Investorial

When something sounds too good to be true, it usually is! I’m not simply referring to my fib on April Fool’s Day, but I’d like to open a discussion about investors that are drawn to “The Titanic” of investments like moths to a flame.

The Titanic, thought to be the fastest ship afloat of her time and widely regaled as almost unsinkable. Yet, the infamous British liner sank on the night of April 14, 1912, after crashing into an iceberg in the North Atlantic Sea. The Titanic sounded too good to be true on her maiden voyage. But can you imagine the excitement of those passengers as they became the first to board this ship?

The Portus Titanic
Let’s bring this back to the world of investments. What about those first investors of a hedge fund called Portus? With no discernable track record, these investors gleamed with dollar bills in their eyes, smiling at the promise of sweet returns in both up and down markets, happily gave millions to a scheming co-founder who fled to Israel.

Another Titanic Scheme
I recently found another example of a investment scheme gone bad. Hidden in the pages of Canadian Business online lies an investigative report about (more…)

Sometimes, you missed those really small ambiguous charges on your credit card and they may come back to haunt you. I finally caught on about an $11 charge on my credit card recently that was billed to WLI*RESERVATIONREWARDS 800-7327031 CT. I do not remember this charge and promptly verified as to when it started. It was surprising to see I had not contested this charge since it started in November 2005.

This is an example where media information can be essential as various internet pages/posts/blogs helped me clarify the situation. The most informative one I found was a page on Adam Rosi-Kessel’s Fair & Balanced Weblog. Equally impressive was the information I found contained in the comments. This is a true testament to the conversational benefits of Blogs.

From the comments, I was able to determine that it was a previous purchase I executed on TigerDirect that led to this charge. After the purchase, (more…)

Email has replaced many forms of communication media, and is unscrupulously used by scammers and con artists to extend their reach to a global arena. It’s not just about simple identity thefts anymore. Those phishing emails seem pale in comparison to the many other scams perpetrated by others on the internet. At least, when it comes to identity theft, you did not participate much except that you mistook a well-disgusied website as an authentic one and gave away your passwords and personal information.

The Nigerian email scams are not new. They’ve been steadily becoming a popular menace for consumers since 2000 and perhaps before that too. I myself, know of a few persons in my circle that have almost fallen victim to the scam. The fortunate ending was that no money were ever exchanged and their folly were caught in time! Being a savvy internet surfer since the internet gained popularity in the early 1990s, I was glad that I helped one of these individuals wake up to the sobering truth.

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