be ours but the price of the receiver would have to be paid but the next month they would credit us with a refund. Once I canceled after the promotional period was over, they told me that I’d have to pack up the receiver, remotes, and some dothingy up on the roof and send all of that back! I called them to complain about having to get on top of the roof when we’ve had record snow fall – and hey, why do I have to send back the receiver since I was told when I signed up they would be ours? The Customer Representative kindly told me it was part of the agreement we had when we signed up. Yeah but they were also going to send 10 coupons for free DIGIORNO pizzas as part of our agreement and we never got those either! They also charged us an extra $5 a month because we DIDN’T have a second TV hooked up to the receiver too! They used to charge to have a second TV hooked up. Once the guy installed the Dish Satellite on the roof, our deal was set and if we cancelled, we’d still have to pay for 18 months whether we watched it or not! Believe me, we are so dissatisfied with Dish Network that we will NEVER get it again! I was very happy to call and cancel a couple weeks ago. That Customer Service Rep told me that a lot of people are canceling lately. Hmmmmmmmm………… wonder why.

After the chat today with the Customer Rep, we only have to send the receiver and two remotes back – he nicely waved the thingy up on the Dish on the roof part but……… we have to cart the box to UPS now. That is out of our way. Or we could spend another $10 to have UPS come and pick it up.

Word of warning: Make sure you know all the conditions of an agreement. Dish Network had been calling and calling before the agreement saying it would be cheapest way to get a new receiver and since I was a Dish Owner since 1998, this would be their way of thanking me for being such a great customer. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr……………….. Yeah – right!

Anyway – here is the article that evolved from this conflict…

By MarlaineMarie
How To Get Transferred To A Real Person In Customer Service

You call a company to get information and you hear the dreaded – “Please choose from the following menu”. Oh Great! It’s an Interactive Voice Response! IVR – Otherwise known as voice mail jail. Every one hates it and so do I.

Step 1:
Keep pressing numbers like 0# or #0 or 0* or *0 repeatedly and quickly. Many IVRs will connect to customer service after a few “invalid entries”, especially if they ask for your account number and you enter it incorrectly. Be prepared – some IVRs say Sorry, Please Try Your Call Again Later and hang up on you.

Step 2:
Keep saying Customer Service or Representative if you have a voice activated menu and they’ve asked what department you need. You can also shout or be indistinguishable. The IVR will often connect you to a person if it doesn’t hear a key phrase or can’t understand you.

Step 3:
The IVR might have the option to hold on for a Customer Representative if you have a rotary phone so try to be patient and listen to all the options. I do have one – in a drawer, for emergencies.

Step 4:
Use the menu option to connect for a new account – they usually answer right away. “Oh wrong place? Could you please connect me with customer service?” Ask them for their name and rep number – again, if they already told you, so they think you are writing it down and thank them for their help. They might have to send you to the department you needed in the first place, but sometimes you get through to a real person.

Step 5:
After getting the option to talk to a Customer Service Representative, if the expected wait time is going to be long, just grab a book or, better yet, an audio book, and try to be patient. If you have internet access while on the phone, go cruising while you wait. If you don’t have a speaker phone or head phone plug in on your phone, remember that calling their non-toll-free number might end up costing more than a new phone with a speaker feature on it.

Step 6:
Selecting Spanish sometimes gets you to a bilingual customer service person sooner. Use this only if you are really desperate – it isn’t fair to tie up the line for people who must use it.
Tips & Warnings

* Get toll-free numbers for any US-based company by calling 1-800-555-1212.
* Your phone company charges a fee each time you call 411. Call 1-800-FREE-411 for free information.
* Go to http://inter800.com/ for the Toll Free Phone Book
* Try to remember that the Customer Service Representative is only an individual who has that particular job. Who knows who talked to them before you or what awful thing that previous customer might have said. Put yourself in their place and be patient! Stay decent!

There comes a special person…

I’ve had a problem talking about this but I want to talk briefly about losing those who are dear to us. Just because they have passed away doesn’t mean it’s all over! Even if a person doesn’t believe that the soul carries on beyond physical death, that doesn’t mean that the essense of their life force doesn’t linger with us, influencing things we do after they are gone.

My mother died young but her best friend, Margaret, decided that I would need someone to fill a bit of that huge hole she left. My Mama Margaret wasn’t there to get me up to go to school or do my laundry. No, she had the much more important role of being my spirit’s special helper. Margaret Felle passed away on February 1, 2008 and it feels like the hole she had been filling increased ten-fold in emptiness. She made her own special place in my life that went well beyond replacing someone. I am honored that she called me her own and I was glad to call her mine.

She would call or I would call and talk about nothing for an hour or two. She’d tell me what she was carving or working on, almost always adding – “I’m showing you with my hands.” And I could always see what she was showing me.

I can still see her showing me and will always see her.

I love you, Margaret. I’ll always love you.

We are seriously busy today……. we have been walloped by a giant snow storm here in Milwaukee. My brother alerted us a couple days ago and let us know we were going to get a big storm but even he didn’t know how big this was going to be. I’ll have to blame my hub for singing the Let It Snow song over and over but since he is an Aussie, he did not know what he was doing. On the other hand, I’ve been urging him to sing the song with alternate lyrics – Let Us Become Millionaires. After all, this is a record breaking snowfall that will not be letting up until tomorrow. The pictures in this post were taken at 5pm. We are in for a very long snow!

We made a grocery store run yesterday but even then it was getting seriously slippery in spite of the fact that it had been raining a half hour before we left the house! The one thing I fear the most is driving in slippery snow and – it is one blast to face fears! The car slid into Pick ‘N Save and it’s just a good thing that I drive very defensively!

We were stocked up on potatoes, onions, milk and eggs but the sale on ground chuck was over today and I suspected we would not be able to get out today to buy a few packages and – WOW – was I right! Sigh, feels good when you are prepared! When we lived out in the country, winter was always a time to stay stocked up on essentials! Here in the city, the store is less than 5 minutes away so it would be easy to get slack on this. Our Taurus is great on gas so that isn’t much to worry about but……… where is it now?

Even Gypsy stepped out our side door and then turned right around to come back in. I guess she decided to hold it a while – snicker. Brad tried to get her to go out to the back but she only whimpered near the door. The pic below is our front door and there are two steps in there somewhere! Noodles used her noodle and stayed inside!

Well, we have the thermostat low – 60 degrees – and our computers are supplying some of the heat in the room we spend the most time in. We turn on the little space heater once an hour, or so, to up the heat a bit but that little thing draws a lot of electric. We keep the door open a bit but the two cats and Gypsy are in here too, adding their warmth. This is a well insulated house so this room is nice and warm now!

To everyone in our area – Stay warm and cozy! To those in the south being hammered by tornadoes – stay safe! This is one blasting weather pattern we’re going through! Stay in touch with those you love to make sure they are ok!