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Denise Hall Publisher/Editor denise@home-business-on-a-budget.com http://www.Home-Business-on-a-Budget.com Home Business on a Budget Newsletter is a bi-weekly publication. My mission is to help you succeed in your home business without spending an arm and a leg. Each issue contains useful tips, information and articles. Good luck in your business ventures! Translate this newsletter to another language: http://world.altavista.com/ Do you have a friend who would like this newsletter? By all means, pass it on please. The more, the merrier, as I always say! 
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My 2 Cents Worth - Editor's Chit-Chat
Hi All! Welcome to another Sunday with yours truly and thanks so much for letting me be a small part of your day. :~) If you're new today, a warm welcome to you. I hope you'll enjoy the issue. I'm so excited today! My oldest daughter, who's expecting her first baby in March, had an ultrasound a few days ago and found out she's having a boy. This will be my first grandson, and third grandchild so far. Ahhhh! Another little one to spoil. :) This is the first grandchild for my son-in-law's parents, so it's extra exciting for them, and I'm sure they'll spoil him fiercely, too. LOL He's due on St. Patrick's Day, which is pretty fitting, since they're of Irish decent. My Friday night bowling league was full of action this week. One of my team mates started out with 5 strikes in a row - not bad for someone whose average is 122. She could easily get a 200, and we were quite a bit ahead of the other team, who happens to be in the number 1 spot, so we could potentially win the game. And then we noticed that a member of the team we were bowling against ALSO had 5 strikes in a row. She carries an average of 169, so she was expected to bowl well, but sheesh, just rain on our parade. LOL Our gal ended her strike streak in the 6th frame, but still ended the game with a 185, her highest game ever. But the other gal continued bowling strike after strike, all the way through the 9th frame. By then, everyone in the bowling alley had seen what was happening and we were all cheering her on. We really wanted to see her get a perfect 300 game. Unfortunately, the first ball of the 10th frame was her downfall. She was a hair off her mark, and the 10 pin wobbled, but refused to fall. The entire bowling alley groaned along with her. But she picked up the spare, and got 8 on the next ball, to finish with a 267. Certainly NOT a bad game at all, and definitely very exciting to watch! I doubt we'll see another game like that for a long time. I wish I could have bowled half as well! I managed a 173 a couple of weeks ago, though, so I guess I shouldn't complain. LOL Well, enough rambling today. I'll let you get on with the rest of the issue. I'll see you here in two weeks. Until then, be profitable! Denise
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Feature Article
Don't Let Them Take Your Money and Run! By Denise Hall (c)2004 [NOTE: I originally wrote this article 4 years ago, but I'm reprinting it to give you an idea of what to look for when you're researching income opportunities so you don't get scammed out of your money. I removed the actual domain and program name from the article because the site apparently has a new owner now, and I don't want anyone to think I'm referring to it as a scam at this time.] The Internet is full of scams and fraud. Many are in the form of "income opportunities" and "investment programs." Sometimes it's hard to tell if a company is legitimate or not. Unfortunately, many of them aren't and people get scammed into losing hundreds, even thousands, of dollars. The Internet gives bogus companies the opportunity to "take the money and run" with less chance of getting caught than in the offline world. It's fairly easy to hide behind a website and an, oftentimes fake, e-mail address. I recently came upon this program, (Program Title Removed), when asked by one of my newsletter subscribers to try and find out whether it was legitimate. It only took me about 5 minutes to make my decision on this one. Here's a direct quote from the main page: "Welcome to (DomainNameRemoved).com, Consistantly paying out our investors since 1998! The only site on the internet utilizing the currency exchange markets for our investors, and making them money. We offer you up to 800% PROFIT in 2 weeks, GUARANTEED, and completly hands free! And best of all, you are NEVER in danger of losing your investment capitol!" So they invest their clients money into foreign currencies and make a profit. The profits, less a 1% service fee, go back to the clients, thus earning money on their investment. It sounds pretty good, doesn't it? 800% profit in 2 weeks? What a deal! And they've been in business for 6 years, so they must be good, right? Not so fast! Keep reading before you hand over your money. The second paragraph on the page invites the website visitor to "Just look what our investors have to say" which is a clickable link to a message board for investors to add their comments. The problem is the message board is empty! I'd assume happy clients would post something there. (Well, maybe they're working on that page. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.) I continued reading the main page and saw this: "Although we can not "legally" say you will never lose any money, we can tell you that we have NEVER LOST MONEY in over 6 years! If you're interested, take a look at the tracking section, to see how other people's investments are doing, and then read the message board, and comments from our clients." I'd venture to say that "they" probably haven't lost any money, but their clients, if they have any, probably have. I already knew the message board was empty, so I decided to check out the tracking section. Here's where it got really good. I went to the page and, lo and behold, I found a list of e-mail addresses of this company's clients! They didn't list the complete extension (.com, .net or whatever) but the rest was there. Wait a minute! Don't they have a privacy policy? I wouldn't want to have my e-mail address plastered there for the whole world to see. How unethical! I slowly scrolled down the page and certain things caught my attention. I recognized 10-15 names as Internet business owners, several of whom are quite well-known. So I e-mailed 8 of them to ask if they've really invested money with this company and, if so, whether or not it was a good investment. I wasn't surprised to learn that, of the 4 people who have replied to me so far, none of them has ever heard of this company, much less invested money with them. (I e-mailed them less than 48 hours prior to this writing, so hopefully the remaining 4 will reply to me soon. But I don't expect their answers to be any different.) I also noticed as I scanned the listing of "clients" that approximately 75% of the e-mail addresses looked like this: admin@ info@ support@ subscribe@ webmaster@ comments@ orders@ sales@ newsletter@ unsubscribe@ Hold the boat! Why on earth would people use their website contact-type e-mail addresses for their investment program? It looked like the website owner bought or harvested e-mail addresses to use as his "client" list. A lot of the addresses were for the same domain, but with a different "name" - i.e. admin@business, contact@business, help@business, etc. And many of the addresses listed were autoresponders to subscribe to newsletters or receive other information. Here a few e-mail addresses that I got a real kick out of: jeeves1@askjeeves.co.uk someone@nowhere gov@gov.state.hi.us comments@scambusters abuse@verisign But the absolute best one is .... (drum roll please) ..... dateline.consumeralert@nbc Now, what should I do with that one? You guessed it! I'm sending them a copy of this article. I wonder what they'll think when they see that they supposedly invested in this program? What I really wonder is how fast they'll get it shut down so people don't lose money to such scam artists. In all fairness, I looked at the contact information at the website. Here's what it says: "Unlike many 'businesses' on the internet, we do not 'hide' behind our website. You are free to contact us at any time, even the CEO if need be. All the information is listed below, or use our Live Help chat on the left." Unfortunately, the live chat was "temporarily down" so, of course, I e-mailed the CEO with several questions and I'm waiting for a reply. (But I do find it strange that his contact address is a hotmail account.) At the time of this writing, I checked the list of "clients" again. They've updated it and the e-mail addresses I saw 2 days ago are no longer there. Neither are the domain names for those that have taken their place. And most of the addresses now appear to be personal addresses, not those of business websites. They've also posted this message: "Sorry, but we had to remove the ending of the email address because we received a ton of complaints about someone spamming our investors" I wonder if that's the real reason. My guess is that at least one of the people I wrote to contacted them, probably threatened legal action, and the website owner bought a new list of e-mail addresses to post as his "clients." But wait! There's more! I decided to check the domain registration information at WhoIs.com. And that gave me yet another clue that something might be rotten in Denmark. The website name, (DomainNameRemoved).com, was registered on April 19, 2004 - a mere 10 days before I discovered the website and 12 days before I wrote this article. And yet the company claims to have been in business since 1998! The dates the "clients" supposedly earned huge returns on their investments were from April 9th through 16th the first time I visited the site. Today's update shows profits for April 17th through 23rd. So, unless the owner changed the name of his company and/or registered the new name with a different domain registrar, his "clients" made money before he even had his website! Granted, he could have had his business offline until recently. But the copyright at the bottom of the site says "2001-2004" which indicates that he's had the website since 2001. Alas! A scammer's work is never done! They'll always find a new scam to run and con as many people as they can. They have no integrity and they don't care who they rip off. Always do your homework before investing in any income opportunity. Don't let yourself get caught up in the bogus "get rich quick" aspects that can sound so good. You don't want to learn the hard way that they aren't what they claim to be.
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Grins 'n Giggles
Little Johnny and his family were having Sunday dinner at his Grandmother's house. Everyone was seated around the table as the food was being served. When little Johnny received his plate he started eating right away. "Johnny wait until we say our prayer." "I don't have to." The boy replied. "Of course, you do," his mother insisted. "We say a prayer before eating at our house." "That's our house," Johnny explained. "But this is Grandma's house, and she knows how to cook! Courtesy of www.jokeswarehouse.com
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Expert Advice
Each week I'll publish some tips or advice. I'll try to cover every subject I can think of, but if you have any suggestions, please send them to me at the e-mail address listed below. Tips for Writing Effective Press Releases Press releases are one of the most cost-effective ways to get promotion for your online business. Many entrepreneurs ignore this type of promotion because they don't know how to write a press release, but it's important to promote your business with press releases because of the media all over the Internet. The following is a list of some common press release writing tips: - Your press release should sound like news, not an ad - You should only send your press release to the media related to the topic of your press release - Keep your press release one page in length - Your header, contact information and release date should be at the top of your press release - Use short sentences and double space in between sentences - Your header and first few sentences should capture the reader's attention - You should tell a story and briefly mention your business, product or service in the body of the press release - Proofread your press release many times to look for grammar and spelling mistakes Another reason entrepreneurs ignore promoting their online business with press releases is because they don't know what's newsworthy. Here are 16 online business press release ideas: - New products or services you're offering on your web site - The results of an online survey or poll you've completed - A virtual trade show or seminar you're hosting - A free chat room class you're teaching - Your opening of a new web site - An online award your business or web site has won - A free e-mail newsletter you're publishing - New online products or services you're giving away - An online business association or club you're starting - A famous person that's endorsing your business - A major joint venture you're doing with another business - A new book or e-book you wrote - An expert or celebrity who's speaking in your chat room - A fundraising event you're doing at your web site - A new contest or sweepstakes you're having at your site - Major sponsorships you're doing online You can get other press release writing tips and ideas by reading other business press releases or how-to publications, and/or by talking to experts and visiting other media web sites. Pick up a free report on writing effective press releases at http://www.home-business-on-a-budget.com/prprofits.htm Send your suggestions or questions for the experts: mailto:denise@home-business-on-a-budget.com?subject=ExpertAdvice
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It's Your Dime - Reader's Feedback
Hey Denise, Bravo! I've also been meaning to write about the reverse marketing "technique" (not really sure WHAT to call it). I'm sure I will one of these days, and you can count on a link-back as that is a DOOZY of an example LOL. "Love your opp, now here's mine" is normal, but all that other garbage is classic! Thanks for a great Sunday chuckle, not to mention the reminder. :) Dennis http://www.directsaleswebmarketing.com Feel free to print this in the next issue. If anyone missed it this time around, they shouldn't. If we can save but one..... ;) Hello again! LOL Excellent expert advice this week, all quite true and effective but I noticed a warning sign that should have probably been there. Loss leaders - yes indeed very effective if done correctly (eBay sellers are notorious for it) but should be approached with extreme caution. You really need your "Marketing Mojo" set on high or you could easily lose several large walk-in closets full of shirts.....again eBay sellers are notorious for this :-) Dennis http://www.directsaleswebmarketing.com Thanks for writing, Dennis. I'm glad you enjoyed my sense of humor. LOL Dennis is referring to my articles in the last issue, which you can read here if you missed it. Your contributions here. E-mail your comments, profiles, or feedback: denise@home-business-on-a-budget.com?subject=Here'sMyDime
Free Stuff
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Ad Swaps - More Great Reading
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Editor's Closing Comments
I hope you've enjoyed today's issue of Home Business on a Budget. I always welcome reader's feedback, comments and suggestions. Please feel free to e-mail me if you ever have any questions that I can help you with. I am always willing to help in any way I can. I also accept guest articles for publication. Please send them to the e-mail listed below with "article" in the subject line. Denise Hall Publisher/Editor Contact me: denise@home-business-on-a-budget.com Website: http://www.Home-Business-on-a-Budget.com
LEGAL STUFF
I accept no responsibility whatsoever for the content, profitability or legality of any published articles or advertisements contained within Home Business on a Budget Newsletter. And, although all of the articles have been selected for their content, the publishing of such articles within this newsletter does not constitute a recommendation of the products or services mentioned or advertised within those articles. Be responsible! Always do your own Due Diligence before responding to any offer. I respect the privacy of my readers. I will never supply or sell your personal information to any Third Party!
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