Todd Davis, the CEO of LifeLock, is trying to get the word out that the LifeLock identity theft service works sometimes!

In the below video, Davis tells Matt Lauer on the Today Show that his identity has only been stolen once, darnit! I’ve been reporting what the lawyers are saying about LifeLock, and it’s not good.

They basically say that the service is worthless. Although LifeLock puts a fraud alert on your credit report, this is something you can do on your own for free (rather than for a recurring monthly fee to LifeLock) and that the fraud alerts aren’t as effective as LifeLock leads you to believe.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been researching and reporting on the United First Financial Money Merge Account. UFF’s “agents” are poorly trained multi-level marketing pawns who spout company propaganda about how the MMA is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

I was recently directed for United First Financial’s FAQ page. I had seen this page before, but looked at it today with an entirely different perspective. With my research on the product nearly complete, I am able to see a number of distortions and deceptions in this page.

And the company can’t claim (like many MLMs do) that they’re a victim of independent contractors who are misrepresenting things. These are corporate’s own representations about what the product is and does.

Here’s a the UFF story paired with simple facts:

Welcome to the May 26, 2008 edition of carnival of fraud.

Tracy Coenen presents Getting into even more credit card trouble with United First Financial posted at Fraud Files.

Paul Wilcox presents 3 Steps To Preventing Identity Theft posted at Security Manor.

Leon Gettler presents Mortgage fraud getting worse posted at Sox First, saying, “The FBI now warns that mortgage fraud is rising, up 31 per cent to 46,717 reports. An extraordinary number when you compare it to the 6936 reported in 2003. Subprime loans are a big contributing factor.”

UPDATE: Since writing this post in 2008, LinkedIn evolved and I signed up for an account again. I find the site more useful for connecting with other professionals, and now enjoy it much more!

I didn’t really need another reason to hate LinkedIn. I hate it sufficiently. So much so, that LinkedIn employees are checking this blog all day long to see if I’ve posted anything else about the service or if readers have left new comments… either of which would likely warrant another comment to the effect of: “I work for LinkedIn and I think it’s awesome!” (No kidding?)

LinkedIn is a largely useless service for the average professional, akin to the most annoying chain letters that don’t ever seem to die. Anyone else get sick of random requests to link from trolls who really aren’t interested in quality connections?

Today fellow blogger on BlogginStocks, Sarah Gilbert, raised an alarming issue with LinkedIn.

I’ve outlined all the reasons why United First Financial’s Money Merge Account is a scam. Although it technically offers something to the buyer, it’s not worth anywhere near the $3,500 fee that’s charged for it. Consumers can pay off their mortgages faster and for free without this program.

But if you need another reason why the UFF program sucks, I’ve found it. The basic concept of the UFF MMA is a money shuffle using your mortgage and a home equity line of credit (HELOC)… which they call an ALOC. You are led to believe that you’re achieving huge mortgage savings because the UFF computer program has a secret algorithm that helps you save money. The real reason you’re saving money is that you’re prepaying your mortgage, saving you interest payments down the road.

The success of multi-level marketing companies and pyramid schemes has been based partly upon favorable media coverage of the industry. The MLMs put out plenty of positive press releases, resulting in numerous fluff pieces in newspapers and magazines over the years.

Mary Kay Cosmetics encourages fluff pieces, especially whenever a new Mary Kay national sales director is appointed. The company hounds local newspapers to run these stories, and the newspapers fall for the bait that makes the stories sound compelling:  only 500 national sales directors worldwide, millions of dollars of products “sold” by the teams created by these women, huge accomplishment to get to the top of the pyramid, etc.

But this article in the Salt Lake Tribune turned out a little differently than Mary Kay intended it. Thanks to the investigative reporting by Steven Oberbeck, he got readers to consider the “other side” of the Mary Kay issue.

Put away the Blackberry! – No, we don’t want to see how fast you can type with your thumbs.

More on LifeLock’s failure to protect identities (and its claim that it isn’t so!) – LifeLock is still a waste of money. Don’t fall for their empty promises!

Tattoos and professional jobs: Do they mix? – You can “express yourself” and still protect your professional opportunities.

Don’t spend money that doesn’t belong to you! – If it’s not yours, don’t spend it. We all know it’s a bank error, and spending it is wrong.

Office affairs now in vogue – Ick!

You have problems if you’ve stolen 100 burritos from a charity – The title speaks for itself.

If you owed a bank money under a loan that had an interest rate of 6%… And I came along and said to you “Here, take this loan with an interest rate of 8% and use the money to pay off the loan you already have…”

What would you say?

Anyone with remedial math skills would say NO WAY!

Recently I’ve posted a couple of articles about my disappointment with LinkedIn. It’s my opinion that for most professionals it’s a complete waste of time. Actual benefits from it are few and far between, unless you’re looking for a job or you’re a headhunter.

This morning there was a pending comment here on one of those articles. It was from someone pretending to be a happy user of a similar site, Salesconx. This site lets users buy and sell leads, and supposedly you don’t pay unless the lead meets your criteria.

Here’s how they describe the service:

I love Las Vegas. And when my fellow WalletPopper Zac Bissonnette decided to write a story about how recession-like times (no, we’re not really in a recession) have hit Vegas hard, I was saddened. I said to him, “Are you sure there’s really a recession there? Cuz I just tried to book a room and was amazed at the prices and availability. Seems like things are hopping.”

Zac assured me that times were tough, and even wrote on WalletPop that revenue is down, property values are declining, and stocks in casino companies are hurting.