Blockbuster deliberately withholding online rentals, or just a glitch?

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June 9th, 2009 - Posted by Caitlin

Last week, Consumerist reported on delays in Blockbuster's online rental service. A reader wrote in to explain that after returning DVDs to the store, they remained on his online queue for at least two days, which meant that new DVDs were not being mailed out as quickly as they should be. Shipping delays reduce the value of an online subscription service, since subscribers receive fewer rentals in the same length of time. Consumerist hypothesized that this is either the result of intentional throttling or an error in the system. Consumerist commenters also weighed in beneath the post to relate their own experiences with online DVD rental delays. Based on their anecdotes, it sounds as though heavy users, in particular, are generally better served by Netflix.

To learn more about Blockbuster, Netflix, and other online DVD rental services, see our reviews and comparison chart.

Apple to offer new "Find My iPhone" feature for lost or stolen iPhones

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June 8th, 2009 - Posted by Joe

Apple's pending release of the third generation of iPhone software later this summer will include a special feature that allows users to remotely locate their lost or stolen iPhone from the web.

The only catch is that this new feature will only be available to subscribers of Apple's MobileMe service which costs $99 per year after a 60 day free trial. While it would be better if this service was free to all iPhone users, linking an iPhone to a specific MobileMe account acts as an additional level of security verification since it ensures that a third party couldn't gain access to an iPhone's location unless they had access to the MobileMe account connected to that phone.

To learn more about ways to prevent and recover from a lost or stolen iPhone, read our lost or stolen iPhone guide. You can also read our reviews and comparisons of identity theft protection services to learn more about identity theft protection.

Credit Cardholder's Bill of Rights includes special protections for college students

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June 8th, 2009 - Posted by Joe

While the Credit Cardholder's Bill of Rights offer protections for all Americans, there are a few amendments that specifically designed to help prevent college students from racking up thousands of dollars of debt while they are still undergrads.

First, there are much more strict limits on the amount of credit that can be offered up to a college student by an issuing bank. A student without a co-signer is limited to the greater of 20% of that students annual income or $500. While this may limit some students access to credit, it ensures that the particular individual is not put in a position where they have more spending power than they are reasonable able to pay back. We believe this should help most students develop positive credit usage habits and prevent heaps of unpaid debt from racking up.

Next, banks are prohibited from providing inducements to students in exchange for completing a credit card application. Anyone who has spent any time on a college campus over the last two decades knows how common the practice of providing incentives such as t-shirts, mugs, hats or even candy bars in exchange for signing up for a credit card. We see this as a positive move in that it removes a certain level of frivolity from the process of signing up for a credit card.

Finally, banks must disclose the terms of so called "affinity agreements" between credit card issuing banks and universities. These agreements typically give a bank exclusive rights to market credit cards with the college or university's logos to students and alumni in exchange for marketing fees. This is good for several reasons, but probably the most important has to do with privacy. Often affinity agreements allow banks to have access to significant amounts of personal information and we think it is good that this part of the bill of rights allows students to know exactly how their information may be used by outside parties.

You can learn more about credit cards for college students and tools to monitor credit reports and scores by reading our reviews and comparisons.

MLB coach falls victim to social media identity theft on Twitter

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June 5th, 2009 - Posted by Robert Siciliano

Robert Siciliano is a NextAdvisor.com Expert Guest Blogger

The scourge of identity theft knows no boundaries. It can happen to anyone: rich, poor, good credit, bad credit. Victims include children, the elderly, celebrities and politicians. Identity theft may include new account fraud, account takeover, criminal identity theft, business identity theft and medical identity theft. Most of these result in financial loss.

One form of identity theft that is particularly damaging to the victim's reputation is social media identity theft. Social media identity thieves have various motivations. The most damaging type of social media identity theft occurs when someone poses as you in order to disrupt your life. This disruption can take on many forms. They may harass and stalk you or your contacts, or they may steal your online identity for financial gain.

In the case of St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa, someone created a Twitter account in his name. La Russa is suing Twitter, claiming the impostor Twitter page damaged his reputation and caused emotional distress. The lawsuit includes a screen shot of three tweets. One, posted on April 19, read, "Lost 2 out of 3, but we made it out of Chicago without one drunk driving incident or dead pitcher." Apparently, La Russa has had a drunk driving arrest and two Cardinals pitchers have died since 2002. One pitcher died of a heart attack, the other in a drunk driving accident.

There is no limit to the damage someone can do by using your name and picture in order to impersonate you online. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, an 18 year old student was accused of posing as a girl on Facebook, tricking at least 31 male classmates into sending him naked photos of themselves, and then blackmailing some of these young men for sex acts.

Social media websites were created with the intention of bringing people together in a positive way, but we are beginning to see these sites being used in very sinister ways. The root of the problem is the fact that social media sites are all based on the honor system, with the assumption that people are honestly setting up accounts in their own names. There are few checks and balances in the world of social media, which means that you need to adopt a strategy from yet another form of predator to protect yourself.

There are hundreds or even thousands of social media sites, including Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube. Even your local newspaper's website has a place for user comments, and most people would prefer to register their own names before someone else has done so on their behalf.

I have obtained over 200 user names pertaining to my given name in order to mitigate social media identity theft. This may sound obsessive, but the two examples given above are all the proof anyone needs to clamp down on social media. I'm on everything from Affluence.org to Zooomr.com. Some I use, others just have my profile and a link back to my website. I should also mention that there are some hazards involved in such a mission. You may experience a spike in spam, as I did, so I suggest creating an alternate email address. Furthermore, some websites make you join various groups that you don't have much control over. I'm now a member of some masochistic fetish group of the opposite sex. Not exactly what I signed up for. So be careful.

The goal is to obtain your real first and last name without periods, underscores, hyphens, abbreviations or extra numbers or letters.

These tips bear repeating:

1. Register your full name and those of your spouse and kids on the most trafficked social media sites, blogs, domains or web based email accounts. If your name is already gone, include your middle initial, a period or a hyphen. It's up to you to decide whether or not to plug in your picture and basic bio, but consider leaving out your age or birthday.
2. Set up a free Google Alerts for your name and get an email every time your name pops up online.
3. Set up a free StepRep account for your name. StepRep is an online reputation manager that does a better job than Google Alerts does of fetching your name on the web.
4. Consider dropping $65 on Knowem.com. This is an online portal that goes out and registers your name at what they consider the top 120 social media sites. Their top 120 is debatable, but a great start. The user experience with Knowem is relatively painless. There is still labor involved in setting things up and with some of the 120. And no matter what you do, you will still find it difficult to complete the registration with all 120 sites. Some of the social media sites just aren't agreeable. This can save you lots of time, but is only one part of solving the social media identity theft problem.
5. Start doing things online to boost your online reputation. Blogging is best. You want Google to bring your given name to the top of search in its best light, so when anyone is searching for you they see good things. This is a combination of online reputation management and search engine optimization for your brand: YOU.
6. If you ever stumble upon someone using your likeness in the social media, be very persistent in contacting the site's administrators. They too have reputations to manage and if they see someone using your photo or likeness they would be smart to delete the stolen profile.
7. Or do nothing and don't worry about it. But when some other John Doe does something stupid or uses your name in a disparaging way or for identity theft, and people assume that it's you, remember that I told you so.
8. Despite all the work you may do to protect yourself, you still need identity theft protection and Internet security software.

Robert Siciliano, identity theft speaker, discusses social media privacy.

Robert Siciliano is CEO of IDTheftSecurity.com , an identity theft expert, professional speaker, security analyst, published author and television news correspondent. Siciliano works with Fortune 1000 companies and startups as an advisor on product launches, branding, messaging, representation, SEO and media. Siciliano's thoughts and advice on all these matters appear often in both the televised and print news media including CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, FOX, Forbes and USA Today. He has 25 years of security training as a member of the American Society of Industrial Security. He is the author of 2 books, including The Safety Minute: Living on High Alert; How to take control of your personal security and prevent fraud. He's also partnered with Uni-Ball to help raise awareness about the growing threat of identity theft and to provide tips on how you can protect yourself.

50% off McAfee; No discount coupon code required

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June 3rd, 2009 - Posted by Joe

Total rated Internet security software provider has relaunched the exclusive 50% discount on McAfee Total Protection 2009. While this special half off discount doesn't require any coupon code, you do need to make sure you visit McAfee's website through NextAdvisor.com in order to get the discounted price.

This 50% discount will only be available through the end of June.

You can read our full review of McAfee Total Protection 2009 to see all the reasons that we selected this service as our Editor's Choice in Identity theft protection.