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The Price They Advertise is Not the Price You Pay

  Enough is enough. Isn’t it time that cell and cable companies stopped advertising seemingly low monthly prices for their service, while tacking on a multitude of junk fees, undisclosed charges, and taxes that significantly boost your bill?

Recently the Huffington Post did an exposé, using Verizon FiOS’ new pick your own channel bundle for $74.99 as an example. When you added all the other charges, you actually had to pay over 60% more than the advertised price.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Huffington Post
Click to Enlarge

There were equipment/HD fees, FDV administrative fee, broadcast TV fee, regional sports fee, franchise fee, USF fee, federal/state/local taxes, etc. There could also be installation fees, activation fees, and early termination fees depending on the offer.

Verizon is certainly not alone in tacking on all these fees. Comcast and Time Warner are equal opportunity offenders, as are the wireless cell companies.

Is it any wonder that these types of companies rate low in customer satisfaction surveys and on trust indices?

Maybe there needs to be a requirement, like airfares, that a single all-inclusive price must be the amount advertised, and not these bait and switch prices.

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Get Rewards with Plenti (of Strings Attached)

  A new unified rewards program named Plenti was recently introduced by a number of retailers. The concept is simple, and actually kind of smart on the face of it: instead of separate loyalty programs, these stores use the same card to allow shoppers to earn points that get deposited into a single account. Then, the points can be redeemed at participating members’ stores for discounts.



But wait, there was some almost illegible fine print on the screen for a mere three seconds.

*MOUSE PRINT:

“You cannot use points with all participating partners or at all locations.”

Huh? Isn’t that the point of the program to earn points at member stores and then be able to redeem there?

For example, here is AT&T’s Plenti ad.

*MOUSE PRINT:

AT&T Plenti

In case you can’t read that, it says that you can’t currently use points at AT&T.

*MOUSE PRINT:

In fact, according to the Plenti site, you can only redeem Plenti points at Macy’s, Rite Aid and participating Exxon and Mobil stations.

So, if you like to collect points just for the sake of collecting them because you don’t shop at the above retailers, knock yourself out at AT&T, Nationwide Insurance, Direct Energy, Enterprise, National, Alamo, and Hulu.

And as with any discounts, there are “plenti” of other earning and redeeming exclusions.

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Elaborate Fake Schools Lure Students, Fool Employers

  Last week, the New York Times featured an extraordinary in-depth investigative piece about a company in Pakistan that has allegedly created over 100 fake high school and university websites (see list) that hand out fake degrees.

Diploma mills are nothing new, but these websites are slickly produced with great graphics, and have detailed information at every link.

Branton
Click above

Many of these schools are adorned with logos from known and unknown accreditation organizations, student testimonials, and even links to reports about the schools on CNN.

Example 1:

This CNN iReport touts the success of Brooklyn Park University:

CNN
Click above

*MOUSE PRINT:

That report really is at CNN.com — no tricks. How did it get there? The entire iReport section is a place for average citizens to upload news stories that they witnessed. CNN has a small disclaimer on each story that it has not been verified by the network.

Example 2:

And then there are student testimonials on some of the college sites like this one:

testimonial 1

*MOUSE PRINT:

What’s this kid, maybe 19 years old? That means, according to his testimonial, that he started working as a supervisor at the age of 12. And it seems he not only got a bachelor’s degree from Woodrow University (above), but he liked the experience so much that he got another bachelor’s degree from Johnstown University — all by about the age of 19.

degree 2

In fact, this guy is a male model and his pictures are for sale on Shutterstock.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Shuttterstock model

Example 3:

And the pay for professors must be pretty low because this teacher of business management coincidentally also moonlights as a model.

*MOUSE PRINT:

"professor"

Scam schools attract two types of students: those trying to pull one over on others by getting a bogus degree, and those who think they are applying to a genuine school to get an online education. Both may pay thousands of dollars for something that is ultimately worthless.

And then there’s another potential victim — all of us — who may come in contact with one of these people who was hired unwittingly by an employer who took their resume at face value without further checking.

The company denied the charges in the NYT story. Nonetheless, Pakistan’s equivalent of the FBI raided the company’s offices, seized computers and arrested 45 employees the day after the story was published. And CNN has removed iReport stories about (only some of) these schools from its website.

May 27th update: The president of the company behind these schools was just arrested in Pakistan.

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