Visa and MasterCard Scam

Just a heads up for everyone regarding the latest in Visa fraud. Royal Bank
received this communication about the newest scam. This is happening in
southern Alberta right now and moving.

This one is pretty slick since they provide YOU with all the information,
except the one piece they want..

Note, the callers do not ask for your card number; they already have it.

This information is worth reading. By understanding how the VISA &
MasterCard telephone Credit Card Scam works, you'll be better prepared to
protect yourself. One of our employees was called on Wednesday from 'VISA',
and I was called on Thursday from 'MasterCard'.

The scam works like this:

Person calling says - 'This is (name), and I'm calling from the Security and
Fraud Department at VISA. My Badge number is 12460, Your card has been
flagged for an unusual purchase pattern, and I'm calling to verify. This
would be on your VISA card which was issued by (name of bank). Did you
purchase an Anti-Telemarketing Device for $497.99 from a marketing company
based in Arizona ?' When you say 'No', the caller continues with, 'Then we
will be issuing a credit to your account. This is a company we have been
watching and the charges range from $297 to $497, just under the $500
purchase pattern that flags most cards. Before your next statement, the
credit will be sent to (gives you your address), is that correct?' You say
'yes'.

The caller continues - 'I will be starting a Fraud Investigation. If you
have any questions, you should call the 1- 800 number listed on the back of
your card (1-800-VISA) and ask for Security. You will need to refer to this
Control Number. The caller then gives you a 6 digit number. 'Do you need me
to read it again?'

Here's the IMPORTANT part on how the scam works - The caller then says, 'I
need to verify you are in possession of your card'. He'll ask you to 'turn
your card over and look for some numbers'. There are 7 numbers; the first 4
are part of your card number, the last 3 are the Security Numbers that
verify you are the possessor of the card. These are the numbers you
sometimes use to make Internet purchases to prove you have the card. The
caller will ask you to read the last 3 numbers to him. After you tell the
caller the 3 numbers, he'll say, 'That is correct, I just needed to verify
that the card has not been lost or stolen, and that you still have your
card. Do you have any other questions?'

After you say no, the caller then thanks you and states, 'Don't hesitate to
call back if you do', and hangs up. You actually say very little, and they
never ask for or tell you the card number. But after we were called on
Wednesday, we called back. Within 20 minutes to ask a question. Are we were
glad we did! The REAL VISA Security Department told us it was a scam and in
the last 15 minutes a new purchase of $497.99 was charged to our card. We
made a real fraud report and closed the VISA account. VISA is reissuing us a
new number. What the scammers want is the 3-digit PIN number on the back of
the card. Don't give it to them. Instead, tell them you'll call VISA or
Master Card directly for verification of their conversation..

The real VISA told us that they will never ask for anything on the card as
they already know the information since they issued the card! If you give
the scammers your 3 Digit PIN Number, you think you're receiving a credit;
however, by the time you get your statement you'll see charges for purchases
you didn't make, and by then it's almost too late and/or more difficult to
actually file a fraud report.

What makes this more remarkable is that on Thursday, I got a call from a
'Jason Richardson of MasterCard' with a word-for-word repeat of the VISA
Scam. This time I didn't let him finish. I hung up! We filed a police
report, as instructed by VISA. The police said they are taking several of
these reports daily! They also urged us to tell everybody we know that this
scam is happening. I dealt with a similar situation this morning, with the
caller telling me that $3,097 had been charged to my account for plane
tickets to Spain , and so on through the above routine.

It appears that this Is a very active scam, and evidently quite successful.

How To Make Yourself Filthy Rich

"Only by giving are you able to receive more than you already have." 


Jim Rohn

Friends,

As some of you know, my wife is the special events manager for the non-profit organization Olive Crest. Children that are victims of abuse and/or neglect by the hand of their parent(s) are taken from their homes and put into a state foster care system that often times continues the abuse by the hand of "bureaucracy". Children that have learned they have no value are commoditized by that system as they are passed from one foster family to another. Children that have learned they can trust no one are placed into a system that often fails itself. Some of the state’s 10,000 foster children have seen 14 different homes. These children (children!) who come already wounded only become more wounded, more hardened, more distrusting and more “unlovable”. And the most unlovable of these kids that the state is most ill-equipped and unable to care for come to Olive Crest. Olive Crest believes that “family” is the best antidote for the poisonous effects of abuse; “family” is the healing agent for these deep, previously untouchable wounds; “family” says ‘I understand your anger but here you can trust, here you can let go, here you can surrender to a love like you’ve never experienced and so desperately desire. Here you can breathe, whether it’s for a day or the rest of your life, Olive Crest can be your family’.

Olive Crest offers counseling and education services, emergency sheltering, foster care support and adoption/permanent placement. I invite you to learn more at www.olivecrest.org.

These economically challenging times can be financially debilitating for families. As many of you have experienced firsthand, coming up with the resources to make ends meet causes a lot of stress on the familial system. Such is the case with Olive Crest. The money from the state has been cut 40%. Donations from corporations, foundations and donors have decreased. Sponsorships for Olive Crest events are harder to come by. Yet children are being fed into the system in increasing numbers and the needs of the children and the families continue to exist. Hence, the question and challenge for you…

How can you help Olive Crest?

On March 6^th, Olive Crest will hold their annual gala auction. But items to be auctioned are in small supply. So here is my request: Do you own a business or have contacts/friends that own a business that can donate a service or item that could be sold to benefit this cause? Do you own a vacation home in a place that would cause a paddle-raising frenzy and earn Olive Crest a donor’s big check?

Or maybe you’d like to make a financial gift? Again, how can you help Olive Crest?

If have an item or service please let Toni know. She can be contacted at toni-young@olivecrest.org. You can title your email “Get Tim off my back” so it’s not dismissed as junk.

Your prayers for the organization and the families and kids would be greatly appreciated. My hope would be that in giving you would experience the richest of blessings.

Sincerely,

Tim

Poop and sacrifice

Not trying to be cavalier with my titling conventions; There is, really!!! a connection between these two disparate topics. Give me a few moments to explain and it might make sense.

First, one of the family dogs was experiencing some digestive issues that resulted in a rather, shall we say, ‘soupy’ version of what we’ve come to expect from our trips to the gravel dumping area. The whole matter was complicated by the fact that Teddy is a Maltese Che Zhu with a long haired tail. I guess I don’t need to go into any more graphic detail. Any one with children remembers and knows the noxious duty of cleaning up those that can’t clean themselves. In my book it is a supreme act of sacrifice. And depending on your brain’s ability to desensitize the olfactory the ‘sacrifice’ may stay with you longer than you’d wish…

And secondly, last Sunday the pastor of the church that Toni and I have been attending introduced a new series based on the book of Luke. This series at Mars Hill (marshillchurch.org) will last approximately three years as he goes through the book line-by-line. Pastor Mark Driscoll is supplementing his teaching in this series with video footage which was shot during a recent trip to Greece, Turkey and Israel. It has all the makings to be a great series. You can go to the church website and follow this teaching either by podcast or vodcast.

As Driscoll wrapped up his introduction he reiterated a question that was asked of him upon his return from the middle east: “Did you learn anything new?” His Jewish tour guide offered him some powerful insight and he shared that with us on Sunday. I will do my best to paraphrase this.

One of the many photos that were taken showed two of Mark Driscoll’s children sitting on a stone ‘bench’ with holes cut into the top and front edges of it. It was long bench and had a dozen of these openings. This was the communal lavatory of the time. No walls, no doors, no place for secret liaisons by Senators from Idaho. And consequently, no toilet paper, so there was a trough right in front of the ‘seat’ where one could scoop the running water there to cleanse oneself.

Bear with me. I’m getting to my point.

One of the means that the poor had to earn money was to stand in front of those (how do I say…) “doing their duty” was to offer to cleanse the (augh!) ‘privates’ of their customers. This was done with a sponge stuck to the end of a stick which was inserted into the hole as the patron was seated. Obviously there was an issue with using and reusing this sponge so these business people had to do their best to sterilize the sponge. A vinegar mixture was used…

“Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land  until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, "This man is calling Elijah." And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. But the others said, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him." 50And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and  yielded up his spirit.” Matthew 27:45-48 (ESV)

“And at the ninth hour Jesus  cried with a loud voice,  "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And some of the bystanders hearing it said, "Behold, he is calling Elijah." And someone ran and filled a sponge with  sour wine, put it on a reed  and gave it to him to drink, saying, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down." And Jesus uttered a loud cry and  breathed his last.”  Mark 15:34-37 (ESV)

“After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), "I thirst." A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, "It is finished," and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” John 19: 28-30 (ESV)

“They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.” Psalm 69:21 (ESV)

And HERE was Driscoll’s point: That between Jesus stating “Father, forgive them” and “it is finished”, a shitty sponge was shoved into the mouth of our Savior. After offering his own body as a sacrifice for us all, his tongue was left with the taste and his nose was filled with the stench of our uncleanliness.

Cleaning up my dog’s butt and having that smell waft into my nostrils was bad enough. But the power of Driscoll’s sermon was dialed up just a touch more when I thought of this new insight and detail of one more thing that Jesus endured to “clean me up”.

What an (even more) amazing grace! I am so thankful for his kindness, mercy, patience and forbearance on my behalf.

To listen to last week’s sermon, go to http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/luke/eyewitness-to-jesus

 

Peace

The fool and the fire

The fool folds his hands and ruins himself. Ecclesiastes 4:5

Toni and I got home from work to find the chicken roasting in the oven and Matt whirling away on the exercise bike. Brooke had prepared the chicken and was roasting it at the 475 degrees per Toni’s instructions. We realized, at the sight of the overly browned chicken that the oven should’ve been set to 450. Not a big deal. Matt, trying to get in shape for the fall lacrosse season, decided he is going to take a shower before dinner and goes into the kids’ bathroom and turns on the heater/fan. The kid apparently likes to sweat MORE after taking a shower because he always uses the heater in the overhead fan unit. After a hot shower I need to cool down or I sweat for the next hour, ruining the reason for taking a shower in the first place. Not Matt. Give him more heat!

All the commotion of getting home, getting dinner ready, kids going about there stuff, trying to get everyone to the table is compounded with our weird-acting dog, Teddy: pacing about, needing to be held and constantly being under foot. Annoy-ing! But we finally get seated at the table when our fire alarm starts beeping. I get up and turn the alarm off and go back to the table wondering why the alarm sounded. I’ve set the smoke detector off with my cooking. I’m Julia Child with a fire helmet but there wasn’t any smoke when I took the chicken out of the oven. And the alarm went off again. I got up to turn off the alarm again, started to go back to the table when it went off again. I was more than a little annoyed because 1) I’m not eating dinner 2) I can acknowledge that I occasionally burn stuff in the oven and then have to deal with the smoke and the jokes about burning down the house and putting the family in harm’s way but 3) there was NO smoke with the chicken, so why am I being put-out by the alarm? As I go back to turn off the alarm, I tell those sitting at the table to check out the back half of the house to make sure it’s not on fire. Logical thinking, but understand: the way I said this was to mock the alarm. It’s like, when you’re sitting someplace and a little kid squirts you in the face with a squirt gun. The first time is OK, might be kind's cute; then he does it again and you shoot him the sneer. Then he does it again and you’re really annoyed and want to pinch his head off. Then you realize that if you just acknowledge him, say “OK, you got me” and fall over dead, he will have what he wants and will leave you alone! “OK, you got me, would someone go to the back half of the house and make sure it’s not burning down, you got me! I got dinner to eat!” So imagine that feeling at that moment when you hear the commotion and see the smoke out the playroom window! Dinner’s going to have to wait.

We remodeled the kids’ bathroom ten years ago. One of the fixtures that survived the demo was this multi-switched fan unit that had a light, heater, fan and combination of all three things that could work separately or together. We liked it because it had this cool, retro-Jetson’s look to it. Our house was built in 1956 and this fan was probably original equipment of that era. Then again, maybe not, because when we remodeled the rest of the house and redid the master bath, we found the same fan design at Seattle Lighting and installed this ‘new’ fan in the new bathroom.

Toni left the dinner table and opened the bathroom door and the room was filled with smoke and the heater unit was on. What had happened was the fan unit had burned out and the heater element was left to just cook away. The Brinks Security person on the other end of the phone with Toni; I got a ladder to look up into our crawl space above the bathroom to make sure there wasn’t a fire there (miracle one: we've got one place to access the crawl space in our low-pitched roofed home, in that bathroom); and the fire trucks had found their way to our lane and our house (miracle #2 because we live on a lane in which the houses are not in whatever system the fire department has. I’ve watched fire and medical units go around the other block and down other lanes trying to find where it is they need to go, so when the trucks pull up this is no small deal). There was no fire, just a lot of smoke. But it was close to being something worse.

When the fire guys came to the back of our house I was removing the fan unit from the ceiling (note: we have a door from that bathroom that goes out to the backyard, put in by the previous owner so they could go from the bathroom to the backyard hot tub and return, presumably to a really warm bathroom heated by the fan/heater/retro-Jetson multi-switched fan-heater unit). One of the guys had in his hand a device that looks like something a grocery store stock boy uses to take inventory but was actually a device used to find bodies in smoke-filled rooms with little or no visibility. He had no trouble finding me, taking down the fan unit. But he pointed this heat reading gun at the element in the fan and it was 300 degrees. I was simultaneously awed by the cool gun device he had and the fact that this thing was as hot as it was, and at the gravity of how close we were/could’ve been to a real fire. We smelled no smoke. Only the incessant beeping of this annoying alarm. And my dinner was getting cold (The fool folds his hands and ruins himself). 

The smoke cleared to reveal something more than a faulty fan.

Smoke detectors, nervous, skittish dog, the fire department and cold chicken. Thankful.

ObamaCare and BodyLanguage

I got this email from a friend and thought I'd share:

I am stunned that the official White House Blog published this picture and that it is in the public domain. The body language is most revealing.

 

Sergeant Crowley, the sole class act in this trio, helps the handicapped  Professor Gates down the stairs, while Barack Obama, heedless of the infirmities of his friend and fellow victim of self-defined racial profiling, strides ahead on his own. So who is compassionate? And who is so self-involved and arrogant that he is oblivious?

 

In my own dealings with the wealthy and powerful, I have always found that the way to quickly capture the moral essence of a person is to watch how they treat those who are less powerful. Do they understand that the others are also human beings with feelings? Especially when they think nobody is looking.

Update from another person:

I think this photo constitutes another major Obama blunder.

 

As some AT commentators point out, this picture becomes a metaphor for ObamaCare. The elderly are left in the back, with only the kindness of the Crowleys of the world, the stand up guys, to depend on. The government has other priorities.

 

One of the major subtexts of the health care debate involves the public's fear of indifferent, powerful bureaucrats ruling their lives. It is one thing to wait in line at the DMV to find out which other line you should wait in, in order to begin the process of waiting for multiple bureaucrats to go through the motions of processing your request. I have spent entire afternoons going through this process.

 

But when we get to health care, waiting often means enduring pain and dysfunction longer than necessary, sometimes a worsening of the condition, and sometimes death.

 

That's why I think this image will have genuine resonance. It captures something that older Americans in particular can relate to. The President presses ahead with a program that will tell them to take painkillers instead of getting that artificial hip.

 

At every stage of the entire Gates affair, Obama has provided a revealing tell. The "acted stupidly" blunder revealed that he automatically blames the police and thinks they really are stupid to begin with. It didn't trigger a single alarm bell in his mind as he figured out what to say.

 

Then, the non-apology apology revealed an arrogant man who cannot do what honest people do: admit it when they make a mistake.

 

Now at stage three, the beer photo op looked OK. It didn't turn into a disaster.

 

But then in a small moment that nobody in the White House had the brains to understand, Obama goes and send a body language message like this.

I think he is going to get deeper and deeper into trouble. He is no longer repeating the familiar scripts dreamed up for the campaign. He was a master performer.

 

But when he goes improv, as a president must do, he lets his true character show. This helps widen the level of doubt that Obama is the same guy a majority voted for.  Those doubts can only grow.

 

Andrew McCarthy has assembled an overwhelming case that Obama has lied about who he is. I predict that more and more Americans will become open to the argument that they have been had by a sophisticated and ruthless effort to foist a phony on America.

The Gospel of Obama?

I was going to entitle this something like "Obama is Jesus?" or "The Reformissional Obama Christ"; just something to enflame you to want to read by blah, blah below:

With all the clatter that has erupted over Obama’s healthcare proposal, I’d like to interject a thought into the subject/anger generated over the proposal of offering healthcare to illegal immigrants: How much of our judgment is based on the word “illegal”, and, how would we see the issue differently if we substituted for illegal the words “the widows, the orphans, the oppressed.” I think we react to the term “illegal” because it connotes that something is being taken from us that is OURS. If we are so self-righteous about protecting our stuff, we hardly have to look to the 'thieves' that cross our borders. We should be protesting the thieves in congress; we should be angry that 90% of the farm subsidies in this country don’t go to farmers who are trying to earn a living for their families but to millionaire democrats on Long Island who have figured out how to work the system for their benefit at the expense of those who it was entitled for. That one is just one example! What if we thought of the “illegals” as those who come here to escape the poverty and oppression of their own country in an effort to just put food on the tables for their families? When we want a better life for ourselves we go across the street to get a different/higher paying  job. The illegals have to go across the border to simply find work. And much of the work that is done is the work that we so self-righteously and arrogantly won’t “stoop down” to do. I admit that when I have a yard that needs cleaning up I’d much rather pay Mr. Lopez to do it, not because I have an attitude to help those ‘less fortunate’ (and how bigoted is that thought) but simply because I don’t want to do it. It’s not about charity; it’s about my own laziness! What if we saw the illegals as honest, hardworking peoples that are simply trying to put food on the table and carve out some semblance of a better life like the rest of us (roughly the same amount of State deficit in California goes across the border in Mexico by those that work here illegally, i.e. those trying to provide for families back home. That might be a naive assumption). What if we saw this issue as not what is wrong with the illegals, but what is wrong with us? Why are we so protective of our stuff (“I need that extra $50 I spend in taxes to pay for my storage unit because my house doesn’t hold all my junk!”). Why the storehouses? Who ‘owns’ our stuff? Why so tight-fisted? Maybe the illegals come here because we refuse to leave our comforts and go there. I don’t have a mission trip to Nicaragua on my calendar.

This isn’t to say that there can’t/shouldn’t be legal means to have our neighbors enter this country, but aren’t we, at some point, left with the same problem? Millions of legal ‘illegals’ taking what is ‘ours’, taking away what is rightfully mine, taking away from what I want to provide for my family? Would we really feel better about the situation then or does it merely provide a distraction while we think of ways to add to our stuff and build a fortress to protect it (You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?)

I know the issue is more complex than this. But rather than focus on the terminology created by politicians and radio hosts what if we looked into the heart of Jesus to see what he wants for all his children, those with nothing and those with storehouses.

This isn’t to suggest that Healthcare Reform is The Good News/Gospel, or that Obama’s intentions are something missional.

Just a few thoughts…

Happy New Year

Hoping that everyone has a safe and happy new year celebration and that your new year is the best ever!