There has been increased online phishing activities targeting online bank account and credit card holders and if something is not done to prevent these theft activities, the consumers may be placed in a difficult situation. When card users’ information is compromised, it can be used to steal money from their bank accounts. However, despite the large amount of information provided on the internet, consumers still fall prey of these phishing activities.
The most commonly used tool is the email where users receive phishing emails that purport to have been sent by their banks or credit card issuers. The main question is; are banks and credit card issuers doing enough to protect their consumers?
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| Internet phishing |
Although there is a lot of information on the internet about internet phishing and identify theft, it is important for banks and credit card issuers to dedicate themselves and provide continuous updates on security threats that consumers may face. The same emails that the phishers or thieves use can also be used by the banks and card issuers to disseminate useful information about security vulnerabilities the users are likely to get when using their cards.
Consumer needs to be constantly educated and kept updated of the latest developments on internet security threats. In addition, the companies need to provide a security information page on their website where users can always visit and read more on new developments. The card issuers and banks need to constantly remind their customers to log in their website and check any security notifications.
Card holders need to understand that they should not click any links that are send directly to their emails directing them to visit a site and enter their personal details like passwords, emails, name, date of birth, card numbers, PIN and any other confidential information. Today, internet thieves are using sophisticated ways to get personal information from card and bank account holders.
A common occurrence is where the phishers send spoofing emails, which have bank and credit card logo information. These emails look as though they come from the companies but this is not true. If you examine where the mails come from, you will find that they are send from a third party address that does not match the card issuer or bank address. The email may be that of the bank or card issuer but the origin of the message does not come from the bank or card issuer but from other funny web address. You should not just check the address of the sender but also the origin of the message i.e. “mailed-by”
In order to prevent these phishing and identity theft practises, card users are strongly advised to refrain from clicking on suspicious links in email messages. As a rule of thumb, banks and credit card issuers will not request for a card re-activation or any other personal information through an email link. Never click the link because it will lead you to a fake website that looks the same as that of the credit card company or bank.
When answering an email, you should not provide any personal information. In addition, you should not enter any personal information in a pop up page that comes on your screen or browser. Always ensure that the website of your credit card company or bank is encrypted with an SSL certification. To conform that the website is really encrypted with an SSL certificate, you need to look for the padlock, the green address bar or the “https” features when you enter your personal information.
It is recommended that you have antivirus software that is able to protect you from online phishing activity. Some of the free antivirus software offered do not provide advanced internet security protection on internet banking and online bank account and credit card access. Therefore, it is suggested that you source for an antivirus that can protect your online bank account and credit card use.
Trading in commodity futures market requires a good plan and there are a number of aspects which should be observed to trade profitably. The market is confronted with risks that leave many traders at the losing end. About 85 to 95% of traders in this market do not trade profitably and this means that the money is earned by a few traders. These are the traders who apply strict trading discipline and manage their losses effectively.
If you are a beginner, you should not risk trading with a large amount. You may begin with a few hundreds of dollars and trade carefully. It is essential that you do not go for big profits because this means trading with big risks. The larger the amount you trade with, the more you risk losing that money. Therefore, when you are wrong, you will suffer big losses. This can send you out of the market fast than you anticipated.
Commodity futures market can shift in price movements unexpectedly. Most of the successful traders make a lot of losing trades but the good thing is that they leverage what they have to lose. They trade with manageable amounts and even when they trade with big money, they apply the stop loss order strategy very effectively.
When you realize that you are faced with a margin call, it means that something is wrong in you trading. You should never accept to be confronted with margin calls because it implies that your trade is not correct. You have to check the contract size. For example, if you have$5,000 account equity, you should not trade with more than $250 in any one given trade.
You need to give yourself a risk or loss margin of about 2% and this will ensure that in the event you trade in loss, the total amount lost is not too big. Losses cannot be eliminated and therefore you have to manage them. You will incur numerous losses as you trade but you have to keep them minimal. When you get a profiting trade position, you have to optimize that chance.
This means that you have to hang on in that position until you have earned something substantial. The numerous losing trades you face are covered by the large profiting trades you occasionally get. In essence, if you are a beginner in futures commodity trading, you should not risk your money by trading with big amounts.
You need to trade with a plan and follow the trend. Trade with low amounts and scale down your losses significantly. With about $200 dollars, you can start trading in a commodity futures market. This means that you will not get a lot of profit but the good thing is you are gaining experience.
As you begin to understand how the market trades, you can increase the amount successively. You need to have a long term goal and avoid short end goals that will only plunge you into pitfalls. Many beginners who trade in this market lose their amount before they even learn the basics and tactics of trading in commodity futures markets.
Trading in commodity futures market can be very profitable only if you trade keenly. One of the downfalls that are faced by many traders is the inability to control their trading. People often get enticed by the trade patterns and fail to take precautions when trading. Managing losses is a big challenge for many traders and this is because the market can be engulfed by surprise events that move prices too quickly for a trader to exit at the pre-determined point.
Since it is not possible to eliminate losses completely, it is important that you keep losses as low as possible. When you are trading, you need to ensure that you do not over leverage your trade. You have to apply a loss margin. You can leverage your lose risks to about 2% of your account equity.
When you over leverage, you are likely to be caught up in a margin call meaning that you risk losing the entire capital you have invested in the market. The difficult aspect in managing losses is that traders want to make big money in any one trade. This is a risky move and you should avoid risking too large amount of your account.
It is essential that you have a stop loss order to protect you should the market shift against your trade. This will ensure that you do not suffer hefty losses when you begin trading in a loss. On the other hand, it is of paramount importance that you maximize your gains. When you are trading in profit, you should not exit prematurely.
You can hang on in a profiting position as long you do not over stay in the trade. If you have reached the gain margin that you had set for that trade, you need to exit even if you are still trading in profit. This is because, when you wait, something may happen unexpectedly and the market shifts its trading leading to untimely losses.
The key point to note when you are trading in futures commodity is to ensure that you minimize the percentage of losses and keep them minimal and maximize your profiting positions. At times, traders exit prematurely in a profiting trade fearing that they may lose. However, when they notice that the market is still trading upward, they decide to enter again.
This can be a trap because by the time you enter, traders have already profited. If something wrong happens and the market starts to move against your position, then you incur losses. If you have exited prematurely, you should just wait until another time where you can make a new order position. It is crucial that you trade with the trend and avoid speculating the market price movements.
In addition, traders try to pursue bigger profits not knowing that the bigger the profits you pursue, the large the amount of losses you risk in the trade positions. With a good trading plan, you are able to leverage losses and gains and therefore trade profitably in the long run.
Online dating and escort services are growing day-by-day and perhaps this is a topic that needs to be debated upon so that online dating advantages and disadvantages are critically analysed. The lack of openness in bringing out discussions and issues related to online dating and escort services has been intertwined in a cultural and societal disapproval and lack of recognition of these services. In certain countries and communities people who engage in escort and dating services are regarded as immoral and unfit for the society yet in other parts of the world, this is an acceptable conduct that has even been perceived as a career. The dividing lines and rules on online dating and escort services bring out advantages and disadvantages of these activities.
In addition, the nature of the activities and the perceptions of the society also contribute to the downfalls or success of people indulging on this otherwise secretive career and pleasure business. It is estimates that over 40 million Americans have taken part or tried online dating and this has seen a collective gross amount of $2 billion in the year 2012. So what are the advantages of dating online?
- It provides a large pool of partners from, which you can choose your partners. The growing number of people seeking for romance, sex, and affections online has grown tri-fold and this means that there are a large number of eligible partners to select from.
- Online dating increases the chances of getting people of same social affiliation, likes and dislikes, preferences, common thinking, and also common dating goal. People date for various reasons and while some may date partners for friendship, others are seeking for long term relationships that may be transformed into marriages. Other people are seeking for sexual pleasure, which they do not get from their partners.
- Dating through the internet can provide an income for some people. People taking up escort services do this for money. Strippers on the other hand can be hired on private arrangement to provide nudity teases to their clients. Single moms better known as single mama are dating young men who are in need of economic support in return of love and affection to the lonely women. Similarly, young girls are dating papa or single dads in exchange for money and love.
- Online dating seems to be more confidential since it does not require you to make frequent visits to familiarize each other because this can be done right from the internet. People feel that they have social privacy or security because they are not seen mingling in dating pubs or joints with people twice as old or as young their age.
- Another online dating advantage is that it is cost effective and you do not have to spend a lot of money before you get the right match of your dating.
- Online dating can help you get a long term partner for marriage or satisfy your sexual needs and this lead to psychological wellbeing. It can create pleasure and enjoyment leading to a better mental wellness and life fulfilment. People can relieve stress and other ill feelings by pairing through an online dating site where they discuss issues, make love or simply hang out together for social enjoyment. It does not necessarily have to be a sexual or love affair.
- Online dating can bring together social assimilation where different people from different social backgrounds get to share their values and try to assimilate them.
Having discussed the online dating advantages, there are also the dark side of these activities. Although there are legitimate online dating sites, many of them are out to exploit the desperately looking people who are seeking for companionship. There are many online dating disadvantages ranging from insecurity, exploitation, abuse, sexual molestations, sexual addictions, failed marriages, lack of desire for long term relationship commitment, to social denial. If you are not careful, you may end up is very difficult situation. Below are some of the online dating disadvantages;
- It can lead to harvesting of your confidential information by dating scammers especially if you register with illegitimate website. There are so many websites that offer adult online dating services and some of them are out to steal clients’ information and use it otherwise. Because in some sites you will be required to pay some upfront fees to be matched quickly with a ready partner, it means that you may end up giving your details to the wrong people including your credit card.
- People dating online are likely to give the wrong information or cheat about their age and look. This means that you are likely to find yourself relating with a partner not of the matching type you were looking for.
- You may fall prey of criminals, predators, stalkers, felons and other personalities who are out for ill intentions such as rape, assault, or even murder. You must be very careful if you are dating a person you do not know online. The sweet talks and chats may turn out to be tears of pain and anguish as you are subjected to sexual molestations and even physical aggression with no apparent reason.
- You may be exposed to use of drugs when you meet partners you have interacted online because you do not know their backgrounds. You need to ensure that you screen your partner and avoid first-time give-ins and visits to undisclosed locations. If you are meeting a partner you met online, you should tell your family where and when you will be meeting for security reasons.
- When married couples turn to online dating, this can contribute to the deterioration of a marriage relationship as partners seek for fresh, new, adoring, and pleasurable joys from new partners. This ultimately leads to lack of affection and love within a marriage, something that may culminate to divorce and separation.
- In addition, you may become addicted to online dating, which may be costly for you as you spend money meeting partners either for sexual desire or companionship. Because there is abundance of partners to meet, you are likely to denounce any current relationship and seek for another. The thinking that there is infinite possibility in getting a better partner compels you to keep on searching one after the other.
- It encourages distance relations, which at times do not work because the partners never have the chance or opportunity to meet each other due to geographical barriers that are coupled with financial setbacks. If you cannot physically travel to meet each other and you only date online, it means that there is no physical connection something that may not make the relationship complete.
- Online dating can lead to defamation and damage on your reputation when things turn haywire and you are caught in cameras and exposed to the public domain. Many professionals like lawyers, politicians, company CEOs and others have tainted their reputation after their acts of sexual intimidations are revealed to the public. These behaviours originate from online dating that turns sour.
In essence, the aspect of online dating should be re-examined by individuals and advocacy groups and evaluate how it can affect the quality of life of people and their future relationships. The online dating advantages and disadvantages needs to be plotted out and discussed openly to create awareness on people who intent to engage in this activity. Otherwise, may partners have met online and created very strong relationships while others have been lured to antisocial behaviours such as prostitution.
The Federal is put at task to counter the abusive role of payday lending operators who are running payday lending shops purported to be owned or operated by native American tribes. Stepping into the lending environment where state regulators have failed may not be easy and the federal needs to do more to protect the consumer. Through the consumer Financial Protection Bureau- CFPB, the federal has been lobbying for investigations into the operations of payday lending in tribal lands of America.
Both the CFPB and the Federal Trade Commission believe that some of the increasing payday lending operations are controlled and or owned by non-native American lenders who are abusing their business operations rights to trade under the auspice of native American tribes’ rights of sovereignty. This is a move aimed at shielding themselves from the consumer protection legislation.
The payday loans that carry interest rates as high as 750 percent are available online to native Americans who live on reservations and anyone else in the U.S. Payday loans have been described as predatory lending practices that exploit the already financially crippled consumer. According to State and Federal investors, some of these lending operations swindle customers of their money.
Most of these consumers are already struggling with their bad credit reports and they have been underserved by traditional lending institutions like banks. The payday lenders deceive customers about the costs of the credit facilities and engage in scrupulous and unlawful collection activities.
These lenders have however remained largely out of reach and the federal is pounding on how it could apply the law to trap them. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that tracing these peddlers online is such as daunting tasks. The native American tribal leaders have come up to defend the operations of these lenders saying that the tribes benefit from the positive economic gains realized from the revenues collected through these lending practices.
Some of the economic benefits cited are such as education, medical care, and other basic necessities. The severity immunity of the native American tribes puts legal challenges to the application of consumer laws. The legal concept of severity immunity of native American tribes is complex but when it comes to commercial activities like casino gambling, cigarette sales and payday lending operations, that immunity hinders the legal applications of consumer protection regulation bodies.
Many of the cases put forward against tribal payday loan practices are thrown out of the court on grounds of severity immunity. The issue of payday loan practices in native American lands is quite sensitive. According to the prevailing legal conditions and application of law within the native American tribal lands or reservations, there is a likelihood of protracted litigation over the role and authority of CFPB.
It is unlikely that CFPB will assert any authority in the near future. Until then, it is expected that these lending practices will continue to thrive amidst an ailing consumer group that does not have the privileges to access loans from traditional or other lenders due to their bad credit reports. These are consumers who are in desperate need of cash and they cannot get it from other lenders and the only option they have is to rush for the easily available but highly-charged payday or next paycheck loans. Surprising, the consumer is willing to pay the high interest rates charged on these loans.
Despite the booming payday lending business, the complexities of this market seem to make it impenetrable by lending institutions like banks and credit unions. Payday loans also referred to as predatory loans are designed for a very particular group of consumers. These are consumers ailing with demise of failing to meet their financial obligations. The consumers have categorically been underserved by traditional financial institutions because of bad credit history.
Banks and traditional lending institutions feel that they risk their business by dealing with this group of consumers. However, there are payday lenders who are willing to take the risks and offer financial help to the consumers with bad credit reports and who cannot access loans from credit unions and banking institutions.
In recent years, banks and credit unions seem to be offering some type of short term loans similar to payday loans. A presentation by the National Credit Union Foundation entitled “Real Solutions to Members’ Payday Loan Needs” shows that consumers are saving millions of dollars in fees through credit unions. This breakthrough is achieved by offering payday loans at break even prices.
This is certainly a positive move by the credit unions to offer such a high stake loaning facilities. The big question is; what kind of consumers are benefiting from these loans? Traditional payday lenders deal with a very peculiar consumer who has tainted score and cannot access loans from other institutions. Although credit unions can offer payday loans at cheaper rates, it is most unlikely that they will serve the market.
The number of people with bad credit and who cannot access loans from banks has increased following the aftermath of recession. This means that there is high demand for fast cash that does not require credit check. Credit unions may not be willing to risks their operations by immensity venturing into the payday business.
Operating at breakeven point is purposely meant to help the consumer but unfortunately the demand is too high. Those consumers with very deep financial crisis and need fast cash will end up seeking for payday loans. There is also an argument that encouraging credit unions to provide payday loans means that they are engaging in a manner that is likely to spar disagreements among the financial regulators and consumer protection bodies.
The credit unions are competing directly with traditional payday lending operators by selling short term loan at high prices than they are actually allowed to charge on any other credit products. However, the consumers being served by the credit unions may not necessarily have poor credit score and they may be able to negotiate for other low priced loans.
Credit unions may further limit their payday loan offers to consumer who have verified income, have no delinquent loans, and are not in the course of filing for bankruptcy. This means that there is still a marginalized population that may not be able to access the credit unions payday loans. In essence, the complex nature of the payday loans consumers may not allow credit unions and other institutions to venture extensively in this business. The risks involved are just too high to bear and the regulations cannot allow the credit unions to raise the interest rates beyond certain margins. This means that payday lenders will have less competition and thus the rates may not subside any soon.
Interesting research findings on bad credit payday loans are being witnessed as more studies are being done and one conclusion is that these loans are technically long term credit facilities. The payday loan market has previously lacked any credential research but today we are seeing more studies about this lucrative financial market. The truth is that you may not believe the reality on these payday loans. Critical information points out that these loans are technically long term and therefore, they are not serving the purpose they are intended to serve. Therefore, the big question is; are payday lenders sitting in their cocoons hoping that the market takes its own course? Well! Here is the reality about payday loans;
- Close to one-third of borrowers are taking loans totaling between 11 and 19 in just one year.
- The loans are serving the underprivileged consumer.
- Many of the consumers are already struggling with debt or bad credit.
- The lenders are grooming consumers to become repeat customers.
- Only about 13 percent take one or two payday loans per year; the rest take more than that.
- About 14 percent of payday loan borrowers are taking more than 20 payday loans in 12 months.
- People are using payday loans to meet their regular expenses.
- Many of the consumers have been trapped in a vicious circle.
What the aforementioned information tries to explain is that bad credit payday loans have transformed from short term one-time credit facilities to the order of the day borrowing. People no longer perceive payday loans as emergency credit facilities for the cash strapped consumers. The first borrowing turns out to a series of never-ending loan applications, which put the consumer into a vicious circle.
Payday loans are presented as short term loans were you get the cash now and pay in your next paycheck. But this is not the reality on the ground as what is happening is that many consumers are either rolling over the loans or repaying the current loan and taking a new one. According to a report released by the Consumer Financial Protection bureau- CFPB, it was found that as many as a-third of the borrowers were taking more than 11 loans and not more than 19 loans in one year.
This means that in a period of 12 months, consumers were borrowing between 11 and 19 payday loans. In the same report, it was also revealed that about 14 percent of borrowers were taking about 20 or more payday credit facilities within 12 months. This clearly demonstrates that these loans are not short term but they have been transformed to long-term credit facilities.
Since the lenders are on business mission, they encourage their clients to roll over or take new loans after repaying their present ones. This makes the whole structure of payday loans like wonga loans ideally unrealistic. Another surprising finding is that the average borrower is a consumer who is already struggling with finances. For one, the consumers who seek for payday loans are those who are turned back by banks because of their bad credit.
Therefore, the bad credit payday loans are helping the cash-strapped consumers and therefore, the borrowers are willing to pay the price. According to the CFPB report on payday lending, it was established that only about 4 percent of borrowers had an income of more than $60,000 in one year. A vast majority of the borrowers were surviving with annual incomes of less than $30,000.
If such a consumer who is financially tied is subjected to high interest rates and rollover of payday loans, the repercussions are daunting. Consumers are actually suffering in silence and something needs to be done. Apparently these consumers do not realize that there are other options they can take to prevent relying on these loans.
First, they can use bad credit credit cards, which could allow them take small loans against the cards to solve their emergency cash needs. There are also other options like peer to peer lending and bank cash advances. The problem with peer to peer lending and bank cash advances is that they may not be available to consumers with bad credit. There has been a debate on whether banks and credit unions can bridge the gap within the payday lending practice.
The payday lending market is just too risky for these depository institutions or entities and the regulations governing them do not allow them to impose very high interest rates. In the same CFPB report, it was established that the largest group of borrowers were making less than $ 20,000 in a year. This is a financially crippled borrower who is been subjected to risky loans in the name of bad credit payday loans, which attract very high interest rates, loan rollovers, and a vicious circle of borrowing.
