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Banks are pushing their customers to use online banking.

They claimed to encourage the customers to use online banking as much as possible.

Why do banks insist on customers using online internet banking?

Banks claimed with the advancement of technology, and more and more people are internet savvy, it is about time online internet banking be the focus and future of banking.

Even government is encouraging all business entities to go online and do things online, so the banks are taking the cue to do so.

The banks claim by doing business online, they can reap the following benefits:

1. Cost savings.

The banks claim it is the most cost savings invention for the banking industry.

With online banking, the banks require less physical branches, which mean hiring less bank staffs to man the branches.

So there will be huge saving on staffs cost, rental of branches, utility, and other cost incidental to operating a branch

2. More efficient

With internet banking, the operation of the bank is more efficient, as more transactions can be done at anyone time, no like physical banking, a teller can only serve a customer at one time and it may take longer to complete the transactions,

3. Saving the hazard of long queue in the branches of the banks.

With physical branches, sometimes there are long queue as people wait to be served by the counters, especially when one customer has a lot of transactions, or need to seek more clarification, it will take up longer time.

Also, queue theory applies and management has to decide whether single line or lining up at each counter.

With the pandemic ravaging, physical present may not be a good idea.

4. Paperless, save the environment.

Online banking tend to use fewer papers, as customers do their banking requirement online and documents are saved in soft copy file and file away in their respective devices.

Less paper work supposedly will use fewer papers and to certain extent, less cutting of trees. And no need to send out monthly paper statements.

5. Easier for the customers to check their bank balances and banking need.

Customers can check their bank status any time with internet online banking, they are not able to do so if it is a physical banks, as there will be subject to banking hours.

If the customers want to do any banking transactions, they can do so even at mid night if the needs arise.

However, this is something which he can not do with physical banking system, and he has to wait for the next day.

6. no need for the customer to make a trip to the bank as it can be done online.

Making a trip to the bank is a headache, when you consider the traffic and the need to look for parking space.

Somehow, where there is a bank branch, the parking slots are not readily available.

Making trip to bank is always a hazard, and inconvenient for some people, especially when you think of the need to queue up for your turn to see the teller.

7. More convenient for the customers!!

Frankly speaking, online banking is quite convenient if you are tech savvy and can not live without accessing to internet.

You can do it at home in your cosy home environment, it looks very good and efficient.

8. Banking transactions can be done anytime, even at night, no need to rush to bank in day time.

With internet banking, if you need to do an urgent banking transaction at night, you can do so easily, no need to wait until the next day for the bank to open.

Likewise, you can do it globally wherever you are, even you are not in the home country, you can still carry out the necessary transactions.

Despite all these so called benefits and advantages of having online internet banking, what are the cons of it?

1. Lack of human approach.

This is the main complaint about online banking, no more human touch.

Lacking of human interaction, mean you do not have a banking relationship manager to deal with, and you can not build up a good rapport with the bank officers at all.

2. Can not do cash deposit of money.

If you have hard cash to be deposited, you can not do so with internet banking, still you need to go to the nearest ATM or the bank branch to do so.

3. Safety of the internet.

Is it safe to use online banking? safety and security of it is questionable, as it involved two parts.

One is whether your device, be it your mobile phone, is safe, the other issue is whether the bank online system is safe and secure.

Nowadays no one dares to say their computer systems are safe and 100% secured.

The moment one company claims its computer system and network is safe, the hackers will treat it as a challenge to hack the system.

Some hackers like to do it just to satisfy their urge to hack and prove how good they are in breaking into a system.

Of course there are some who hack in order to scam other people's money.

4. Not every one is tech savvy especially the elderly.

Older generations are having problem to understand how to use the mobile phone for its simple function like sending messages and making phone calls.

with the smart phones nowadays, majority of the phone are touch screen based, not like last time button, more difficult for senior citizens to use.

And you expect the older generations to know how to do banking transaction online?

They do not even know how to surf the net for information.

Some may be able to learn, but do they know what they can click and what they can not click?

Do they know whether the site they enter is genuine or fictitious site?

After listing the pros and cons of internet banking above

Let's discuss the topic - Are the banks doing the right things to push for digital banking?

With the recent cases of scams involving one of the banks in Singapore.

In which about 470 customers lost more than SGD $ 9 million in the month of December alone.

Now people have second thought whether the banks are doing the right things to push for digital banking,  and totally discard physical banking transactions.

It was reported that the scams happened when the customers of the bank received SMSes.

Purportedly from the bank informing customers of illegal transactions, customers need to verify by clicking the links provided in the same SMSes.

Once the customer clicked on the link, that is the end of their money in the bank.

Without knowing the links which are fraudulent and linked to a fake banking website, the unsuspecting customers click on the link.

The scammers easily secure the requirement login particulars of the customers, and they will then go to the real bank website to carry out the necessary transactions such as:

  • changing the login password.
  • amend the withdrawing limit per transaction.
  • change the requirement of one time password via SMS,
  • direct the notification to their own phones or devices.

So is it the right move?

What have the banks done in order to make internet banking a smooth and trouble free procedure and system?

1. Hot line number

Has anyone tried to call the bank on its hot line and get to speak with a human straight away?

One bank in Singapore use some so called latest technology, the same as the one used in APPLE phone on the siri robots.

And it was so frustrating especially when you can not even get pass this stage,  as the machine does not seem to understand what you said.

I encountered another occasion when you call the bank, it starts with - for English, please press 1, so you do.

Then it starts giving you all the options but not in numerical orders.

So after you press the number, before it gives you more option, it starts selling you and encouraging you to use their app and telling you how efficient is their app.

After listening to the advantages of using the app, then it tells you the option.

You then press the option, once again, you have to listen to how great is their app and so on.

After that it says all our operators are engaged at the moment, you can call back some other time or go to our website and perform the transaction you want to do!!!!.

So when you feel that you have been scammed and you want to contact the bank immediately, facing with the machine talking all the times and not able to speak with a human, how to contact the bank?

as reported in the news, in the recent cases, the bank advised its customers to contact the bank immediately.

I wonder they know how hard it is to talk to the human in the bank by calling the hot line they have.

2. Token

At one time, Banks wanted to do away with the physical tokens and pushing customers to use the app.

With the recent cases in December 2021, banks have decided to allow the customers to continue using the token.

3. OTP or One Time Password.

The bank at one time wanted to do away with this One Time Password, and pushing bank customers to use the app for the access to the banking requirement. However, with the recent frequent cases of scams, they have decided to stick to this OTP for the time being.

However, does this solve the scam problem?

Customers now are not that confident to receive any SMSes from the banks, as they are not sure the messages they received are genuine or not.

What have the banks advised the customers?

1. Do not click on any links in the short messages .

Banks claimed the short messages they sent do not have any links attached at all.

So in other words, if you receive any short messages from the banks with link attached, it is a fake message, though it may look like the messages are from the banks.

2. Do not give any information about your details on banking to anyone.

This instruction is rather difficult to comprehend, when you login to the bank website, do you provide the information? as you are being prompted to do so.

Are you sure the website you access is the real website of the bank?

how do you differentiate the real and the fake website?

Perhaps you may want to use the tools available to check on any fake website or do some checks in the internet.

The best way to do so is to key in the URL of the bank directly, instead of just click on the link provided.

3. Call the bank hot lines to verify.

As I mentioned earlier, some hot lines provided by the banks are not that easily accessible.

Unless you have the patient and in good mood to listen to all the sales pitches or talking to robot, it is better you just make a trip to the bank and talk to the human directly.

Even that again may not be possible as the staff may direct you to go online, it seems that is about the job function of the staffs of the banks nowadays, to tell customers to go online to do banking transactions.

Now what can the banks and authority do? or should do?

1. Bank domain.

It is about time all the governments in the world work together to regulate the registration of domain names in world of internet.

Currently, you can register a domain quite similar to the one you want to scam.

For example, ABC Bank.com once you register as the bank domain, another person can register one almost similar to it such as ABC. Bank.com

for those who are not cautious and alert, they will think it is the same.

The relevant parties may have to agree in order to stop this type of scam.

Those people who are trying to do some fraudulent thing with ill intention, will definitely make use of this.

Therefore, it is important that certain domain can not have similar name at all, regardless of you put in a coma, a hyphen, or whatever.

2. Tracing of the transactions.

There should be electronic trails of the transactions, the money trails from the bank where the victim's money was transferred from, to the bank where the money was transferred.

If the money was then further moved to another bank account, and so on, sometimes, it could be moving to multiples destinations so as to avoid detection.

Or making it difficult for authorities to trace the eventual destination of the fund, especially when the scammers move the funds all over the world.

And unless the investigators are very patient to follow the money trails, the recovery of the fund is almost equal to zero.

The recovery of the fund is more difficult when it is going through some offshore heaven, or countries which have very lax monitoring and anti money laundering enforcement.

3. Real Hotline

it is about time the government through its central bank ensure all the banks really have some human manning the hot line instead of trying to automate the phone answering system and saving cost.

The response time of answering the phone and the frustration of the customers calling the banks at time of emergency, will determine whether the scammed money can be recovered or not.

4. Timing of transfer

Anyone noticed whenever your transfer money to your account, the bank will tell you it will take a day or two to clear?

Meaning, you can not use the money immediately.

However, when you transfer the money out of your account, it seems to deduct from your account immediately!!.

Therefore, actually the recent cases of the phishing scams can be easily thwarted if the bank has the system in place.

Such as when money is transferred out of the bank, it will take one day or two or wait for the account owner to confirm whether he did the transfer.

The bank can ask the customer to go down to the bank to verify since nowadays, we can not trust the phone on the other end of the line is really from the bank or not.

In Summary

In the meantime, those who want to learn more how to know more about phishing SMS, you may want to go HERE to learn more about it.

You may also want to do more research on this.

Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Association of Banks have just announced some measures to curb the SMS phishing scams.

You can read more about that HERE

 

 

Online shopping

This is the in thing in town nowadays to do shopping online.

Online shopping is actually a good thing to have, especially in this COVID-19 pandemic time.

In a way, this helps to keep the cases of infection down and to certain extent, keep the human traffic in the shopping malls and reduced congestion on the road too.

As usual, any good invention or things will always have the bad influence or effect too.

Scammers have been using the online shopping platform to scam on unsuspecting people.

They will make use of the human mind of tenancy to assume the link is alright.

By the time the unsuspecting victim realized they have been scammed, it may be too late as there is monetary loss .

The common online shopping platform mushroom practically overnight.

Over here in Singapore, we have things like Lazada, Shoppe, Amazon Prime, NTUC Fairprice, RedMart, just to name a few more famous and popular one, .

How do the scammers use the shopping platform to scam unsuspecting victims?

1. SMS messages asking you to pay more.

Normally a legit shopping platform will not ask you to pay more after you have made payment on the item you have selected.

According to reported news recently, scammers had used a tactic to message shoppers and telling them that they needed to pay more for the items they have purchased.

a lot of shoppers especially those who frequently use online shopping, once received the message, will not bother to check the authenticity of the message.

They just click on the link provided in the message and make the additional payment as required.

scammers fully make use of the human tendency not to check in details to implant a phishing malware into the device of the victims the moment the victims click on the link provided.

Human being tends to assume the message is genuine and the link is the real website link.

However if they just pay more attention and be more alert, they will notice the link provide is not the official website of the shopping platform.

2. Sending emails to the victims and asking them to make any additional payment.

this type of scam is quite common, the reason being recipient of email do not bother to check the email domain of the sender at all.

they always assume the email is from the real shopping platform they often use without knowing the email domain is different,  even though the title of the sender is the same name as the shopping platform.

If they really care to be more alert and check the email domain, they will find out it is not the official email domain at all, and if they have clicked on the link provided in the email, the phishing malware will be activated.

 

What can a person do to avoid this type of scam?

1. Check the link provided before you click on the link.

Check whether the link is the real link, then compare it with the platform domain.

2. Call the platform

if in doubt, call the platform and verify whether they have sent you any message.

3. Check whether you have made any purchase recently using that shopping platform.

a lot of people tend not do the check as they have bought online too often and they fail to keep track of their purchases, and it does not cross their mind that they do not make any purchase recently.

4. Just delete the messages you received without opening.

people may worry what if the message is true, well, if the message is true, the platform will get in touch with you again, or call you to inform you to top up the shortfall when the goods is delivered.

if there is no reminder sent, then you can be sure it is a hoax and a scam.

 

Do You Think You Have Been Scammed?

if you think you have been scammed, you can do the following:

1. Check whether you have made any purchase recently, if it is negative, then you do not have to worry.

2. Try to make payment using credit card instead of using your debit card or online banking.

It is important to set your credit card charge alert to one cent, meaning even there is a charge for one cent, there will be a message alert to inform you that your card is being charged.

if you have not made any payment, call the credit card issuing bank to stop the payment.

Normally, the bank which charge your credit card will not remit the money to the merchant immediately, so the moment you receive the message of the charges, call them immediately.

3. Report the scam immediately to the relevant authority, this can help the relevant authority to gather more information and take necessary action.

4. Spread the words among your friends about the scam.

5. Share it in your social media so that more people will know about the scam.

6. You can share your experience with https://www.scamalert.sg/

7. Internationally you may want to report to HERE

Conclusion

just be more alert and check any link sent to you, especially the domain of the link.

Whatever you do, do not click on the link at all.

If you have any feedback and comments, do drop a few lines in the comments section below.

Share your experience and let's make online shopping a better place.

 

Work From Home

This is a common term used in the last two years or so, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it was a preferred working mode to avoid infected with the virus.

When you search for a job opportunity in this time of the year, you will tend to find one preferably can work from home.

Because of this, scammers also know how to cash in on this and try to scam the innocent and genuine job seekers.

During COVID-19 when so many have lost their jobs and trying to find employment, some will become desperate and will grab any job opportunity comes along.

Hence , how do you know the job opportunity is genuine and real job instead of fake job?

Scammers pose as companies, recruitment agents offering you fake jobs claiming you can work from home in this trying time.

How do people usually look for job opprotunities?

  1. using online job portals.
  2. using job postings on human resources recruitment websites.
  3. advertisements of job vacancies in printed media or social medias.
  4. WhatsApp messages of jobs opportunities.

How do you detect the scams in the work from home postings of jobs?

there are some signs and indications if you can see the postings or advertisement of jobs carefully, you can detect the scams or fake jobs.

If you can notice the following clues, you may be able to detect the scams in the job advertisement

  1. The job is too good to be true.
  2. There is little information on the company.
  3. Contact number in the post cannot confirm the legitimacy of the job offer.
  4. There are bad review online about the company.
  5. The employer is too eager to hire.
  6. You have to pay to work.
  7. The employer want to conduct interview only using WhatsApp messaging.
  1. The job is too good to be true.

If the job offer states that you can do it from home and they pay a very good remuneration even though you may not have the necessary qualification or experience for the job.

Job description indicated that the job is very easy but have good pay, you should use your own instinct to determine whether this is a scam or not.

2. There is little information on the company.

Sometimes the company may put its website domain in the job posting and when you check the website, it does not seem like a genuine website of the company.

Some scammers have the effort to display a website of the original company and thinking the job applicants will not detect the different from the genuine company website.

If you apply through the link given , you may fall to the scam of the scammers who may use the phishing malware to infect your device the moment you click on the link.

3. Contact number in the post cannot confirm the legitimacy of the job offer

Some of the job advertisements have the contact numbers, however when you try to contact, either by phone or email, you fail to get the necessary reply.

When you check the website, you will notice the contact is not correct and you are not able to reach the right person or the recruiting person.

4. There are bad review online about the company.

if you are able to read the review online about the company, you may find the reviews of the company are not encouraging, a lot of bad reviews, some people who have been cheated may just state as such in their reviews and warn future applicants to be careful of it.

5. The employer is too eager to hire.

If you apply for the job and within minutes you receive the phone from the company and the person on the other end of the line is so eager to talk to you, this may sound an alarm in your head.

Normally when you apply for a job, especially online application, you may only get a reply after a few days instead of within a day or two.

if the caller said he or she wanted to talk you to find out more about you and so on, this may give you an indication that the job offer is not real.

6. You have to pay to work.

sometimes, you may come across some jobs, once they decide to hire you, however they insist on you making some payment to process some documentation, especially if the job posting is oversea.

The potential employer may want you to remit some money for the processing of the work documentation and relevant papers, this is to ensure you have a valid documents to work in foreign country.

Should not this at the cost of the employer? you may ask, if they insisted that you need to pay and they will reimbursed you later, or once you come on board,

The advice is you should not proceed with this any longer.

7. The employer want to conduct interview only using WhatsApp messaging.

I have come across potential employers insisting on conducting interviews using WhatsApp messaging.

And when i asked why didn't we use WhatsApp video calling for the interview, the recruiters said her device did not have the said function!!!.

You will find the interview can drag on for days and conversations were on and off.

The recruiter who claimed to be the Director in charge of Human Resource would only reply to messages on and off.

she would claim she was busy doing some other things while conducting the messaging interviews.

The interview will go from official and move to some personal matters and she may claim to share your interest and slowly will try to get you to invest in what she is investing.

Normally it is a cryptocurrency trading and the platform she gives you is not that professionally set up at all.

you may read more about that in HERE.

Conclusion

By being careful, you can protect your identity, your finances and your wellbeing.

When a prospective employer is asking you to fill up an online application form, it requires some personal data such as:

  • your bank account number,
  • your date of birth and
  • those of your family members,
  • chances are this is a scam and if you click on the link, you may subject to phishing attack.

Do not give out any personal information other than the basic such as the phone number.

Some scammers are using the legitimate job portals to post fake job openings, if you are selected, do some due diligence on the company.

With the availability of the internet nowadays and the amount of information easily accessible, it is quite easy to do some background check on the companies.

One of the alert signal will be the email domain from the so called HR or hiring personnel, it is very unlikely that the company does not have its own email domain.

It is no harm to be extra careful and pass on the job opportunity if you are not sure, rather than be sorry later after you find you have been scammed.

Brief Explanation

What is telephone scam?

Many people lost their money via telephone scams, some of them even lost their life savings to the scammers.

Scammers prey on the greed and ignorance of the victims, and without knowing the true facts , sometimes out of fear, they decide to remit money to the scammers as ordered.

Scammers will threaten the victim and their main objective is to get your personal particulars and money.

They will try to commit identify theft and get hold of your particulars.

What are the common phone scams?

Phone scams are getting more rampant and frequent.

In this COVID-19 pandemic challenging time, phone scams are even more frequent, most people will use phone to procure their daily needs and so on.

Phone scammer will jump at the opportunity to scam innocent victims.

Common methods used by scammers are:

  1. impersonating they are calling from police station.

Scammers called and claimed they were calling from police headquarter and there was an unsettled summon need to be settled.

and they would ask for particulars and remit money to clear the summon.

2. Callers claimed they were calling from Ministry of Health

With the pandemic going on, scammers impersonating as official from Ministry of Health and asking victim to confirm particulars for the vaccination.

3. Calling from reputed banks

Callers claimed they were calling from a reputed bank and something was wrong with your accounts and they need to verify the particulars.

4. Loan and financing scam

Scammers called and offered some low interest financing and with attractive repayment package, the catch is they required particulars.

What should you do when you received such calls?

  1. Hang up the phone

Normally when some one called from unknown number it would be better just hang up the phone, no need to waste time to entertain the callers.

for example, if you are in Singapore and the caller ID showed +65, you would know it was a scammer call, as local call would not show the country code.

2. Talk nonsense with the callers

every time when i received a call from "MOH" I would ask him who was the Minister of the country, and if the call was from "Police HQ", i would ask who was the Commissioner of Police!!!

every time when the called heard my question, they would cut of the phone calls.

3. Block the numbers.

Scammers may use internet app to make the call, and you need to know your mobile system well and block the calls.

4. Spoofing

sometime called might use the latest technology to disguise the caller ID, so it all depended on the recipient to make his judgement and decided whether the calls were a scam.

however, you may want to check the caller ID at HERE

DON"T DO THE FOLLOWINGS:

  1. When some one asked you to remit money via Western Union or MoneyGram, do not do it.
  2. Callers asked you to give your personal particulars, do not do so.
  3. Do not give remote access to your computer to people.
  4. Make sure you have your password and user ID with you and NOT give it to another person.

Finally report the scam to the REAL POLICE.

This is the creative process that is as old as time itself. It’s been mentioned in every religious text and spoken of by mystics, philosophers and Law of Attraction teachers throughout the ages.

I’m sure you’ve heard of it too.

It’s a simple three step process that many people see as the key to manifesting everything they want.

And of course it is.

But, there’s more to this creative process than meets the eye.

In over 10 years of studying the Law of Attraction and Manifestation, I’ve learned that the way most people are using the creative process is backwards. When you start by asking for what you want you shift your focus away from the truth of this process.

The real key to manifesting everything you want is being ready and willing to receive.

I can hear you saying you’re ready. I thought I was too.

I’d asked and asked. I’d worked hard to expand my mind to believe that it could happen for me. I focused my thoughts on the abundance I knew was coming. I did everything I thought I needed to do to make the Law of Attraction work for me.

Nothing happened.

Well perhaps not nothing, but nothing substantial. Nothing life changing. And certainly nothing that felt like my ‘prayers’ had been answered.

I became disillusioned and felt like giving up. I very nearly did.

But somewhere deep within me, there burned a tiny flame. A spark that told me I was missing something. A spark that told me there was something more …

So I went searching for it.

Have you ever heard the saying, ‘Seek and you will find?’

Well I found the missing piece of the puzzle and it changed everything.

Because I had the creative process backwards.

I’ll let you into a little secret.

The Law of Attraction and Manifestation is all about Energetic Alignment

You could call it vibration or frequency. Not the vibration or frequency of your thoughts but the vibration or frequency of your energy.

How do you know what your energetic alignment is?

You’ll feel it as your core emotional state.

It’s important to understand the difference between your emotional state and your emotions.

You’re emotional state is your ‘all the time’ energetic state.

It’s the way you feel in your body most of the time. The way you feel when there’s nothing particular going on. When you’re just going about your day. When life is just humming along and there’s nothing to spark a specific emotion. You probably won’t even notice how you feel because it’s your ‘normal’.

But your energy is always vibrating.

It’s your life force. And it’s manifesting your life.

Emotion = E-motion. Energy in motion. Or more specifically, your energy in motion.

When you feel an emotion, you’re really feeling your own energy move in response to something or someone else.

The event, circumstance, or person is simply the trigger that sparks your energy into motion. Each time you act or *react from the energy spark you’re feeling, you either reinforce your existing energetic alignment or realign your energy to a new vibration or frequency.

*(re-action = re-enacting a past experience as if it’s happening today)

Your Energetic Alignment is your Energetic State

It’s the vibration of your energetic state that is manifesting your life

Ask, Believe, Receive

Your Energetic Alignment signals what you BELIEVE

What you BELIEVE is what you unconsciously ASK for

And you will always RECEIVE whatever you unconsciously BELIEVE and ASK for

It will happen automatically

It can’t be any other way.

This is the Law of Attraction in action.

Getting ready to RECEIVE is the act of Energy Re-alignment

How do you do that?

Start by becoming aware of your thoughts, emotions and actions.

Instead of pushing away the ‘negative’ thoughts and trying to change them, listen to what they have to say. Your thoughts are literally your energy communicating with you in words. Behind every thought there’s an emotion. And emotion drive action.

Your thoughts and emotions will always match because it’s your energy you’re experiencing. When you pay attention, you can connect with the energetic alignment that is manifesting your life. You can learn what it feels like.

And that knowledge frees you to make a powerful shift in each and every moment.

It frees you to release and replace.

To repair and restore.

To realign and recreate your life anew

Abundance is your birthright

Your wish is my command!

Just sharing a good message from Allanah Hunt

2

What are the things in common in Binary Option Trading and Cryptocurrency ?

For those who used to invest in Binary Option in the last few years, and badly burnt or cheated by the various Binary Option Platforms, they would know lately, a lot of people having calling them and claiming that they money lost had been recovered.

The callers would claim they managed to recover their money and the money is now sitting pretty in one Cryptocurrency platform.

And to get access to the money, one needs to have a cryptocurrency account or wallet in order to execute the refund.

Binary Option

Few years ago, there were a lot of binary option trading platforms online.

There were quite a lot of people got themselves in this online Binary Option platform.

One of the common reason was they were not able to withdraw their money from the platform.

I believe a lot of people had lost money in Binary Option, either being cheated, or the trading platform just no longer there.

Scammers who operate the platform happily took the money and enjoy themselves.

Recovery Step

After the Binary Option scam, then came the recovery scam.

Someone claimed they were working for some expert companies specializing in debt recovery.

The callers who said they could help to recover the money as they had the means and resources.

What are the tricks of these debts' recovery companies?

The caller claimed they could help to recover the money lost in Binary Option trading,

However they listed out the following steps:

1. Furnish the proof of money transfer for Binary Option.

2. Provide evidence of identity of the investors.

3. They asked you to pay USD $1,000 being the fees for them to do the recovery.

4. Time frame would be within one month they could fully recover the amounts.

5. The fees charged would be 5% of the amount recovered minus the $1,000 upfront whichever is higher.

There are some doubt of what they were trying to tell you.

They claimed it was the company policy that they needed to collect some fees for doing the recovery.

I told them for normal recovery, the debt collector would do it base on success rate, and deduct the cost from the amount recovered, so there was no reason why an upfront payment need to be made.
After another year, now the new scamming plan surfaced.

What are the new methods scammers have?

lately I came across the newest method of the scammers who supposedly made their money already in Binary Option scam

1. Someone would call you over the phone.

2. The phone number seemed to be the local number even with the prefix of +65 assuming you are in Singapore.

3. Caller would tell you they had managed to recovery the money you lost in the Binary Option.

4. He would then inform you that he would be sending one email to you.

5. Ask you to read the email and click on the link in the email.

6. Then he said he would guide you over the phone on how to recover the money

7. So you click on the link and you notice a platform from one called https://altcrypt.cc/my-account/

8. In that website, you could see the amount equivalent in USD for EURO and some in Crypto currency

9. Caller then tried to explain that the money they recovered were in crypto currency

10. He further explained that the scammer after taking your money in the Binary Option, went to invest in cryptocurrency, that is the reason why the statement showed majority of the money was in cryptocurrency

11. After the explanation, then he said need to convert the cryptocurrency to the USD so that you would be able to receive your money.

12. In order to do so, one needed to pay USD $100 for the conversion.

13. When questioned why could not they just deduct whatever cost incurred from the money recovered and remit the balance.

14. He explained that he was from a company called infinityplus which is responsible to contact all the victims of the Binary Option.

15 infinityplus has nothing to do with that platform, they only charged 5% on the amount recovered.

16. Thus, the USD $100 was more like an administration fee.

17. Infinityplus has nothing to with the collection of the conversion fees.

What do we need to do upon hearing all these?

it seemed strange that a company which owned the website https://altcrypt.cc/my-account/ did the recovery without prior checking with you.

And they were so nice that they went all the ways to recover the money and now wanted to give you the money back.

I always believe in one saying -- there is no such thing as a free lunch. And another saying - too good to be true.

My suspicious was arisen because there were so many gaps from the conversation and unanswered questions which I posted to the caller.

Findings

My findings from internet search about the two websites, i.e. altcrypt and infinityplus showed the followings:

1. https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoScamBlacklist/comments/kpxguc/altcryptcc_scam/

2. https://uiliu.com/altcrypt-cc

3. https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoScamBlacklist/comments/kwj1o1/infinityplus/

judging from the comments in the two websites above, it is obvious that this is another scam the scammers started.

It seems that now they may want to have a third bite of the cherry after the Binary Option scam, the Recovery scam and now the Recovered Scam.

Leave a comment

Lastly if you have any comments and feedback, do put in your comments and feedback in the comment section below.

Cryptocurrency, most of you are familiar with this term especially those who were born in the 80s onward.

What is Cryptocurrency?

According to Investopedia.com and I quote:

Quote

"

What Is Cryptocurrency?

A cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency that is secured by cryptography, which makes it nearly impossible to counterfeit or double-spend.

Many cryptocurrencies are decentralized networks based on block chain technology—a distributed ledger enforced by a disparate network of computers.

A defining feature of cryptocurrencies is that

  • they are generally not issued by any central authority,
  • rendering them theoretically immune to government interference or manipulation."

unquote.

There are so many exchange platforms offering trading of cryptocurrencies.

Hence for someone who just start to get into the game, which platform do you want to use?

Today I am going to talk about one such platform which I had an experience to encounter in the last few weeks.

The name of the platform is :

1.Laptop access - https://www.realbtcex.site/wap

2. Mobile access - https://www.realbtcex.site/app.html

For the mobile version, I tried using my mobile to access, however, I failed to do so, reason being my anti virus in the phone killed the access .

My anti virus software gave me the notice - THE SITE YOU WANTED TO ACCESS MAY HARM YOUR PHONE AND IT WAS BLOCKED.

What about the web version of the platform?

Some one strongly encouraged me to sign up for this cryptocurrency exchange platform.

The person even volunteered to teach me and guide me in trading cryptocurrency using platform.

She claimed it was the way forward to make few hundred dollars per night depending on how many trades one take.

So after I told her that I could not use the mobile version, she gave me the web based version.

To enable me to access the website, I needed to disable a bit of my anti virus so that I could have a peek at the website.

When the website was on screen, it looked very plain and did not give an impression it was a trading platform, albeit a cryptocurrency one.

This is how the dashboard look like

Now have a look at the wording of ABOUT US

This is extracted from the website:

"About

RealBTC was established in March 2019 and is headquartered in Singapore.

We have established global operation centers in Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, the United States, and Switzerland. The core team comes from world-renowned financial companies and Internet technology companies.

It has obtained investment from well-known block chain funds such as JRR capital, NEO, and ONT.

The company also obtained multinational digital currency operating licenses such as MSB in the United States and VQF in Switzerland.

It is currently operating in compliance worldwide.

RealBTC will build a new generation of crypto-asset derivatives exchange, and is committed to providing a trading platform for crypto-assets with continuous transactions and data-free data, making cryptocurrency trading simpler, stable, and credible!

Our vision is to become the world's first fully functional, efficient, non-custodial trading platform, providing the highest transparency in any case.

RealBTC hopes to become the first real and democratic trading platform.

We are ready to gradually fix the functions on the platform to the block chain.

In 2021 let the platform have the ability to automate contract structure, trading and clearing."

Some Comments about the website

The website does not provide information who are the founders and people involved in running the exchange.

I had a hard time in finding where to register. The icons were actually right at the bottom of the site and need to enlarge to see the icons.

Conditions not filled still can register

In the website when one goes through the registration, there are some pages required certain information, and it was indicated the information was compulsory.

However, I noticed when I did not provide the information and clicked through to go to the next step, I was able to do so.

What does this tell you about the platform?

Do we as an investor still want to go ahead to put in Capital to this platform and do the trading?

Funding of the account

When I contacted the customer service and asked him how I could fund the account.

The Customer Service gave me a bank account number but it was under the name of an individual and not the platform name.

I asked the customer service why was it in the individual name and not in the name of the platform?

The customer service claimed they were just the custodian of the cryptocurrency and not responsible for the transaction between the seller and the buyer.

Cancellation of Account.

There is no cancellation of the account available.

I decided to get in touch with the customer service to find out.

The customer service told me  as long as I did not login to the platform for 180 days, the account would be canceled.

However if you insisted to cancel it immediately, the customer service said I needed to deposit USD $4,000 and after they have verified the capital and withdraw the money, then the account is deemed canceled.

Does it sound suspicious here?

I definitely think so, I strongly believe once I deposited the USD $ 4,000. The money would be gone for good.

After going through all these from opening account and the constant pressure from the person who recommended this site to me.

What made my doubt about this site was the eagerness and impatient of the person to get me to do the funding,

What are the main signals indicating this is a scam?

  • The person who introduced me to the platform doing the trading at night,
  • But she kept telling that afternoon had one big price movement,
  • therefore must do the funding fast in order to cash in on the trade opportunity.

I checked with one of my source in US who was the cryptocurrency analyst, and I sent the link of the website to them for verification.

The results came back within minutes .

The analyst informed me someone had actually lost USD $100,000 in this platform and not able to get the money back.

Some other findings.

The platform did not even have the following:

"WARNING:
Never make payments to any external wallet addresses or account details provided by anyone (trader, manager, staff, etc).

Our Staff will NEVER ask you to send money to any wallet address, email, Western Union, Skrill or Bank account DIFFERENT from those provided on our website.

Customers who do so, do so at their own risk.

Always write to our support/email to confirm any of such claims."

Conclusion

If you really want to trade in cryptocurrency, it is better we do our own due diligence and find out which platform can be used.

it is better we make sure the platform is properly regulated by relevant authorities.

If you have any comments and feedback, do feel free to put your comments and feedback in the comments section below.  I will be happy to answer your comments.

We all want to be loved.
And the opportunity to give love in return.
But what happens when the love you give is misunderstood or the love you receive doesn’t feel like love to you?
We give love to others in the way we wish to receive it but in many cases our desire to make someone else feel loved, backfires.
No matter how hard you work to show your partner how much you care about them, they just don’t feel loved

According to author Gary Chapman, there are 5 core love languages.
Each of us understand one of these languages but may completely misunderstand the other 4.
Learning the different languages and listening for the one that your partner understands can have a huge impact on your relationship.
When you know what someone needs in order to feel loved, you can use words and actions to demonstrate your love in a way that they understand.
Speaking the language of love is a key component in avoiding misunderstandings, resentment and conflict.
When we feel loved, we want to do more for the other person. And so the cycle of love grows and blossoms.
Our most basic emotional need is not to fall in love but to be genuinely loved by another, to know a love that grows out of reason and choice, not instinct.

Which love language do you speak?

And which one does your partner speak?

Words Of Affirmation
One way to show love is to speak in a way that affirms the other person. You can do this by complimenting your partner.
“Your hair looks beautiful today”
“ I love how you look in that suit”
“I love how you make me laugh”
Verbal appreciation is one of the most powerful languages of love there is.
When you pay someone a compliment it lets them know you see them.
That you notice them and appreciate them.

 Quality Time
Just because you live in the same house, doesn’t mean you spend quality time together.
You may sit in front of the television together in the evening but there is a big difference between quantity and quality.

Quality time involves giving your undivided attention to your partner.
Time without distractions and outside of your usual routine. Think back to when you were first dating. You wanted to know everything you could about them; you couldn’t get enough of each other.
But the busyness of life has a way of getting in the way of love.
Or more correctly, the demonstration of love that we each need in order to feel appreciated.
If your partner’s primary love language is quality time, make the effort to go on a date, go for a walk by the beach or through your neighbourhood.
Remove yourselves from the distraction of your routine and take the time to be completely present with each other. There is no surer way to reconnect and reignite your passion.

Receiving Gifts
Love is not about money but for some people, the act of giving is a key component in feeling loved.
Valentines Day may have become overly commercial but the intention behind it is pure.
It’s a chance for you to show your partner how much you love them through the giving and receiving of gifts.

But why wait until Valentines Day?

When you give an unexpected gift, it lets your partner know that you have been thinking about them.
That you know them well enough to find the perfect thing they will love.
If your partner’s face lights up when you give them a gift, then you can be fairly sure this is part of their core love language.

Acts of Service
For some people the greatest demonstration of love is to see you do something you know they will appreciate.
This may be as simple as cooking a meal once a week, or taking care of the kids for a few hours on a Saturday so your partner can have some time to themselves.
Or it could be giving a foot massage, cooking a special meal or simply emptying the dishwasher.
This is not about stereotypes and role definition but about making the time to do something to make your partner’s load a little lighter.
Making the effort to share the load really lets your partner know that you see how hard they work and that you are there for them.

Physical Touch
We have long known that physical touch is a powerful way of demonstrating love for your partner.
Embracing, kissing, holding hands and sex are special acts which you do not share with anyone else.
For some people, physical touch is vital. Without it, they don’t feel loved.
Physical love allows these people to feel secure in their relationship with their partner.
It can be as simple as touching their hand as you walk through the room they are sitting in. Or a hug and a kiss each morning and evening as you leave and return to house.
It doesn’t take much time or thought but can mean so much to your partner.
It is so easy to fall into routine with your partner and forget to show them how much you love and appreciate them.
But for a relationship to survive, both people must feel loved, seen, appreciated and secure.
Without this, arguments and resentments can arise creating friction that runs like an undercurrent through your relationship.
And when someone doesn’t feel secure and important to their partner, they may look for that feeling somewhere else.
Knowing your love language and discovering the love language your partner speaks, is a powerful way to transform your relationship and reignite those feelings of love that you are looking for.


How wonderful it is to laugh. It’s infectious.

When laughter is shared it bonds people together and creates intimacy. Laughter also triggers healthy physical changes in the body, It helps to strengthen your immune system, boost energy, diminish pain and protect against the harmful effects of stress, and it’s free!

Laughter is one of the fastest ways to bring balance back to your body and mind.

It lightens your burdens, brings hope and keeps you grounded, focused and alert.

Laughter triggers the release of endorphins in the body which makes you feel good. Humour helps you keep an optimistic attitude even through disappointments, loss and grief. More importantly it gives us the courage and strength to find new meaning and hope for the future.

Even in the most difficult times, a laugh or even a smile will lift your mood. Laughter helps you be more spontaneous, and it lets you forget judgements, criticism and doubt. Your inhibitions are also reduced when you laugh giving you the chance to connect with the real you.

You’ve probably heard the saying ‘laughter is the best medicine’.


Laughter really does help to heal your body and mind. The flow of lymph fluid is increased by the simple convulsions that occur when we laugh. This boosts immune system functionality and cleans out old dead and waste products from your organs.

As you laugh you take in big gasps of air causing the oxygen levels in your blood to rise. This ensures all the organs in your body receive rich, oxygenated blood to repair tissue and provide healing.

Studies have shown that cancer cells are destroyed in the presence of oxygen, as are certain parasites and bacteria.

Increasing the levels of oxygen in the body can help with both the healing and prevention of various diseases

Laughing boosts circulation due to the very fact that as you laugh, you are exercising your abdominal muscles, the muscles in your face and enhancing flexibility throughout the body. The harder you laugh, the greater this effect.

The skin is the biggest organ in your body and in times of stress our faces can look drawn and tired. Increasing the flow of oxygen to our skin will improve the colour, reduce wrinkles and improve the overall texture.

Add to this the sparkle your eyes will have as you add joy to your life, and you will look and feel more attractive.

Serotonin is essential for balancing brain chemistry. It aids in fighting depression, compulsive and obsessive thinking and reduces the harmful effects of stress on the body.

Serotonin is a naturally occurring chemical in the brain, however, in times of stress and grief the body’s ability to produce it can be severely reduced. Sunshine and laughter can aid the body in producing this chemical naturally thereby improving your mood and overall mindset.

Health Benefits of Laughter

  • Boosts Immunity
  • Lowers Stress Hormones
  • Decreases Pain
  • Relaxes Muscles
  • Prevents Heart Disease
  • Eases Anxiety and Fear
  • Relieves Stress
  • Enhances Resilience
  • Attracts People to Us
  • Helps Diffuse Conflict
  • Enhances Teamwork

Due to the significant difference healthy brain chemistry can make to your life, adding laughter on a daily basis makes a lot of sense.

You can build laughter and joy into your everyday life in the same way you would add exercise.

Easy ways to add joy include the following:

  • Watch a funny movie or television show
  • Share a good joke or funny story
  • Host a game night with friends
  • Play with a pet
  • Do something silly
  • Play with children
  • Seek out funny people
  • Do a fun activity (bowling, mine-golf, karaoke)
  • Go to a ‘laughter yoga’ class
  • Check out your bookstore humour section

When we are struggling with major adjustments we can take life much too seriously. Lighten your mood by adding some fun into your day. Choose to find the funny side of a situation.

Share your embarrassing moments and don’t take yourself so seriously

Look for the humour, the irony and absurdity of life in a bad situation

Keep a toy on your desk, a photo of you having fun or a funny poster in your office Pay attention to children and emulate them

The ability to laugh, have fun and play with others not only makes life more enjoyable but it also makes you more creative helping you solve problems and connect with other people in your life. Life brings challenges which can either ‘get the best of you’ or which you can use to become ‘the best you can be’. When you become the problem and take yourself too seriously, it can be hard to think outside the box and find new solutions. When children are confused or afraid they make their problems into a game and thereby have the ability to step back and find creative solutions. We can learn a lot from the way children view life.

If you think this article is helpful to you , please give your comments and feedback  below, and I would be more  than happy to reply.

If you need to find out more about topic of this nature, you can try out jaaxy.com here

Resource

This is an article by Ms Allanah Hunt who has been a good source of inspiration and have good wisdom which i feel need to share with you all.

Share wisdom of Allanah Hunt

12

Keywords, the word every internet entrepreneur has to get used to, is the magic word to help to attract internet traffic to the websites.

Everyone who wants to be successful in internet business, be it those who are old timers or beginners.

And keywords will still be the go to catch word if one wants to be successful in online business.

Then, the question arises, how do we go about finding keywords?

There are a lot of keywords research tools and website in the internet, and I am not going to go into details of those websites or tools such as Jaaxy, keywords tool.io, wordtracker.com and so on.

 


There are quite a fair bits of reviews being done on Jaaxy, hence I am not going to do another review for Jaaxy.

What this article is focusing on is

  • what do we do after we use Jaaxy to find our keywords and
  • how do we write an article using the keywords we have researched.

There are a few steps we need to take in order to use the keywords to write an article.

1. Search for the keywords of the niche you are going to be promoting.

Usually people will use the keywords research tools to search for the popular keywords phrase.

A good search engine will have some features to indicate which are most popular and most searched keywords phrase.

2. Compile a list of keywords and keywords phrase

Before you write an article, it is advisable to use the keywords tool to compile a list of keywords.

In Jaaxy, you can easily compile and prepare a list of the keywords.

3. With the list, we can decide and determine how to go about creating the article we want.

Normally, in writing an article, we will usually ensure there are certain amounts of keywords use in the article,  so that the search engine can pick up and drive traffic to the website.

4. Work out a frame work of the article base on the keywords prepared.

Once we have determined which keywords we are going to use, then we can start preparing the framework of the article, and see how we can effectively use the keywords and write a good article.

5. Putting the final work into completion.

Having decided on the framework, we can now start writing the articles.

Benefits of having keywords searched.

  1. Since we have the keywords readily available, we will discover it is easier to write the article and the flow of thought is free flowing.
  2. If we find it typing out the article is a tedious effort, perhaps we may want to use video or visual, and record a video and put in the website.

Nowadays, people tend to watch and listen instead of reading article, so using TIK TOK, YOUTUBE and any video recording may be a good idea to convey your message.

And using the keywords researched, we can prepare a good article.

IF you have any comments and feedback, please feel free to leave your input in the comments section below.

I will be glad to share and exchange ideas with you.

Key Words Search?

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