Today, Internet access is available to anyone. Information about anything can be seen on there. Kids can absorb all the amazing things the Internet offers. Your first reaction is getting anxious they might come across something inappropriate. That’s normal, but don’t deprive them of sitting in front of the PC on one of those children’s computer desks.

The Pros and Cons of the Internet

The Internet is taking over the TV. It has opened the door to a wonderful world where children can find enjoyable games and puzzles and learn about the animal world. As they progress, they discover new sites, blogs, social networks, and eBay. Before becoming pleased at the prospect, check out what’s going on in the PC enthroned on your children’s computer desks.

Though the Internet can offer a lot of things that are educational, some sites contain violence, racism, adult material, and even the occult. Being impressionable, kids can pick up unsavory practices from the Internet. Before you let your kids lose themselves to the action on their computers and spend hours at the children’s computer desks, filter out the undesirables with Internet security using tried and tested software.

With your consistent guidance, children will learn how to guard themselves against spammers, identity thieves, and other dangers lurking online. Explaining the dangers that are waiting to happen will help children understand why you are anxious for their online safety.

Internet Safety

Do not put the computer inside your children’s room where you can’t keep an eye on the PC screen. Instead, plant the children’s computer desks in or near the living room so you will be able to monitor the sites being visited, and you can check what your children are reading and viewing. These tips can keep your kids safe from “dangerous” Internet content:

* Tell them not to give any personal info to anyone.

* Assure them that they can ask you if they see or read anything that they may not understand.

* Be prepared for damage control in case your kids come across anything violent or anything that may shock them.

Kids are like sponges. They will absorb everything they see and read. One mom insisted on family computer hours and nobody could access the Internet unless there was an older family member around. At first, there was much resistance, but soon everyone toed the line.

Who’s Watching Them While You’re Away

The computers on your children’s computer desks can be very useful and educational, but it can also be a threat to their study habits and their personal and your financial safety. Since you cannot keep track of your children’s Internet excursions 100% of the time, get snooping software that will take shots of the screen of their IMs and emails so you can see later what your children have been up to while you were away.

If you come across something suspect, don’t jump the gun on the kids. Instead, tell them that they must be careful and point out what makes you uneasy with their chat mates. They may see your point or they may rebel, but at least they know you’re tracking their activities online because you are concerned.

The practice of snooping tactics can be a pain in the neck for the children, but when it comes to family safety, you have to put your foot down. Don’t allow them to sit in front of that children’s computer desks too long. Regulate their time for the Internet, their studies, and their playtime. They still have a life besides the Internet.

Boost your children’s study habits with their very own children’s computer desks and children’s table and chairs. For the younger ones, get a child’s rocking horse. Visit RonJuneShop.com today.

Social marketing has been getting a lot of buzz lately in the internet marketing industry.

This is easy to understand since social media sites combined get more traffic per month than Google.

However, this increased attention to social sites has resulted in many coaching programs being released from so-called internet marketing gurus that promise to reveal the secrets to how you can get massive amounts of traffic and make tons of money from social marketing strategies.

The problem with this is:

* these programs are often very expensive

* who do you trust?

* are they actually teaching methods that work?

These are all very relevant concerns. Especially when you consider that these so-called experts may be just jumping on the social marketing bandwagon and looking to make some money while the topic is hot.

Who should you listen to?

When it comes to social marketing, one person that you can trust is Jack Humphrey.

Jack and his team were offering social marketing training back in 2006, before anyone really knew anything about this method of driving tons of highly targeted traffic to a website.

A free guide to web 2.0 marketing that Jack originally published in 2007 set the standard for professional and organized marketing with social media.

This free ebook, recently updated for 2008, has been downloaded over 40,000 times and was named the best free ebook for bloggers by http://Mashable.com, the largest online community for social marketing and media with well over 5 million visitors per month.

When Rich Schefren wrote The Attention Age Doctrine Part 2, he went to Jack for advice on how to use social media.

Rich would call Jack a Social Marketing Maven.

Mike Filsaime hired Jack as a social marketing consultant earlier this year and he stated quite frankly that he thinks what Jack can teach him is so powerful and so explosive that he is going to spend $36,000 over the next year to have Jack teach him everything he knows about social marketing.

Fortunately, you don’t have to pay big money to learn from this social media maven.

You can get hold of his latest guide to social marketing for free.

What you can expect:

* 67 pages of quality content

* Easy to read and reference format

* Loaded with resources and strategies

What you will learn:

* Responsible social marketing tactics that skyrocket your search engine rankings

* How to drive massive, direct traffic from authority links

What you will Not find:

* A “plug in and play” system

* A short-term plan using questionable methods and spamming that do not support long-term online presence and growth

Jack writes in a very honest , up-front, and slightly-in-your-face style.

As he says, “What have I got to lose by telling a few uncomfortable truths? I’m giving the thing away, right?”

Here’s an example of an uncomfortable truth that you need to know when it comes to social media:

All the traffic that people talk about from sites like Digg is all but worthless. Despite what the so-called experts are saying, you need to know how to go far beyond simply getting traffic from the social sites themselves in order to bet achieve quality, measurable results from social marketing.

The approach that Jack Humphrey takes is different because he tells you how to get the kind of traffic and links that work to drastically increase your conversions and get higher search engine rankings on more keyword terms than you ever thought possible.

You will also learn:

* video marketing (Google loves video links!) - how to create and syndicate video to the top video sharing sites

* what linkbait really is, how to write it, and how to use it to create a massive buzz and generate hundreds of backlinks in the process

* a free tool that with the click of a button will instantly bookmark any page on the web in all the social bookmarking sites

* step by step details on how to execute the strategies, including all the technical information, that the author, Jack Humphrey, uses himself everyday

* the right way to use RSS subscriptions to skyrocket your exposure (most webmasters and marketers are doing RSS the wrong way)

The bottom line is that social marketing is bigger, badder, and far more effective than any other marketing tactic, including paid advertising, for driving huge amounts of targeted traffic.

Mark McCullagh is the author of the NewSuccessOnline.com blog.

To learn social marketing strategies that generate free instant traffic, get your copy of the Authority Black Book for 2008 by Jack Humphrey here: Authority Black Book

Many email marketers are using Double opt-in or Confirmed Opt-in to verify the subscribers interest in receiving the emails from them. Called ‘Consent based email marketing’.

How it works?

There will be a form on the publisher site. Visitor submits his details. Now the auto-responder software that works behind the form, will send an email to the email address asking to confirm the interest.

Prospect clicks on the link in the email expressing his/her interest in receiving information from the publisher!

Basically the above is the method of ‘Confirmed Opt-ins’ or ‘Verified opt-in’.

Why you need Confirmed Opt-in?

* To avoid junk email or one time email address users. If the prospect confirms means, they are actually using that email account and most probably he/she is going to use it future. So your email will be going to a real person.

* To cover yourself from spam complaints. Say ‘Tim Doe’ enters email of ‘John Doe’. Without confirmed opt-in, publisher don’t know this … So he will be sending email to ‘John Doe’. ‘John Doe’ will be annoyed by these emails and wrote a spam complaint on the publisher.

What percentage of Confirmed opt-ins is reasonable?

I’d say 50% and more is a reasonable margin. More than 80% is an excellent figure!

If 100 prospects subscribed, only 50 people confirmed their interest in receiving your email … not bad. But it is ALWAYS BETTER to improve this 50% to more than that. Right?

How to improve this Confirmed opt-ins?

* Your email series or ezine should provide good information to the subscriber. Sure he’d love to receive that info from you. People love to receive information that is useful to them. Like tips, free software or free tools links, discounts etc.

* Clear instructions on your web sites regarding your private policy, terms of use and anti-spam seal etc. Not only just displaying, you should follow them too.

* Recommendations or testimonials from your present subscribers. Display them on your subscription pages. This increases your credibility.

* Post your previous ezine publications as an archive on your site. So visitors can see the previous ezine content.

* Keep instructions on your subscription page that to check their junk folder for your initial email. If they don’t check it there, they will miss the email to confirm their subscription.

* Ask your subscribers to add your domain to their safe list, so they will receive the confirmation email to their inbox.

* Use SPF record to improve your email deliverability from your web site. SPF records are usually set by your host. If the SPF record is properly set, most email client allow your email pass through the email filters.

* Make sure confirmation emails, links to click in the email are working properly.

* Set up a short tutorial and a screenshot on how to confirm by clicking the link or other means, on your subscription page.

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“Media professionals face a variety of different challenges, requiring that they work under strict and stressful deadlines,” suggests Rene Lacape, Marketing Manager for eQuote Life Insurance. “They are generally required to cover a variety of topics, including those that they may not know anything about. And they are continually receiving criticism from professionals, politicians and the public as whole despite all of their greatest efforts.”

At the same time, larger audiences are hearing their voices, and their power is serving as a direct liaison to the ears and the eyes of the public, and this power cannot be disputed. When it comes to financial professionals, this means that you can grow your business practice with the power of the media no matter how many years you have been in the industry. The shortcomings of the media can actually be used to the same advantage on a professional level.

Some of the biggest competitors in this business are not insurance agents, financial planners, financial professionals, stockbrokers or other investment advisors who are actively working with the public. Instead, the biggest competition is actually the media, which is interesting to say the least. Many people concern themselves with what they view to be their competition, other financial advisors in the industry, but really there is much business out there waiting to be had, and the real challenge should be getting real information to the public despite the media’s best attempts to steer the public astray.

How has it become so obvious that the media has gained so much power? “I have experienced a variety of examples of successful partnering with the media,” says Rene Lacape. “Reading something in print, or seeing it come up on a television show only makes everything seem more important or more valuable.”

Think about reality television as an example. People believe that their own realities are too boring, so they turn to the television where the media makes other people’s lives seem multitudes more important. Obviously there is more to appealing to the public through the media than simply fun and games, as there is a high level of credibility that comes along with committing one’s words into print because of an inherent level of accountability.

The recognition that comes with recognizing a face on the television builds a much more significant level of trust and expectation,” explains Rene Lacape. So why is the media so powerful? This isn’t the question that you should be asking. Instead, consider how you could possibly capitalize on it.

Here are 8 outstanding ways that you can earn some credibility through working with the media.

1 – Write an opinion position paper, or a short piece on a topic that you are passionate about, or one that is often talked about within your practice. Print the paper in the form of a newsletter, or put a cover letter on the front. Then your opinion is ready for your clients, should they happen to ask you for it. Your paper is a lot more credible than simply telling your clients what you feel.

2 – Write a quarterly or a monthly newsletter, printing it and mailing it or sending it out over the Internet to all of the contacts and clients in your address book.

3 – Send a letter to the editor of one of the newspapers that you read, or one of the trade journals that you know your clients are reading. These are the perfect places for you to send letters or comments that could allow for you to be published in an upcoming issue.

4 – Write letters to other writers, especially when you find an article that you find particularly interesting. Make comments on their article, and then offer yourself up as a resource for future resources on the topic or similar topics.

5 – Write a column for a company’s newsletter, the local newspaper, a bulletin at your church, a trade journal or any other publication where potential clients may be found. Offer to write something regularly, as editors are always on the look out for talented writers.

6 – Turn yourself into an expert, by letting local journalists know that you are an expert on a particular subject matter, or several similar subject matters. Many websites are specifically on the hunt for potential interviewees to build quality content. Next time someone is doing a story on something that you specialize in, they may likely remember who you are.

7 – Write a book, because nothing builds more quick credibility than becoming a published author. You can always hire a ghostwriter if you do not have the time or motivation to write on your own.

8 – Finance your own program on television, radio or through a blog, which in most cases can be cost effective and convenient.

When something is written or viewed on television, it demonstrates that you are an authority or an expert, as well as your willingness to take out the necessary time to inform the public. Media exposure is excellent at displaying the fact that you are a credible professional. “Even if you employ a few of these strategies it is sure to develop your credibility over the long term, concludes Rene Lacape.

Jonathan Carlson is a veteran freelance writer covering the a Jonathan Carlson is a veteran freelance writer covering the life insurance industry.

If you are an owner of a website, then you will know all too well that getting optimal rankings in the search engines can be quite a challenge. The keywords you use play a big part in improving your search engine rank. You have to use the correct keyword that you know your target audience will be using to search for the product or service you’re offering.

For example, if you had a work at home website, than your target audience would be searching for home based opportunities using keyword phrases such as ‘Work Online’, ‘Work from Home’ and ‘Free Home Based Business’.

Hopefully the guide I’m about to reveal to you will help you improve your rankings in the major search engines.

1. Get Links Pointing (Inbound) To Your Website

Use your primary keyword search terms as the anchor text to your text links. It’s important you’re aware of which sites are linking to you. It is ultimately in your best interest to get links from sites that have good quality inbound links. Google, Yahoo and Msn give more relevance to links from important websites than they do from less important sites. This is how you improve your website page rank.

2. Use the Signature Box in Message Forums

Use the same keywords in the text links anchor text. The search terms or keyword phrases that you use should be the ones that you want your website to get listing under in the major search engines. Join and participate in forums directly related to your website subject topic.

3. Add Good Quality Content to Your Website

Adding unique content to your website daily is ideal and is crucial to your websites presence in the major search engines. By doing this, it makes your site more index-able to the search engines which will result in more traffic. Add new content on a daily basis also means your visitors will continue to return to your website.

4. Submit Your Site to Web Directories

Using web directories is one of the best ways of getting one-way links pointing towards your site. However you will find that some of the directories require a reciprocal link. If you do decide to trade links with a web directory, then it’s always best practice to trade with higher page ranking directories. If you do run into reciprocal directories with very low page rank, then I advise you don’t bother with them. Submitting to web directories can prove to be quite time-consuming, but well worth taking the time providing you submit to the most relevant ones.

5. Create Optimal Page Titles

Try to make your page titles, clear, simple and descriptive. By doing this you make it far easier for the search engines to determine what each page is about. It also makes it easier for web users to determine (at a quick glance) if your page contains the information they are looking for. The title is the most important aspect of any web page.

These are all the vital steps to increasing your ranking in the search engines. Study them and try to apply them. It will take hard work, consistency and patience.

Follow the steps I’ve outlined above coupled with the necessary effort and you should begin to see an increase in your sites relevance resulting in a rise to the top of the major search engines.

Uchenna Ani-Okoye is an internet marketing advisor.
If you?re seeking more information on search engine optimisation then check out my website which is: Free Affiliate Programs

Alternatively you can visit: My Web Search

eBay provides you with a great way to earn extra income, double your income, or finally be able to work from home and earn a great living! By engaging with the site and taking a few simple steps, you will be well on your way to earning income in a minimal amount of time which means more opportunity to enjoy your earnings!

You may have heard eBay’s slogan: “What ever it is, you can get it on eBay.” What a great concept, there is a buyer interested in anything and everything…which means profits for you as a seller on eBay.

Did you know that the first item sold on eBay was a broken laser printer for $14.83? When the winning bidder was contact to make sure he realized that the laser printer was in fact, broken, he responded “I’m a collector of broken laser printers.” This true story illustrates that there is a potential buyer for anything and everything – even the items which may otherwise end up in your trash!

Many sellers work by posting everything they can get their hands on from their attic, garage, family, friends, garage sales, etc. While this is a way to start earning income, you may want to consider a more targeted approach to maximize your earnings. eBay has a WANT IT NOW section which allows buyers to post requests for items they are seeking so sellers can respond. This is very important as these are the items that are known to be in demand with willing buyers.

Auction Inspector software actually inspects the WANT IT NOW section for the number of requests for product along with the responses by sellers to calculate an algorithm which gives you the potential of products. Low potential items are not in high demand, or have already been responded to by many sellers. High potential items are those which will make you money because these items are in demand with little to no offerings by sellers. This is an easy way to hone in on the products that will maximize your profits with the lowest time investment as you will not waste your time offering low potential products.

So, where can you find high potential products at low costs, allowing you to earn income? SaleHoo is a subscriber directory which allows members access to a myriad of wholesale product suppliers. This allows you easy, instant access to the items which you have identified as high potential at a wholesale price, which means profit for you! A key benefit of SaleHoo is that it allows you to order low quantities at the same wholesale price as a large order. These distributors want to work with you as a home based business and are willing to extend price breaks for brand name products whether you order 1 or 1000.

In researching this article, it is clear that many people are earning income with a home based eBay business. Anyone can do this and with the tools outlined in this article, you can efficiently start earning money quickly with little time investment which means more time for you to enjoy your earnings and live your dreams! You can do this – what are you waiting for!

For more information about what you learned Click Here!

In April 2007, an ebook product called “Get Google Ads Free” was released by retired doctor Jon Cohen of New York. The product detailed a method that Dr. Cohen had developed and used for the previous 9 years to acquire over $93 million in Google Adwords ads for free. He used the ads to market products for 16 different companies he created and built up a personal fortune of over $70 million.

Immediately after the product was released, it created a big controversy in the Internet Marketing business. People on various blogs and forums were highly critical of the product, even calling it a “scam”.

However, after a short few months, people that purchased and bought the product started to post positive comments in the forums and blogs, supporting the marketing claims made by Dr. Cohen. People said that the “secret” of “Get Google Ads Free” actually lies in an old traditional direct response marketing strategy with a completely NEW Internet “twist” that no one’s ever seen.

One of the most well-known internet marketing forums, WarriorForum.com, had a full-blown, on-line feud going on. The “Get Google Ads Free” controversy had generated over 230 posts and 15,000 views in a very short period of time. Eventually, the moderator at WarriorForum pulled the entire thread since it was generating “too much” rancorous discussions.

As shocking as it may seem, Google has NO problem with the course that reveals how anyone can get ads on their search engine for Free. After all, Google makes most of it’s money from the sale of both AdWords (PPCs) ads and AdSense (where webmasters allow Google to show their ads on their pages).

One might think that any information that revealed how an advertiser could get their AdWords pay-per-clicks free would be damaging to Google, and therefore Google would not want anyone finding out about it, right?

WRONG! It seems that the secret system developed by the retired doctor contains an interesting “twist” that while allowing advertisers to eliminate their AdWords costs, it does not reduce a single dollar in AdWords revenue for Google.

In fact, just the opposite! Google actually endorses the “Get Google Ads Free” ebook.

In order to verify this claim, I contacted the company. Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Mr Todd Coutrin, responded:

“We started our launch like we always do with any product online, using Google AdWords to offer our Product.

“We used keywords that contained the word ‘free’ so we anticipated the usual HOLD these keywords usually cause when Google scrutinizes the ads.”

“But when our campaign was paused by Google for a tad more time than what we regularly anticipate, we became concerned.”

“I actually placed a call directly to Google at 1-866-2-GOOGLE and spoke at length with a customer services rep who said she’d check into what was happening.

“She returned my call 16 hours later and informed me that due to the specific nature of the Product in question (i.e., the ebook “Get Google Ads Free!”) their team at Google secured the product, read it all the way trough, and then realizing it would NOT hurt their revenue but actually increase it, they immediately un-paused and resumed our ads”

So, the fact that Google allowed a product like this to be advertised on their network is pretty convincing evidence that it does what it claims.

But, to be thorough, I purchased a copy of “Get Google Ads Free” to see if it really can enable you to buy millions of dollars worth of Google ads for free. Due to copyright and non-disclosure rules, I can’t reveal their proprietary information. But I can tell you that with the application of what’s inside “Get Google Ads Free”, that:

- Google loses NO money

- Google actually can make even more MONEY!

- Advertisers gain an instant almost unfair advantage over anyone not privy to what’s inside “Get Google Ads Free!”

- Advertisers can now afford to outbid their competition.

- Advertisers are not at risk any longer as their advertising budgets no longer matter.

Overall, this is a very impressive product that is really revolutionary in the Internet Marketing world. Who can benefit from buying this product? Basically, anyone who runs an online business that buys ads and needs web traffic. So, if you sell your own product or are an affiliate program marketer, this product could revolutionize your business.

Kurt Hagemeister President of KWH Marketing, a marketing consulting company specializing in Internet Marketing. http://www.TrafficForNothing.com Resources, Reviews, and Tips Of How To Get Massive & Free Web Traffic

Digital signage is fast becoming the medium of choice for in-store advertising. It allows retailers to create compelling, visually interesting messages that can be easily targeted to specific groups of customers. It is also flexible – messages can be quickly revised at any time of day in response to changes in shopper demographics.

Content is a critical part of a digital signage network. Any digital network plan must include a detailed discussion of which content to include and how to display it.

Tips from Digital Media Design Professionals

Digital media design experts can devise an effective plan for your digital signage content. Here are some of the points they consider when planning a digital signage project.

• Always begin with a plan that includes forecasted costs and a clear idea of the messages you want to create.

• Who are you targeting? You cannot plan any type of advertising without knowing a lot about the audience you are trying to reach. Sales data is a great starting point. Be sure to analyze trends at specific times of day to take advantage of day-parting capabilities, discussed below.

• What content do you want to include? This seems like an obvious starting point, but many retailers get so caught up in the technology that they forget about the content. Consider starting with your existing advertising materials to see if there are ideas you can adapt to your digital merchandising.

• Remember that what works for print or TV does not work for short video. In-store messages must be concise in order to hook busy customers who often intend to purchase only what is on their shopping list. The right display can encourage them to consider buying something else. A digital media design expert can help you create a display that stops customers in their tracks.

• Day-parting. The ability to schedule different messages at different times of day is one of the main advantages of digital signage. When planning your content, take day-parting into consideration. You need to analyze your sales data to know who shops when so you can target a message to specific types of consumers. You also need to decide how many messages you require to cover all of the segments in an average day, for example, early morning, mid-day, after-school, dinner, evening.

• Static content, animation or video? This is a tough decision. When planning your content, be sure you understand these format options and the costs associated with each. Animation and video are expensive, so be sure to plan carefully. Templates allow you to re-use material when creating new messages so try to use them when possible.

• Less is more. It may be tempting to spend a lot on animation, but too much motion can overwhelm a viewer. Often static images and text are sufficient to draw customers in.

An effective digital media design strategy will address both content and formatting for your in-store digital displays and is the best starting point for your digital merchandising project.

For more information on creative digital media digital media services and digital merchandising contact http://www.ek3.com

As the longtime owner of a couple of popular online stores, I’ve learned the hard way - through experience - that online criminals are constantly trying to take advantage of the ease in online shipping to commit fraud.

For consumers whose credit cards are used in online fraud, there’s no loss. The bogus charges are almost always refunded. But for online retailers who get conned into processing the orders, there is no relief.

If it’s fraud, you get a chargeback. You’re out the order, the merchandise you shipped and the online fees charged by your credit card processor.

Those chargebacks are never pleasant. In the early days, I had my share. But after plenty of grumbling, I decided to consider them what financial expert and radio talk show host Dave Ramsey calls a “stupid tax.”

Then, I set my mind to learn from them so I wouldn’t keep paying the “stupid tax.”

I started by making a list of every chargeback I was hit with over a 12-month period. I rigorously examined them, looking for patterns and similarities. As a result, I instituted some security procedures and checklists that have worked well in greatly reducing the fraud losses from my stores.

I still get stung, but very rarely these days.

The one single step that has most helped reduce fraudulent orders for me and my stores is to eliminate shipping to any location other than North America. I know, that’s a drastic step. But while I no doubt do indeed do lose some legitimate business from overseas customers, it has been my experience that most fraud originates overseas.

And my experience is not unusual. Once recent study I have seen, from Cybersource, notes that fraud rates on overseas orders are four times the level of North American orders. Thus, not allowing orders from places other than the U.S. and Canada helps eliminate many of the problems.

Still, almost every day, some thief still tries to get through. Most of them are from criminals trying to see if a credit card number they have is still good. They’ll place an order and provide a ship-to address in the U.S.

Below are my top 10 suggestions for catching the fraud before you complete the transaction. As many of these flags as you have on an order, the more apt it is bogus:

1) Shipping FedEx overnight is a frequent marker. The thief figures the merchant will move so fast to process the order that there won’t be too much scrutiny. A dead give away and cause for you to seriously question the oder is when the overnight shipping costs approximate the item’s cost.

2) Look at the phone number and e-mail address provided by the customer. Does the area code match the city and state of the customer? If the customer uses a free Yahoo!, Hotmail, or Google account, does it correspond to the customer’s name? Thieves always use these free accounts. So, of course, do many genuine customers. But an e-mail to a domain not associated with free web-based accounts, with a username (the part before the “@” sign) that matches the customer, is usually good.

3) If your store has referrer info on orders, like Yahoo! Stores provides, for example, examine how the customer found you. My store’s order info lists the search phrase they used, or the last page they came from. Thieves tend to search on phrases like “international shipping” or “overnight delivery” instead of the category or keywords products are advertised under.

4) Check the IP address. And IP (Internet Protocol) address is a unique numerical identifier that much like a house address. In this case, it identifies the computer network that the order came from. Your oder processing software should also show you the IP address that the order was sent from. Check it out. On my Yahoo! Stores, all I have to do is click the address and it does a trace, identifying the network location. If it’s overseas, shipping to the U.S., I consider it fraud unless I can call the phone number and talk to a real customer.

5) Beware of mail forwarding operations and shipping to Post Office Boxes. Watch out for mail processing locations. Many thieves order your items from overseas and have them shipped to maildrops. Often, instead of a box number, these locations can be spotted by having a “suite” number under the address line. Miami and Houston have a bunch of maildrops serving South America. Seattle and Los Angeles have them for Asia. New Your City handles Africa and Eastern Europe. If suspicious, run the customer address through Google. Often you’ll see it listed to a service for mail forwarding company.

6) Be suspicious if the shipping address and the billing address on the order are different. At the very least, whenever this happens, don’t process the order unless you call the customer to confirm the order. Some stores even make it a policy to ship only to the billing address listed for the credit card. I get a lot of orders from parents buying my products for their kids who are away at college so that’s not a policy we impose. But we always call when the addresses are different.

7) Always expect fraud when you get multiple orders submitted from the same customer in sequence, using the same credit card, or the same ship-to address.

Beware of unusually large orders. You know from your oder processing reports,what the average customer buys. You know what is a big order. Is it over $250? Over $500? Over $1,000? When the norms are exceeded you should carefully examine the order.

9) Be skeptical when you get orders with multiple quantities of the same product. It is common for fraudulent orders to be large quantities of a single item.

10) Look for typos, grammar and punctuation errors. Serious customers make mistakes in filling our your oder forms. But not nearly as often as thieves do.

If I had to boil everything down to a single piece of advice, it would be this: When in doubt, try to reach the customer. If the phone is disconnected, mark it as fraud. If there is no answer, leave a message on the answering machine. Then send an e-mail. If after 24 hours the e-mail and the call are not returned, do not process.

These are just some of the fraud indicators and precautions I’ve learned over the years. They are by no means exhaustive. But I have instructed all my employees to filter our orders through skeptical eyes. As a result, we’ve diminished our chargebacks to only two or three cases a year.

The author is the owner of the Online Christian Shopper Christian T-Shirt shop and the Christian Jewelry Online Christian jewelery store.

Dissatisfied with your job? Want to quit? Want to work from home? The article outlines four important reasons for a person to quit his/her 9 to 5 job and explore the online money making option.

No matter what reason you have throwing in the towel and becoming a home based entrepreneur, you will have some serious transition time. You may be viewing the handwriting on the wall already, or you may just be waiting till you can get a Plan B going properly, but you would be wise to plan ahead as much as possible before putting a stop to working for others. If you’re looking for an excuse to quit the corporate world and work from home, almost any excuse will do, but below are listed four good reasons for resolving the difficulties issues involved in the workplace.

The stress is building to the point where it is affecting your physical and emotional health

No one would argue that stress has no affect on physical and emotional health, yet the signs of significant stress in your life may manifest in very different ways. Some people get sick, others make telephone calls, others still get significantly depressed. Some will even begin suffering from a migraine. If you hate going to work and the idea of work from home sounds much more appealing, you should explore the job opportunities that don’t involve a daily commute.

The company you work for is ethically challenged

If there is a mismatch between your ethics and those of the company you work for, then continuing to wrestle with your conscience can be a most frustrating and stressful experience. For example, if customer service people are routinely forced to promise products or services that can’t possibly be delivered, your best bet may be to cut the ties to the corporate world and work at home. Sometimes working for a particular employer may mean that you are helping to make or provide a product or service that you don’t personally believe in.

You don’t get along with your coworkers or employers

In one sense, this may be a Catch-22 situation. You don’t want to work at your current employment, so you don’t get along with those who work there and because you don’t get along well with your bosses and coworkers, you don’t want to work there. However, in another sense, the difficulty may be much more far-reaching and may be a symbol of all the reasons why you should leave the corporate job and work from home. If your goals change significantly, it’s hard to continue associating with the people and places that you once may have found acceptable.

There’s no excitement left in going to work

Some people would say their work is now boring–there is no challenge left in doing the same thing at the same time every day for the rest of their working life. This is what is meant by ‘no excitement’. If you have a driving need to see more than mind-numbing boredom in your working world, consider the opportunities offered by work from home. This is perhaps the best reason of all to quit your corporate job and go to work for yourself.

If you are looking for an opportunity to make money from home, then you can do no better than Work from Home or Work at Home. So what are you waiting for? Go to the site and start earning!