Technology

By Angela Ebron

The Cash for Clunkers program has been great for car buyers and the auto industry. But, you know who else is benefiting from it? Online scam artists. Phony websites are suddenly popping up claiming to be connected to the program, according to fraud expert Sid Kirchheimer, author of Scam-Proof Your Life. Don’t fall for it! “The phony sites ask for your Social Security number and tell you that you have to preregister in order to qualify for Cash for Clunkers, which you don’t,” he says.

And this is just the latest in a string of Web scams—from work-at-home schemes to fake lotteries to bogus shopping sites and more. According to the FBI Internet Crimes Complaint Center, online fraud complaints went up 33 percent from 2007 to 2008, with $265 million in lost or stolen money. To protect yourself from getting ripped off, follow these online safety tips from Kirchheimer.

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Shortly after writing the post, "Are your work habits making you look old?," with Pamela Redmond Satran, author of the book, "How Not to Act Old," I got an email from Barbara Raab, a friend who works in television.

"What's wrong with acting "old" (a.k.a. one's actual age) at work?" she wrote. "I don't think you meant it to be ageist, but I really think this post IS ageist. You haven't told me WHY I should not look over 40 at work; you seem to take it as a given that seeming one's age, if that age is over 40, is something no one would actually want."

She continued: "How about wearing tight jeans and a thong that shows? Or coming to work hung over? These are also things that young people do? Why did you buy into the whole notion of acting younger at work?"

Barbara makes some excellent points. Being perceived as "old" in the workplace shouldn't be considered a bad thing. In fact, experienced (older, mature, choose your word) workers have tremendous value in the workplace and I didn't mean to suggest otherwise in that post. She's also correct  that younger people make huge missteps at work that can often be traced to their youth or inexperience.

I wrote that post with full knowledge that ageism exists and that it is insidious. And those are the same reasons that Pamela Redmond Satran says motivated her to write her book, "How Not to Act Old."  Read More »

As I approached my 60th birthday I decided that I couldn’t wait any longer for someone to say yes to me. I signed on with a print-on-demand publisher to self-publish my novel Mrs. Lieutenant based on my own experiences as a new Mrs. Lieutenant in May 1970 during the Vietnam War. And just at this time my novel was named a semi-finalist in the 2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Each one of the semi-finalists was given a page on Amazon, and I discovered that one semi-finalist had something on her page that I didn’t. What that turned out to be was a blog – something that in January of 2008 I hadn’t even heard of. This was an epiphany moment for me. Read More »