How I Got Scammed By a Seller On Alibaba

By MoneyBlueBook

I debated about whether I should share this story, but at the end I decided that my experience might help prevent someone from falling into the same scam as I did. At the time I was young, inexperienced and financially naive. Since then, I've learned and improved based on my past failures and eventually went on to run a small but profitable home business by making money online with ebay, at least for a modest period of time.

It All Started With Too Much Greed

Shortly after college I decided I wanted to start a part time side business selling merchandise on eBay. But first I needed to find a wholesale supplier. After some research I decided I wanted to focus on consumer electronics such as GPS navigation devices and Apple iPods, and concluded my best bet at finding a supplier would be through a free network site like Alibaba, that helps connect sellers with buyers of goods. Little did I know at the time, but sites like Alibaba are crawling with scammers and evil doers.

I ultimately decided to focus on selling Garmin and Tom Tom branded GPS units. After a few searches, I was amazed to find numerous sellers offering brand new Garmin GPS units for very little money. The Garmin GPS model I was interested in buying in bulk retailed for more than $1200 on eBay at the time. The sellers I found on Alibaba were offering each unit for only $700 each. The asking prices were exceedingly low,

By MoneyBlueBook

Updated List Of The Best Restaurant Credit Card Offers For Eating And Dining Out

I wish I could be like a green garden plant and photosynthesize my food instead of having to buy it. I spend so much money eating out it's sad. I eat lunch at work and usually spend up to $8 for a sandwich. Dinner usually involves whatever I pick up on the way home and it's frequently $10 or more. Food in downtown Washington D.C. where I work can definitely get very expensive.

Luckily there are certain credit cards I can use to soften the financial blow by getting cash back or reward points for eating out. Most reward cards only give a measly 1% cash back, and many of the ones that offer a higher percentage back only offer it for purchases at fast food/takeout places. But there are a select few reward cards that offer a very impressive 3%-5% back for all restaurants, including fast food and even coffee shops! If you're a student who eats out often, a young professional who dines out most of the time, or even a family minded foodie who enjoys fancy restaurants, you might benefit from having a utility credit card in your pocket that will allow you to earn rebate rewards and cash back discounts for such meal expenses.

Here is one of the more popular cashback rewards credit cards for eating and dining out:

TrueEarnings Card from Costco and American Express - This card is brought to you by Costco and is meant for Costco warehouse club members. This card offers...

By MoneyBlueBook

I think the Comcastturtle mascots would love the speed of my website. The Slowsky's like things "slow and easy" - a perfect description of my site right now.

I apologize for the sluggishness in page load time and the occasional appearance of site error messages for the last few days. I just migrated my web hosting to Dreamhost. I thought this would solve the uptime and speed issues I had with Hostmonster, but it looks like I'm having the same problems with Dreamhost as well. It has been a pretty frustrating week to say the least. :(

Dreamhost doesn't offer live chat or telephone troubleshooting so sometimes I have to wait a few hours to a day before they respond to my e-mail support requests. The tech guys at Dreamhost continue to be very professional and courteous, and that's why I've been giving them the benefit of the doubt. But at some point, they have to be able to deliver and fix the problem permanently. I really hope they repair the malfunction soon. The company is very likable, but I can only tolerate so much.

Separating Truth From Fiction

Are there any affordable web hosting services out there with truly reliable service? They all seem to guarantee 99% uptime, but always fail to deliver. It's so hard to get a genuine, unbiased opinion about which company offers the best service. I suspect many webhosting companies pay people to visit websites and forums anonymously to say favorable things about their company, while badmouthing the competition.

By MoneyBlueBook

I was a late comer to the cell phone scene, but once I got the cell phone I ditched the traditional land line. Today, I only use cell phones and my high speed internet service. Who wants to pay for an extra land line?

I have not owned a traditional land line phone since I started using a cell phone more than half a decade ago. Frankly I just don't see the need to have an extra line that can only be used at home. I know advocates of land line service point out that wireless phones can be unreliable and that for emergencies it is best to have a land line, but in my opinion, my most potentially critical emergencies aren't likely to occur at home. My crucial times of need will likely occur on the road or somewhere far away from traditional phone lines when I may need to summon help from afar. At that time, only my trusty cell phone will do the job and my clunky land line sitting at home won't do me any good.

I'm Not Alone And I'm Part of A Trend

Apparently, I am part of a growing movement towards cell phone only households. According to a recent study by Mediamark research, a firm that has been tracking such data since the mid 1980s, the firm found for the first time that cell-phone only households were starting to outnumber land line-only homes. More than a quarter of young adults have only cell phones, making them the leading

By MoneyBlueBook

I've been having the worst server reliability issues with my current host provider, HostMonster. After several months of complaining and pleading with them to fix the problem permanently, I have given up. In the next few weeks I will slowly be transferring my websites to DreamHost. I'll write a more in-depth rant of my HostMonster experience sometime later in the future. I've been swamped with work these days so I'm a bit pressed for time right now. Suffice to say, I'm disappointed in the way HostMonster makes continued excuses for their persistent server downtime and their lack of proper and prompt customer attention. When I indicated to them that I was contemplating changing host providers, rather than try to convince me to stay or offer me a retention deal, they simply asked for my credit card number so they could cancel my account. Boooo! Two thumbs down! :(

DreamHostis currently running a great promotion. I don't get any referral for this, but I must share it because it's such a great limited time deal. If you sign up with them today and prepay for a year or more of service using the promo code 10ten10diez10dix10dieci10shi (yes, that entire crazy long thing), they will give you a discount of off your bill! Only the first 1010 customers can qualify so you might want to get on board while you can.

By MoneyBlueBook

The newest trend among expecting parents is to choose a name for their kid that hasn't yet been registered as a domain. Parents today want to give their children a head start by jump starting their future digital identity as early as possible. These days with prices of domain registration falling to only $9 a year, it is very easy to run a quick domain availability search and reserve it before someone else does. Some older parents might not see the wisdom of having your own custom domain, but I assure you, your future tech savvy children will thank you for having the foresight.

Celebrities Think Ahead

Just look at actress Angelina Jolie. When she and Brad Pitt had their baby daughter Shiloh Nouvel last year, Angelina immediately reserved over 24 variations of her daughter's name. Internet registration files show the web addresses "shilohjolie," "shilohpitt," "shilohjoliepitt," "shilohnouveljolie," "shilohnouvelpitt" and "shilohnouveljoliepitt" - with the extensions ".com," ".org," ".net" and ".info" - were all reserved as of May 27, 2006 the baby's birthday.

Domains I Would Have Wanted Have Already Been Taken

I wish the internet was around during my parent's time, but then again, I doubt they would have had the technological foresight to reserve my name. Unfortunately, my full name, and its myriad of combinations have all already been taken by others. This is also true for popular e-mail services such as Yahoo Mail and Gmail. Simple and common names just as mine have already been taken. The only choice left is my name followed by