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Christmas Present Tips for Guys

Christmas Shopping Tips for Guys

giftgreen1Most of us guys are useless at Christmas shopping. Here's a few tips I've picked up over the years.

Ladies, you might want to share this with the men in your family to avoid getting an undesirable and badly wrapped present this Christmas.

  1. Buying your Christmas presents at a petrol station or dairy on Christmas morning really isn't the done thing - apparently not everyone wants a funnel, box of biscuits or a car care kit. Don't do it.
  2. Get started early, no not on Christmas Eve, yesterday was already too late.
  3. First thing in the morning is the best time to Christmas shop, and I mean first thing, teenagers are still in bed.
  4. It's not the thought that counts, it's how MUCH thought that counts.
  5. Cash is a GREAT present for teenagers - and me.
  6. If you must give gift vouchers make sure they are from a shop the recipient actually shops in and try and avoid those with an expiry date.
  7. Wrapping and cards are important, you and I know it's just paper but for some reason they are important.
  8. Before you start browsing in a shop check that it does gift wrapping and accept the service - wait if necessary. If the shop doesn't do gift wrapping move on to the next. Unless you are an expert present wrapper - Yeah Right!
  9. Even if every present you buy is gift wrapped, buy plenty of wrapping paper and sellotape. You are going to need it because dairy's and petrol stations don't gift wrap and being a bloke you'll probably ignore number 1.

Guys ignore the above at your peril and have a wonderful Christmas.

Posted in Research.

Banking and Phishing Scams

Beware of Requests for Personal Information

Bad GuyWe recently received a fax purporting to come from the Internal Revenue Service (the USA's tax department) requesting that we complete "Form W-8BEN" and fax it back, in order to protect our exempt tax status.

We used to have many clients with investments in the US for whom we were the contact address for investment matters and we certainly don't want any of them to lose a tax exempt status so initially we took this request very seriously.

It was only when we looked closely that we started to think, "this looks odd". There were no contact details on the front page, it wasn't personally addressed and so we had no way of knowing who they were requesting information for and it had arrived by fax and the return fax number was an Australian number.

Further investigation revealed that it was a "Phishing Scam", they were trying to get personal information preumably to be used for nefarious purposes. A lot of personal information was requested, not only name and address, but also date of birth, bank account details and a copy of passport. Armed with this and the rest of the information requested it would be very easy for a "bad guy" to pretend to be the person concerned.

What's phishing?

Phishing - also called 'carding' or 'brand spoofing' - is fishing by some method (like down the phone line or by email) trying to get your bank account numbers, passwords and credit card numbers.

If anyone is requesting your personal information make sure you check that the request is bona fide and that they are who they say they are. If you're not sure check online, try typing details of the request into Google search http://www.google.com, usually it comes up with innumerable sites informing you about the scam. If you don't find anything there and still aren't sure, ring the organisations head office. Don't just ring the number in the email or fax or letter, if it is a scam of course they'll put a bogus number and tell you that all is well if you ring it.

The Ministry of Commercial Affairs website http://www.consumeraffairs.govt.nz/scams/scam-types/banking-and-phishing-scams has more information to help you protect yourself.

Investments, Research, Scam

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