Grand Parents Wire Transfer Scam

 Thousands of people have been scammed out of millions of dollars with the Grand Parent Scam.  A scam artists calls and alleges that your grand children are in trouble and urgently need money wired to get them out of trouble, jail and other non sense.  Their sense of urgency and convincing dialogue drives people to action and to quickly wire money.  Once the money is wired, it's gone.  Western Union actually got in trouble over this and hand to pay $568 million to settle the case.

Don't transfer funds through wire transfer.

Try calling your grandkids and or kids first to try and get a hold of them.

Remember it's probably not true and why didn't they call their parents?

Avoid Western Union and Other Money Transfers

Beware of Cable TV Companies Drip Pricing

Quick tips to help you save money.

Do you remember when you signed up for cable, they were charging you $80 per month and now you’re paying over $200.  What happened?  Cable companies love to sell you package add-ons.  They’ll tack on a regional sports package for $10, movie package for $20, HD or 4K package for $10, rent you a set top box for $12, on and on.  Take a step back and figure out what you really need and delete the add-ons.  You should also call you cable company every year and try and renegotiate your charges.  If all else fails move to a new cable provider every year and get back to that $80 base rate.

Watch out for Drip Pricing

Reference: 20220802C

Watch out for Drip Pricing

Quick tips to help you save money.

Drip pricing is a marketing technique used in many industries to get you to pay a higher price than the original advertised price.  For example maybe you booked a hotel reservation online and when you show up they tack on a $50 resort fee.  Or maybe you are being an appliance or new tool and the reseller wants you to add on a warranty.  The idea is to lure consumers in with a good advertised price and then tack on charges after the fact.  Make sure that on all your purchases, whether online or in a store, that you go back and check competitive prices with all the options and features added.  

Push back on hidden fees, if you complain about it you may get some of the money back.

You can often find drip pricing in:

New Car Purchases

Retail and Online Stores

Beware of Cable TV Companies Drip Pricing

Cellphones

Internet Service

Travel

Investing

Related:  20220802D - Avoid Drip Pricing Cellphone Data Plans, 20220802E - Watch Your Internet Service Fees for Drip Pricing, 20220802F - Don’t Be Pressured by Rental Car Drip Pricing, 20220802G - Drip Fees on Your Investment Accounts, 20220802H - Extra Drip Fees Added in Your Shopping Cart, 20220802J - Read the Fine Print for Drip Fee Service Charges

Reference: 20220802B

Use Siri to Make a Calendar Appointment on your iPhone

If you haven't tried this it works pretty well.  Invoke Siri on your iPhone.  You can use the home button, or say "Hey Siri" or whatever method you might use to start Siri.  Then just say "Make Eye Doctor Appointment for 10 AM on August 3rd". Siri will make the appointment and add it to your calendar.  

In the example below, that's exactly what I did to have Siri create this appointment for my Eye Doctor.  I said "Hey Siri, schedule my eye doctor appointment with Dr. Wilson at 10 AM on Aug 3rd" and Siri scheduled this appointment.

If you’re Grocery Shopping Online - Say No to Automatic Substitutions

Quick tips to help you save money.

Many of us have become accustomed to shopping online and either picking up the groceries at curbside or having them delivered.  Make sure in your online app that you turn off “Automatic Substitutions”.  Often times if your preferred item is not available, the store shopper will substitute a more expensive product.  At a minimum you should have them call you before selecting a substitute.

Reference: 20220720G

Save on Grocery Delivery - Here are three options!

Quick tips to help you save money

If you are paying more then you should for online grocery purchase and delivery.  You may want to consider one of these options to see if they can replace your current delivery costs and save you money:

• Walmart offers same day delivery for $100 per year
• Amazon Prime includes shipping on just about everything for $140 per year.  Check out their Amazon Fresh for same day grocery delivery.
• Pick-up your groceries at the store curbside.  This will save on any delivery charges.

Either way double check stores to make sure their online costs for products is the same as shopping in the store.  You may be surprised at what you find.

Related:  20220720B - Online Grocery Shopping Could be Costing You Money

Ref: 20220720C

How to Use Siri to add a Reminder on your iPhone or iPad

iPhone Quick Tips

I use the iPhone reminders app to track all my tasks and todo's.  If you are driving, walking around or just don't feel like typing, you can ask Siri to add a reminder for you.

Invoke Siri by either pressing the home button or saying "Hey Siri".  When Siri is listening just Say "Remind Me to ....."  Or you can just put it all together and say "Hey Siri Remind Me to ...."  Siri will add the reminder to your reminder list.

In this example I said, "Hey Siri Remind me to Paint the living room white."  As you can see from the screen shot below, Siri added the reminder and prompted me to see if I want to change it.

Check up on Your Investment Adviser

 Quick tips to help you avoid scams and avoid fraud.

How well do you know your investment adviser?  This is the person that is responsible for managing thousands, if not millions of your hard earned money.  Money that you need to fund your future.  As with any profession, some are better than others.  The Securities and Exchange Commission has oversight and make sure stocks, bonds and other investments are operated fairly.  You can do research on your financial adviser at adviserinfo.sec.gov.

Related: 20220721B

Reference: 20220721A

Report a Debt Collector That’s Threatening You

 Quick tips to help you avoid scams and avoid fraud.

Are you being harassed and threatened by a debt collector?  Maybe even a bank or other financial institution.  You should as them to stop calling you and tell them you’ll be reporting them to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  Add their number to your blocked call list. 

20220721B - How to get Help with a Stock Broker Who Didn’t Listen. 

20220721A - Check up on Your Investment Adviser

How to Automatically Close Safari Tabs

 In Apples iOS for either iPhone or iPad, you can have it automatically close Safari tabs. Leaving a bunch of tabs open to potentially reduce your battery life or maybe even have your phone run a little slower, even if they’re in the background.

In Apples iOS for either iPhone or iPad, you can have it automatically close Safari tabs. Leaving a bunch of tabs open could use more battery or maybe even have your phone run browse a little slower.

Open the iPhone settings menu and scroll down to the Safari app. Open up the settings for the Safari app and scroll down to close tabs. I would suggest closing tabs after one week.

How to Adjust Your iPhone Brightness

Quick tips on how to use your iPhone. 

There are a couple ways to adjust brightness on your iPhone. You can use control center or go to the settings menu.

There are a couple ways to adjust brightness on your iPhone. You can use control center or go to the iPhone Settings menu.

For control center use one fringed to slide up from the bottom your screws. Select the brightness control slider.   Slide it up for brighter and down obviously for dimmer.

 Or in the settings menu select Display & Brightness.  Use the brightness slider control. 

How to Change the Wallpaper on an iPhone

iPhone Quick Tips

How about changing the wallpaper on your iPhone. I love this picture of my granddaughter and the little mermaid versus one of Apple standard wallpapers. It’s simple to do, here’s how.

Go to the settings app And select the wallpaper menu item. Choose change wallpaper and then select the photo that you would like to use. You can use the same photo for the lock screen and for your background screens, or set a different photo for each one.

iPhone Use Search in Settings to Find What you are Looking For

There are hundreds of settings in the iPhone setting menu, and quite often it’s hard to find what you’re looking for. There’s actually a search for feature built into the iPhone settings menu. Open up settings that’s the gear icon. Using one finger pull down on the screen and you should see a search bar show up above your name. Start typing what you’re searching for and settings will filter the options down for you. Select a setting you’d like to change.

I started to type Storage below and you can see the filtered results