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#there's also an email claiming to be from FedEx that starts with ''this message was sent by a trusted sender'' lmao
thethingything · 2 months
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we just got a fucking scam email from someone claiming we'd bought bitcoin on paypal and there's something very satisfying about immediately forwarding it to paypal's fraud investigations address
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frank-av-blog · 6 years
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The Rhetoric Of Brand Messaging
The street value of one 30 mg XR Adderall is . The food-giving project has been praised, with one responding: “Wonderful idea, kindness will always be appreciated by those in need and congratulated by those with a heart. For example, if you are on other medications, such as cimetidine or azole antifungal, then you will need to avoid Viagra. If he takes CIALIS a few times and still isn't satisfied with the results, he should talk with his doctor, as his dose may need to be adjusted. I'd like to avoid going to the doctor about it for a few reasons, mainly because it takes like over a month to get an appointment with the guy, lol. Over the past 15 years, medical research has proven that Viagra is a miracle drug for millions of women around the world with common and rare heart conditions. Cialis begins working in 30 minutes while Viagra starts working in 15 minutes. Food to Avoid While Taking Cialis Can Drinking Wine Lead to High Cholesterol? FDR got us above drowning in the 1930's by taking the dollar off the gold standard. And the dollar is backed by nothing! Other than these conditions, pregnenolone has also been found to helpful in certain peculiar conditions affecting men and women in particular. This helps the impotent men to hold on strong for long time. ED hit men were just required to buy Cialis Online after the attainment of Cialis prescription, and the drug would be shipped right to their threshold. The double-patenting issue in the tadalafil (CIALIS) cases concerns two of Lilly’s patents. In the same way that Sildenafil and Vardenafil act, Tadalafil is often recommended as an 'as needed' medication. Sildenafil was theoretically authorized by the US Food in 1998 like a medicine to help remedy impotence. When it comes to something cosmetic, like our hair, we may use hair dye to cover it. The laws on holding personal data in the United States may be less stringent than the laws of your Country of residence or citizenship. For example, the person who created Apple Computer's tagline, "Think different," may not have been trying to intentionally break the rules of grammar (e.g., think differently). For anyone who is taking nitrate prescription drugs, you shouldn’t employ this cure. When it comes to the internet, there are a lot of people who are not certified to say what they say. Free people to babysit your kids now and then. Then issues of safety, health, side effects and various other issues are held against the ED drugs. Viagra increases the effects of the blood pressure lowering medications. Let them know right away that you are taking Viagra or Cialis. Fedex. Taking with drugs treats an natural Fedex completely treated to breathe. This announcement appeared in the agency's latest watch list of drugs with possible safety issues, "January - March 2016: Potential Signals of Serious Risks/New Safety Information Identified from the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS)". What drugs don't interact well with anesthesia? As well as seasonal flu, online pharmacies there are several other types of flu. There are alternative component however they are not disclosed however are said to improve sexual performance. There are many tall claims made by the manufacturer, but there is no information about the money back guarantee and the company. Some of the email scams are very clever. Posted by BRENDA ANGELA at 02:13 Email ThisBlogThis! Not exactly rocket science now is it? I talk to my dog so much that I'm surprised she doesn't talk back by now! Instead of getting on with our lives, we have all of this fatigue and other problems to deal with. They have the same design and same format as the real company’s emails. Once you have satisfied yourself as to the manufacturers credibility, take a look at the content listings. I could take it late Friday or early Saturday and be good to go through most of Sunday, which is why they call Cialis "The Weekender". Life was good again! The recommended dose for BPH is 5 mg taken once a day at around the same time of the day. Cialis should be taken no more than once a day.
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templatetrip · 5 years
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PrestaShop Ready website builder
PrestaShop is a powerful and popular open-source e-commerce application used by more than 270,000 web stores worldwide.
Experts can download, install and set up PrestaShop for free. It has everything you need to build a catalogue of products, both physical and digital, then create your own custom web store, manage the checkout and payment process, keep track of orders, and market and grow your business.
PrestaShop Ready is a more beginner-oriented service which enables users to set up their web store with the minimum of hassle. There's no software to download and install, no need to organize hosting, and no web development experience required. PrestaShop Ready already has all the technical basics sorted, leaving you to focus solely on your products and the store.
Pricing is simple, with PrestaShop Ready currently only available in a single 'Start' plan. Pro and Premium options are teased at “coming soon”, but no information about it is displayed. The specs for the one and only ‘Start’ plan look good to us, with support for unlimited products, images and staff accounts, along with customizable and mobile-friendly themes, a blog, newsletter, SSL certificate, and payment accepted via PayPal and card. Prices start at a reasonable $28.40 for monthly billing, or the equivalent of $22.71 per month if you pay for a year up-front.
There are also some down sides. Regular PrestaShop has huge libraries of add-ons and themes, for example, but PrestaShop Ready has only a few essential options. It's still a very capable system, but if you're a PrestaShop expert, you could be frustrated.
It looks to us like PrestaShop Ready could be an interesting product for more demanding e-commerce newcomers, though. If that sounds like you, the service is available as a free 15-day trial, with no payment details required.
Getting started
To start your PrestaShop Ready trial, you must first hand over some personal details, including your email address, name, gender (why?), and, optionally, your phone number.
Next, the website prompted us for our store name. This can easily be changed, later, but for now allows you to access the site as a PrestaShop Ready subdomain.
A Localization page then asked us to enter our location, in order that it could set our main currency and tax rules. During the review, the website only allowed us to choose between France, Italy and Spain, but it also explained that many more currencies were available from the full store administration console. We opted for France.
That was the end of the question, and we had nothing else to do beyond agree to the Terms and Conditions and hit the Create Store button. After a pause of a few minutes, as the service created our store, the website redirected us to our PrestaShop Ready console.
This opening interface has menus which can take you to some very complex setup areas, but also does its best to cater for beginners, with clearly-labelled buttons to view the default store layout, manage your store, add a custom domain name and more, as well as a pointer to a set of online video tutorials where you can find out more. 
Creating your store
Clicking on the Manage Store button took us to the PrestaShop Dashboard, and gave us a first look at just what the package could do. A sidebar gave us access to options such as our product Catalog and Customer Service modules, Design, Shipping, Payment and International tools, and more. The main screen provides detailed analytics on traffic, orders, newsletter subscribers and other key details.
If you're new to e-commerce, a set of tutorials are available to walk you through the initial setup process. This starts by choosing a shop theme. There are only eleven of these, but they're all high-quality and very customisable, and it's likely you'll find something that appeals.
Your chosen theme can be further configured in many ways. This can start with some high-level design decisions, so for example we were able to decide whether to set up 'Featured Product', 'Top Sellers' and 'New Products' content blocks on our own store. But you can also fine-tune low-level details from color schemes to button styles and system fonts. There's a lot to learn in figuring out how this is done - PrestaShop has its own interface for these tasks, and it's nothing like a conventional website builder - but that's inevitable when you have this much power, and if you're happy with the defaults, you can ignore most of the advanced design tweaks for now.
It's a similar picture when building your product catalogue. Drag and drop some images, add a product name, a rich text summary and description, and a price, and you could, maybe, stop there. But explore the menus a little and you'll find options to configure product type (single physical, a combination of physical products, a downloadable product, a service), variations (size, color), quantities (minimum per order, stock management), taxes, a complex set of shipping rules, SEO, smart redirection (display another product or category if this one is disabled), associated files (instructions, manual), and more.
Again, there is real power and industrial-strength functionality here, but you don't have to worry about the low-level complexities, most of the time. You can create a minimal product set with a very few options, preview your website to see how this works, and modify the results as you go to make whatever changes you need.
Alternatively, if you've already created a product catalog with another e-commerce platform, there's a very good chance that PrestaShop can import it for you. The hugely sophisticated import module supports multiple file types (.csv, .xls, .xlsx, .xlst, .ods, .ots), allows mapping source columns to the appropriate PrestaShop fields, and can import a host of other business-related data, including product categories, customizations, suppliers, customers and more.
Payment processing support is more typical, with support for PayPal, cards (via Stripe), bank transfer and check. The stand-alone PrestaShop has many more, including WorldPay, CCBill and Amazon Pay. PrestaShop Ready is relatively easy to set up, but that includes a more limited number of payment options - although PayPal and Stripe should cover most of your starting needs.
While these functions worked well, being forced to choose another country for our location (France) presented us with some issues. It is frustrating having to do this once the store is set up rather than at the start. On top of which you need to import the localisation pack for your country. Although you can set your default language and country without it, you can’t choose your currency without it. 
It is also crucial you make this change prior to adding any products to your catalog as you will have to manually alter values to each one otherwise, like the amount of VAT to pay for instance.
PrestaShop Ready is a relatively new service, so hopefully the language issue will be fixed soon, but seven months on from when we originally reviewed this service, nothing has changed on that front. However despite this, the service still provides a comprehensive interface which enables building a good-looking and feature-packed web store.
Running your business
PrestaShop Ready comes with a stack of order processing tools, covering invoicing, credit slips, delivery slips and more. Setting up shipping is more awkward than we would like, but PrestaShop's bundled Upela module can help by comparing multiple carriers - FedEx, TNT, UPS, DHL, dpd, Colissimo, Chronopost, Mondial Relay, Correos, SEUR, BRT, SDA, ASM, Nexive - and, apparently, getting discounts of up to 75%. 
A built-in customer service module provides a unified IMAP-based system to organize customer emails and messages into individual discussion threads. A default response template helps to get you started, file attachment support allows customers to send additional information, and you can easily forward messages to another employee for handling, or mark them as Closed when they're complete. It's not a full-strength helpdesk, but it's good enough for most purposes.
Once your website is up and running, the Dashboard begins to fill with handy stats and details on every aspect of the business. There's basic visitor and unique visitor figures, traffic sources, the number of recent online visitors and active support carts, and details on pending orders, abandoned carts and more.
You can also browse historic charts of visits, sales, orders and net profits, as well as measure your current performance against forecasts. A convenient Demo Mode populates all these charts and graphs with sample data, allowing you to see how these analytics work before you sign up.
If all this gets too much, or you run into problems, a Help button bottom-right gives you instant access to the support system. 
A pop-up window includes a search box where you can look for support articles matching various keywords. There's a lot of content, but it's not always as direct or immediately helpful as we would like. If you want to know how to add a carrier to your website, for instance, searching for Carrier will lead you to a promising-looking Managing Carriers article. But despite being more than 1,200 words and crammed with general information, it doesn't contain the step-by-step guidance you might expect.
Fortunately, live chat and telephone support is available if you're losing track. Our test question got a speedy and helpful response, as well as a pointer to more detailed tutorials which we otherwise might have missed.
Final verdict
PrestaShop Ready isn't quite as easy to set up as the company claims, but it does allow you to build an industrial-strength web store for a very reasonable price.
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chargrowsref · 5 years
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LETTERS BETWEEN ONE.
12th October 2018
Dear Vera,  
I haven’t heard from you in a while. I was wondering how you are? It’s been so long that you’re starting to feel like a mere fictional fabrication festering in my mind. Writing you a letter feels right; it feels special enough for you to physically feel my appreciation for you, but also distant enough that you feel I could still leave you.  
The written word feels permanent unlike sending an e-mail, or a text. The physical movement and process of letter writing has an impact on me as the writer, the same as the action of guiding a paintbrush across a canvas or moulding clay with your hands. Letter-writing has a long and important place in history. I hope you to experience the pure exhilaration that letter-writing provides me with. I’ve been thinking a lot about where letter-writing sits within my life, our relationship, and my artistic practice. I’ve been looking to others to try and gain an understanding of the art within contemporary society and I'm hoping you can offer some kind of perspective on this. I’ll start by suggesting you read a book titled, I Love Dick (1997) by Chris Kraus, it's opened up new ideas for me on how letter-writing can be used to bring people together and tear people apart. The book follows a woman called Chris Kraus, her husband Sylvere, and Dick who Chris falls in love with. The first chapter titled ‘Scenes from a marriage’ we see Chris and Sylvere obsessing and re-writing letters to Dick, who the couple had dinner with one evening. In an interview the author Chris Kraus stated that the ‘character’ “writes him a letter because she's too shy to call” Kraus(2018)and I relate to that, I’m too shy to call you in the fear you wouldn’t pick up, or you would and I wouldn’t know what to say to you. 
Letter-writing in this book becomes a game for Chris and Sylvere, an art project, this is something that resonated with me and our relationship, Vera.I hope that us exchanging letters will, unlike Chris and Sylvere, bring us closer together and something beautiful will come of it. The blurred lines between auto-biography and fiction is what makes this book all-consuming, you become wrapped in the complex narratives of these seemingly average people. The idea of someone or something being ‘average’ or ‘mundane’ is what excites me as a reader or viewer, the small chance of something being a possibility in my own life. I too could become infatuated with you and like Chris start tirelessly writing you letters. This style of writing feels loose, like a playground of language, I feel I could piece together any words and it would be okay. I do hope you reply, and we can begin to discuss with each other not only what letter-writing  may mean to others but what it could mean to us. 
I look forward to hearing from you.
All the best,
Charlotte. 
 28th October 2018
 Dear Charlotte,  
I’m well, although I am slightly baffled as to why you think sending me a letter is going to make me forgive your neglect of me. I will forgive you, but I will not allow your gesture to move me like I think you thought it would. I think it’s a rather selfish gesture. Your desire to be in touch with the words in which you write, and to really feel the words you piece together, is the real reason you like to write letters. Not to make someone feel special, not to create a beautiful object for someone else because if you wanted to create beautiful objects for someone else why not send someone a painting or a sculpture? You claim to be an artist but you’re giving me a letter - my bank sends me letters too. I think your romanticism of letter writing is dated and somewhat naïve.  You also forget to acknowledge that Chris and Sylvere actually “pass the laptop between them” which means not even these characters, or people, you are fantasising about are experiencing the process of physically writing a letter. I think you’re disregarding the use of e-mail as a contemporary form of letter writing, the contents of an email can be just as emotive as a letter and have just as much potential to move the receiver. Take Sophie Calle’s Take Care of Yourself (2007) for example, Calle received a break up email from an ex-lover; The words are emotive and the message is one of sadness. The email ended with the words “Prenez soon de vous” which translates to “Take care of yourself”, Calle did just that by asking 107 women to respond, critique and extract notions from the email. Thus involving other people in the reaction to the letter (similar to Kraus only reversed).
Uniting professional women in a joint effort to simply get over the break-up, allowing them to respond in their own personal way. Even the women who were involved in this process would have felt something from that email (letter), so not only is it drawing a emotion and feelings from Calle (its recipient) but also the other women involved and the audience visiting the exhibitions that it eventually became. I feel like I need to do such a thing with you. Never reply to your next letter and get everyone I know to send you their own reply. The email was meant to be private but Calle took that from the sender and allowed other people to become involved in this supposedly intimate exchange, theres something unsettling about the level of intrusiveness which is relevant to Sophie Calle as an artist but this time she is encouraging other women to be just as critical, observational and intrusive as herself. So why shouldn’t I do that to you? I don”t think you deserve the privacy of keeping these letters to myself, I shall leave it out on my kitchen table in the hope some will be interested enough in my life to read every word you pieced together for me. 
Yours Sincerely, 
Vera.  
P.s Please find attached a picture of Sophie Calle, Take care of yourself (2007), The French pavilion at the Venice Biennale. 
  2nd November 2018
Dear Vera, 
I understand and respect that an email can contain emotive content and be meaningful to someone, but imagine if the email that Sophie Calle received was a letter? The physicality of her partner would have been felt. The paper that he had touched would have been touched by her as she read the words that he had physically written. The envelope that his saliva sealed would have been opened with her hand - He would have been felt. I think a letter is the next best thing to physically being stood in front of someone. Do you not feel my presence when you receive a letter from me? It's also proven that there are psychological advantages to hand-writing your message. I was reading an online article published on Psychology Today written by Diana Raab Ph.D(2017) and she explained that ‘Neuroscience has proven that when you write something down, it requires deep thought, building more than 10,000 new neural pathways in your brain in one sitting; whereas writing on a computer appears to build only 600 new pathways’(Raab Ph.D,2017). Its genuinely scientifically proven that theres psychological benefits to writing letters. How can this not change your opinion on my argument? Science is proving the benefits. If I cannot begin to change your mind with this small but huge piece of information I may have to give up. I don’t know why I’m acting shocked by your narrow-mindedness. You claim I’m being naive but maybe my naivety is the very thing that is bringing me back to you? 
I wouldn’t mind someone reading the letters I send you, go ahead and leave it out. 
All the best, 
Charlotte. 
22nd November 2018
Dear Charlotte,  
That’s interesting, it makes you wonder why students aren’t forced to hand write essays if it has positive effects on the brain, But that would be long winded and waste a lot of time which is somewhat my point. People just do not have the time to write correspondences. You’re not considering the convenience of sending a digital message. Also you argument about  ‘Presence’ which I assume you mean ‘a person or thing that exists or is present in a place but is not seen’ (Oxford English dictionary ,2018) I feel the presence of you through the words that I read but only because its a message from you, I do however feel the presence of the postman that posted the letter through the door.
If you’re concerned about the process of letter writing I think you’re forgetting the process in which you have no control over; once you put that letter through the letter box or hand it over at the post office, it's out of your control. I could argue that you are merely just one artist in a long line of creatives who work to get the letter where it needs to go, almost like an interlinking performance piece. In the research of this idea I have come across an artist who explores this process, Walead Beshty uses the worldwide known postal service, FedEx, to post glass sculptures made to it the measurements of FedEx boxes all over the world. Rather than taking the measures to protect the work Beshty ships his work to galleries like any other ordinary parcel in the hope that they will shatter. The shatters and broken glass are physical scars of the process that the materials have gone through to get to their destination. Much like you were saying in your previous letter about letters having a physical presence of the sender with the saliva having sealed the envelope the journey that these sculptures have been on are shown through their materials. You could argue that the sculptures sit within the boundaries of  Involuntary sculpture which allows the material to take on its own form with the help of human interaction. I want you to think about the process that our letters go though to get to each other. 
In retrospect I think we’re both focusing too much on the romantic symbolism of letters, we’re not in a romantic relationship but we’re sending each other letters. As I’m smoking my cigarette watching the world go by my window I have a sudden feeling of panic -  are you in love with me? 
Again, please find a picture attached. 
Vera.
  24th November 2018
Dear Vera, 
I will not consider Walead Beshty's work in this argument because his practice isn't about language or human narratives/relationships represented through letter-writing which fundamentally all of our previous discussions have been about. I do appreciate your argument and will take it into consideration for further research. As for the postman being a part of the process, I’ll think about your argument while listening to ‘Please Mr.Postman’ by The Marvelettes(1961).
Also how dare you be so big headed. I do not love you. You fester in my mind and anyone or anything that festers cannot be loved too.  
Festering thoughts, 
Charlotte. 
1st December 2018
Dear Vera, 
In response to your previous letter and your fear of me being in love with you, I have decided I want to discuss the book Here and Now (2008-11) by Paul Auster and J.M Coetzee. Auster and Coetzee have published their personal letters to each other which offers an intimate portrait of two two men, their lives and their friendship. Much like if we were to publish our letters. Through the very medium they’re known for we are handed a portrait of them, to hold, to touch, to take on the bus, to read and read again. I cannot carry a portrait of Bacon around with me, I cannot sit on the bus pouring through his ideas of friendship or details of his interest in watching sport. 
Unlike both Kraus and Calle, the contents of letters between Auster and Coetzee are mundane to the reader. The whole book I feel as if I’m eavesdropping on a long conversation between the two. Stuck somewhere between being bored and interested, I think the intrusiveness I felt as the reader is what made me
continue reading in the hope either one of them would reveal something shocking or out of the ordinary. I think this hope came from the pure exhilaration of reading Kraus’s work. In comparison to the previous work we’ve discussed the letters between friends isn’t as exciting as a love letter, Which makes me wonder if anyone would every want to read our letters? The possibility of one day someone could be sat at home, on the bus, or even in a library reading our letters excites me. Reading our correspondence, trying to figure out what our relationship is. Let me know your thoughts. Hope to hear from you soon.
Charlotte 
                                                        5th December 2018
Dear Charlotte, 
I’m yet to read Here and Now (2008-2011) but I look forward to reading it. I think its interesting that something can be incredibly mundane and somewhat boring but can still keep you hooked, it’s the connection to your own life and our natural desire to know ‘inside knowledge’. By what you’re suggesting about the book it seems it will help us being to understand our own relationship with letter-writing. Although I do find letter writing dated and a bit of a chore I do enjoy our conversations and want to continue this further. I wonder how a three way letter communication could work? Another opinion and perspective. 
Let me know what you think. 
Vera 
Bibliography
Artwork:
Beshty, W. (2008) FedEx Boxes [Installation]. Signs of the Time, The Whitney Museum of American Art (2008).
Calle, S. (2007) Take care of yourself [Installation]. The French Pavilion at the 52nd French Biennale, 2007.
Articles:
Chrisafis, A. (2007). 'He Loves Me Not', The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jun/16/artnews.art (Accessed: 20th December 2018)
Raab Ph.D, D.(2017) Letter writing: A sexy way to reconnect. Psychology Today. Available at:https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-empowerment-diary/201712/letter-writing-sexy-way-connect.(Date accessed:3rd January 2019)
Take Care of Yourself (2016) Available at:http://www.slow-words.com/take-care-of-yourself/  (Accessed: 30th December 2018).
Audio and Visual:
Louisiana Chanel (2018) Chris Kraus Interview: Changing Lives. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa-pG9UCTyI&t=34s (Downloaded: 3rd January 2019).
The Marvelettes (1961) Please Mr.Postman. Available at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=425GpjTSlS4 (Downloaded: 4th January 2019).
Books
Auster,P and Coetzee, J.M.(2008-2011)Here and Now. London: Faber and Faber Ltd. 
Kraus,C.(2016) I Love Dick. First British edition, London: Serpent’s Tail.
Images:
Klienefenn,F.(2007) Take care of yourself [Installation view] Available at: https://www.arter.net/en/projets/take-care-of-yourself/ (Downloaded: 3rd January 2019)
Arts on 5.(2008) FedEx Boxes [Installation view] Available at:https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2017/01/fedex-works-walead-beshty/ (Downloaded: 28th December 2018)
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heauxteas · 8 years
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scammed? -long, angry, post
a review of my service experience with the tumblr user who now has opened up an official store. If someone needs proof i have screenshots. I ordered a wig from someone on here 2 mos ago and have not received it. And I hate to start drama, but like??? I’m outta 95 dollars. I have bolded the text before the parts I found particularly fishy for easy location. Let’s discuss.
     So back in December, I responded to a tumblr user who was selling wigs (original post has been since deleted) in order to get money to help her pay the rest of her bills or whatever. On December 2nd 2016 , I ordered the wig through tumblr, sent the money through the cash app, and was told I would get a tracking number after it was shipped. On December 15th 2016 (tumblr), I asked for an update. I was told in the reply to this on the 17th of the same month that I would have a tracking number within the week because she got more orders than she expected. Remember this.
On January 15th of 2017 (tumblr), I asked for an update yet again because I had not received the tracking number or heard anything from her. Around that time, she had made more posts about selling wigs. I never got a reply from her on tumblr, but I saw her email listed on her new post and sent her an email there, asking for an update. She got back to me quickly and after giving her my info again, she said the package was “undeliverable as addressed”, suggesting that no one was able to sign/accept it when it was delivered. She said she would send it out again within the week and get back to me. 
     Before we go any further, let us look at some things. 1. She never sent me the tracking number like she said she would, so I had no idea if/when it was coming. 2. I did not receive any delivery notices. I received other packages via USPS during that time, and they left them at my door (i live in an apartment), in the mailbox/on top of the mailbox. I have also told FedEx and UPS to leave things at my door if no one answers. Most of the time, they will take it to the leasing office of my apartment where they store it and let me know it was delivered. 3. If it was sent back to her, why wasn’t I notified? She had my tumblr, she had my email. 
     So anyways, I never got an update about if it was sent or not. So on February 1st of 2017 I sent her an email asking her to make sure she sent me the tracking number so I could make arrangements or whatever. She didn’t reply, but it might have been too late. At this point I was tired of it all. I just wanted a refund. So on February 6th, I sent her an email saying I wanted a refund. Since she hadn’t replied to my other email, I used the original payment method (cash app) and requested a refund so that she would see it. I noted in subject line of the request that I had sent her an email. A few minutes later, the request had been rejected and there was no reply from the email i sent her.
      An hour later, I check her twitter and she’s been active. I @ her on twitter to tell her to check her email. She replies saying that the package should have already arrived because she had already reshipped it. She says she doesn’t have the tracking number because she already sent out receipts for her taxes and she has no problem with refunding me, but she has to have the hair returned to do the full refund. Also that the package is insured. I double check the message I sent her with my address and it is indeed correct.
     Points? 1: If something was wrong and no one could pick up the package the first time (because i did not receive a tracking number), why would she, now a business owner because she has opened up an official online store, AGAIN not send me a tracking number/notify that it was sent. 2. Why would she, now a business owner (not her first time with an online shop), not keep or store records of the packages she has sent out? 3. The first time I asked her when she resent it, she did not reply to that question. The second time I asked her, she said “a while ago, when we last spoke”. 4. I have not received any delivery notices and the leasing office has not either. 5. She has had my money for two months at this point. If something is wrong with the package and I need a refund, why do I have to wait until after a claim is filed to get my money back?
     So anyway, she says the package is insured so if something happened she can file a claim. She tells me I should check the post office in the morning. At the post office, there is nothing there for me when checked. Afterwards, I was told that if it was still undeliverable as addressed the second time, the package would be immediately sent back to her because packages go out everyday and they would not hold it there. When I inquire about how long it takes for a claim filed to be approved, I am told about 60 days. I message her back to say that there is nothing at the post office and if anything, it will be shipped back to her. She says she will check her P.O. box tomorrow and if it isn’t there, she can file a claim for it. I guess she is far too busy to do it today.
     That was earlier today (February 7th 2017). I have no idea whats gonna happen. Idk if she will say that it’s there and tell me she will resend it (I don’t want it anymore), or if she will say that she is going to file a claim (in that case I will have to wait another 60 days in addition to how long I have been waiting). She has opened her storefront and been actively reblogging promote it on her blog. Once this whole thing is over, I will not be buying from her shop, called Lovelace, in the future. I’ll let you decide what you want. I cant seem to find any other people who have ordered from her, but if you have, please shoot me a message if you can vouch for her or smth.
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jackrgaines · 4 years
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How to Plan and Price Your Special Holiday Delivery Options
The holidays are coming. Are you making a list of things your new eCommerce business needs to do? Checking it twice?
We are, too. Your first holiday sales season as an online store owner can be a lot, so we’re walking through the basic prep you can do now for a successful fourth quarter. 
Our series on how to rock your online store’s first holiday season has covered:
Planning holiday promotions
Marketing your holiday promotions
Creating exclusive offers for holiday shoppers
Serve up special delivery options and perks for your holiday shoppers
Now, let’s look at what can be one of the most fun parts of your store’s holiday experience: giving customers the extras and special options they want for gifting and delivery.
Holiday gift wrap and messages
Unwrapping presents makes the holidays fun. Ordering, wrapping and re-mailing them, not so much. You can help your customers by offering to wrap their purchases and include a message before you ship them out. 
Not skilled at making sharp corners with wrapping paper? Offer to ship gifts in a cute box or bag instead. Be sure to serve up some great photos of the gift wrap you offer and show a couple of wrapped or bagged items ready to go. Then add gift wrap to your checkout menu.
What to charge: Because wrapping paper and gift boxes are inexpensive, you can turn a profit on this quick but crucial service. Many large retailers charge between $4 and $6 per items, so feel free to charge in that range.
Local same-day and next-day deliveries
In our post on holiday exclusives, we mentioned the possibility of offering special deals for local delivery only, like a locally themed gift basket or something too delicate or bulky to ship. 
This kind of offer works well if you have customers (or potential customers) near your fulfillment center and if you have a way to deliver the goods. So how do you do that, especially if you’re your store’s only employee?
One option is to hire a temporary delivery driver to handle your local orders. You’ll know exactly who’s making deliveries, which is a plus. However, adding someone to your payroll and insurance may only make financial sense if you expect to have a steady stream of local delivery requests through the holidays.
If you’re not sure how many local deliveries you’ll have, or if you don’t have the time to onboard a new employee right now, consider a delivery service. Dropoff and Roadie cater to local businesses and take care of screening, insuring and training their drivers. 
What to charge? Make local delivery on your holiday exclusives free for your customers. Just bake the cost of delivery plus a bit of profit into the price of the items that are available for delivery.
Comprehensive package tracking and insurance
Everybody who buys online wants to know where their stuff is and when it will arrive. Just before the holidays, the need to know gets even more intense. Will their mom’s gift get there in time? Will the package get stolen off the porch? What if it’s damaged?
The result can be lots of calls and emails to your customer service desk, just at a time when you have a million other holiday-related issues to focus on. But you can’t leave your customers wondering.
Fortunately, you have options to help your customers track their stuff and file claims if there’s a problem.
Tracking and claims through the shipping carrier
This is the option many small businesses start with. UPS, USPS, FedEx and others can provide tracking numbers your customers can use to keep tabs on their stuff. Carriers also offer insurance, although filing a claim for a lost or damaged package can be a bit of a hassle. 
Tracking through a shipping extension or app
If you want to give your customers more than basic carrier shipping data, consider an extension or app that goes the extra mile. Here are a few popular options to consider:
With a site extension like WooCommerce Shipment Tracking your store can give customers an easier way to track their stuff from your site or their emails. 
With a shipping and returns app like Shippo connected to your store, your customers can see the progress of their packages and their estimated time of arrival – helpful for foiling porch pirates. 
Another app, Route, does package tracking and takes on shipment-related customer service inquiries and package claims to save you and your customers time.
What to charge: Not a thing. Package tracking is table stakes for eCommerce. Build the cost of any paid tracking services into your product pricing.
Holiday return policies
Customers check return policies before they buy, and they prefer the kind of no-hassle, no-cost return policy that Amazon has had for years. 
What to charge? To customers, the ideal return fee is $0. But returns get expensive for merchants. 
It’s a conundrum the whole eCommerce industry is wrestling with: How can you balance your customers’ reasonable desire to return purchases or gifts that don’t work with your need to avoid losing too much money on return costs? 
Here are some options.
Offer a free-return policy just for the holiday season and a few weeks beyond, so that your customers’ gift recipients can return items that aren’t quite right. That can keep your customers happy and encourage them to buy from you, without forcing you to bear the full cost of return shipping year-round.
Another option? Charge for return shipping but waive your normal restocking fee for returns during a special holiday window.
Include return labels with all your outgoing packages during the holidays to make things easy for your customers. If you use a shipping and reverse-logistics app like Shippo (which works with our eCommerce Website Builder), you’re only charged return postage if the customer uses the label.
Offer gift receipts that don’t show the purchase price but do include information for returns and exchanges.
Don’t want to offer returns? Sell items like swimwear or cosmetics that can’t safely be returned? Offer store credit or exchanges instead of returns.
If you make holiday changes to your return policy, make sure to let customers know and clearly spell out the dates when the holiday policy is in effect. Update your site’s return page, mention the updated policy during checkout and put a “holiday return policy” link on each page.
The steps above are great for building loyalty in your customers. But there’s no denying that returns cost you money. Here are a couple of options for reducing the impact on your bottom line. 
Add an “open box” section in your store where budget-conscious shoppers can buy returned items in good condition at a discount, to help you recover some of your return costs.
Consider partnering with a liquidator (Overstock and B-Stock are a couple of well-known examples) to sell your returned inventory.
Now that you have ideas for making holiday deliveries special and easy for your customers, we need to think about how to get those orders delivered on time, without busting your budget. 
In the next Rock the Holidays post, we’ll get into the finer points of delivery that all eCommerce merchants need to know. From cutoff dates to holiday surcharges to international shipping policies, we’ll help you get up to speed on shipping for your store’s first holiday season.
from HostGator Blog https://www.hostgator.com/blog/ecommerce-holiday-delivery-options/
0 notes
ralphlayton · 4 years
Text
Don’t Do That: Email Marketing Lessons From My 26 Year Spam Archive
What makes for strong long-term email marketing, and what can email marketers learn from a 26 year archive of spam? In 1994 I started archiving the funniest and most outlandish spam emails I received, and throughout the rest of the ‘90s I sent out an annual holiday compendium of the year’s top unsolicited messages. Over the years friends and associates began sending me their own wild spam finds, and although I ceased my annual updates long ago, I’ve kept up my spam archive — a trove of email marketing horrors, hi-jinks, and oftentimes hilarity that I still hope to turn into a book someday. For now, I’ll crack open the archive and share five email marketing lessons taken from analyzing 26 years of spam, to help illustrate how we can adapt, grow, and innovate — and how not to follow in the footsteps of atrocious spammers. Spam usually serves as a spot-on case study for email marketers on what not to do when it comes to building genuine and meaningful email communications. Oftentimes spam is chock full of truly bizarre content, whack-a-doodle predicaments, and convoluted stories, yet from this we can still gain surprising email take-away gems for today’s marketers.
1 — Empathize With Your Email Audience
Empathizing with your audience is an important part of successful email marketing, as understanding the concerns and hopes of the people you’re connecting with is vital for providing the information your email audience is seeking. Some things to ask yourself as you seek to empathize with your email audience include:
Why have they signed up for our email messaging?
What are the traits common to our readers?
If I were the recipient and not the sender, what would I change?
Empathizing with and learning more about your email marketing audience go hand-in-hand, and both open up a wide realm of possibilities to make your campaigns better. “Get to know your customers,” Val Geisler, CEO of Fix My Churn recently observed. “Do interviews, learn more about them. What keeps them up at night? What matters most to them? Ask them questions with long-form answers and record those answers. Then use that voice-of-customer copy in your emails. Put it in subject lines and body copy and CTA buttons. Fill your emails with a blend of their voice and your brand voice and your customers will instantly feel connected to your brand,” Geisler suggested. An example from my spam archive on how not to empathize includes this 2004 doozy from one Gaza F. Fussbudgets:
Subject: Hello! Date: Thu, 06 May 2004 23:31:24 -0700 From: Gaza F. Fussbudgets To: Thinking of driving in that condition, sir? New jobs: Stay-at-home manager Honest people for hire! Do you have only a part-time job? Do you have much free time? Are you a student? Does your class schedule impair working hours? Your luck has just happened! Are you outgoing and honest? We need someone just like you! This is a business that requires a only limited amounts of your time. All job applicants from Australia welcome. Vacancies are ending, don't waste time and use this super offer. YOUR ONLY CHANCE! CONSIDER THIS GREAT OFFER! Remaining questions? Check out our website. Questions? We've got answers.
Despite its reassurance that "Your luck has just happened!" and a feeble attempt to empathize by asking a few questions, this spam email fails on all accounts. Don't be like Mr. or Ms. Fussbudgets, and instead always take the extra time to learn more about your email marketing audience. [bctt tweet="“Empathizing with your audience is an important part of successful email marketing. Understanding the concerns and hopes of the people you’re connecting with are vital for providing the information they are seeking.” @lanerellis" username="toprank"]
2 — Fill Each Email With Unique Value
Savvy email marketing brings your audience something they can’t find anywhere else, whether it’s a first glimpse at a new product or service, a behind-the-scenes look at one of your team members, or even a unique report made exclusively for your email audience. One of the many reasons spam email universally misses the mark — along with tone-deaf legitimate campaigns — is that it doesn’t offer anything unique, instead relying on cookie-cutter copy or only minimally customized content, and the long-shot promise of one response from millions of emails sent out. Consider the following spam message sent to me in 2014:
Subject: Claims Prize Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 03:19:40 -0430 (VET) From: Fedex Delivery Company Reply-To: *We have a Fedex package containing $850,000.00 USD to be delivered to your home address as a Christmas Presentation. Send Fullname, Home address, telephone. Note: Delivery fee is $75 only.*
A scam with a promise to send a box of riches to you "as a Christmas presentation" in exchange for a small fee is the antithesis of how email marketers should go about providing value to their audiences — an effort that today is delivered in the form of digital content providing relevant information. B2B content marketing and its penchant for creating a variety of relevant re-purposed content lends itself well to email marketing efforts, and we’ve got you covered with the following looks at the types of information that can add unique value to your email marketing:
5 Examples of Effective B2B Content Marketing in Times of Crisis
Where’s the Marketing in Content Marketing? 10 Essential Promotion Tactics That Drive Results
5 Ways to Humanize B2B Content Marketing
A Tasty, Strategic Addition to the Content Marketing Table: ‘Repurposed Content Cobbler’
3 — Respect Your Email Recipients
Treat your email audience with respect and they’ll be more open to your messaging, and more likely to continue as long-term recipients of your email campaigns. Respect in email marketing is shown — and earned — in several ways, including:
Practicing genuine interest by providing only the most relevant information
Applying mindfulness when it comes to the frequency of contacting your audience
Honoring all inquiries with a thorough and thoughtful response from your appropriate team
Don't go overboard with insincere respect, however, as the sender of the following 2005 message unfortunately did:
Subject: Palmer Berryhill I hope you like this wrist clock Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 18:09:07 +0400 From: Madiha To: My Dear Palmer Berryhill, Honestly, you have earned it. Take the moment and get it. Make sure while you are at the web-site, that you also get the little box to keep it in. You get a little reward today. Last night I saw you looking at these replica watches and I could tell you wanted one. Go ahead and get it. There are just so many things to handle each day, we just don't often get a little surprise. This is a good internet-site for you to find it from because they have gift trailing. I am totally aware of how many times you have looked at these quality replica watches at this internet-site. Please go and get one. I know they are duplicates and we can afford it. My love to you, Madiha
Although I never did treat myself to Madiha's replica "wrist clock" surprise or the little box to keep it in, this classic spam message does serve as a fine example of forced and ingenuine caring, despite all the love this writer claims to have sent my way 15 years ago. It's also important to respect the fact that whether you have a smallish mailing list or one numbering in the millions, maintaining your email audience’s trust is key for long-term success, as our senior content strategist Nick Nelson explored in “Return to Sender: Email Marketing Is NOT Dead, But It Needs Rejuvenation.” [bctt tweet="It’s better to write for 10 people who truly want to receive your messages than 100 who are ambivalent or worse. @NickNelsonMN #EmailMarketing" username="toprank"]
4 — Use A Healthy Dose of Character & Passion
Knowing your audience is only one important part of your email marketing efforts, however it allows you to understand the voice and tone that will best suit your brand, and will play a big part of imbibing character and passion into your email marketing campaigns. Your email marketing communications should incorporate the universal truths of your brand messaging, however that doesn’t mean it can’t use its own email-campaign-specific voice with its own energy and unique flavor. Not too unique or too full of seasoning, however, or you could end up with something like the following spam message I got in 2002, which ranks up there as one of the nuttiest emails I've received since I went online in 1984:
Subject: Chichi Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 13:50:01 -0500 (EST) From: Ray To: Hello, If you are a Time Traveler I am going to need the following: 1. A modified mind warping Dimensional Warp Generator # 52 4350a series wrist watch with memory adapter. 2. Reliable carbon based, or silicon based time transducing capacitor. I need a reliable source!! Please only reply if you are reliable. Send a (SEPARATE) email to me at: [redacted]
I never did send in that dimensional warp generator — with or without the wrist-watch memory adapter — however this message did certainly deliver on the unique content front, and was presented with its own wacky sort of memorable messaging. Some of the top email and newsletter marketers look at the channel as a special way to make a person-to-person rather than simply a B2B connection, such as MarketingProfs chief content officer Ann Handley, who over the years has shared a great deal of valuable email marketing insight. “Write to one person. Not a segment or customer base or persona. One. Person. At. One. Time,” Handley recently offered up in “2020 Small Business Email Marketing Statistics from AWeber.” [bctt tweet="“Write to one person. Not a segment or customer base or persona. One. Person. At. One. Time.” — Ann Handley @MarketingProfs" username="toprank"]
5 — Seek Further Connection Opportunities, Test & Refine
Email still offers a powerful way to keep in touch with the people who care most about your brand, however another part of good email communications is letting your audience know the other ways they can get your latest updates and other information. Sharing links to your various social media properties, blog, website, and any virtual events where customers can learn more from your brand is a helpful way to add value to your marketing emails. Don't, however, follow in the footsteps of the author of the following spam message I received in 2014, with a hook of "Outsource your pain to us!"
Subject: Partnership proposal : Outsource your pain to us! Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 02:16:43 -0400 (EDT) From: Christina Zalpa To: Hi There, I got your reference from google search. Through this mail, I would like to seek your opinion of doing some business together. We are company West Midland, UK based company.We are in business of Web Development, SEO, PPC and Chat support. We have experience of web design and SEO too. What we can do: We can reduce your expenses and increase your revenue. To discuss further, I will be available at your suitable time. Looking forward to do some mutually rewarding business together. Warm Regards Christina Zalpa Skype:
Spam such as this — although purely an unadorned scam — does serve to show us that even the lowest form of email marketing sometimes has a call-to-action (CTA), an aspect also featured in the best email campaigns. Don’t miss email marketing’s many excellent opportunities for testing, either, as send frequency, subject lines and all aspects of content can be part of A/B testing as your brand looks to find an optimal balance. [bctt tweet="“Rather than sending more, test what you already do. Then test frequency. There’s no sense sending more of that doesn’t work, nor less of what does work. Test, test, test!” — Mark Asquith @MrAsquith" username="toprank"]
Don’t Do That — Turn Your Spam Lessons Upside Down
via GIPHY By empathizing, providing unique value, respecting your email audience, using character and passion, and seeking out new connection and test opportunities, your email marketing efforts will have a leg up on much of today’s competition. Whether you're looking for professional help with your email marketing or B2B influencer marketing efforts, contact us to learn why brands from Adobe and LinkedIn to Dell and 3M have chosen TopRank Marketing.
The post Don’t Do That: Email Marketing Lessons From My 26 Year Spam Archive appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.
Don’t Do That: Email Marketing Lessons From My 26 Year Spam Archive published first on yhttps://improfitninja.blogspot.com/
0 notes
samuelpboswell · 4 years
Text
Don’t Do That: Email Marketing Lessons From My 26 Year Spam Archive
What makes for strong long-term email marketing, and what can email marketers learn from a 26 year archive of spam? In 1994 I started archiving the funniest and most outlandish spam emails I received, and throughout the rest of the ‘90s I sent out an annual holiday compendium of the year’s top unsolicited messages. Over the years friends and associates began sending me their own wild spam finds, and although I ceased my annual updates long ago, I’ve kept up my spam archive — a trove of email marketing horrors, hi-jinks, and oftentimes hilarity that I still hope to turn into a book someday. For now, I’ll crack open the archive and share five email marketing lessons taken from analyzing 26 years of spam, to help illustrate how we can adapt, grow, and innovate — and how not to follow in the footsteps of atrocious spammers. Spam usually serves as a spot-on case study for email marketers on what not to do when it comes to building genuine and meaningful email communications. Oftentimes spam is chock full of truly bizarre content, whack-a-doodle predicaments, and convoluted stories, yet from this we can still gain surprising email take-away gems for today’s marketers.
1 — Empathize With Your Email Audience
Empathizing with your audience is an important part of successful email marketing, as understanding the concerns and hopes of the people you’re connecting with is vital for providing the information your email audience is seeking. Some things to ask yourself as you seek to empathize with your email audience include:
Why have they signed up for our email messaging?
What are the traits common to our readers?
If I were the recipient and not the sender, what would I change?
Empathizing with and learning more about your email marketing audience go hand-in-hand, and both open up a wide realm of possibilities to make your campaigns better. “Get to know your customers,” Val Geisler, CEO of Fix My Churn recently observed. “Do interviews, learn more about them. What keeps them up at night? What matters most to them? Ask them questions with long-form answers and record those answers. Then use that voice-of-customer copy in your emails. Put it in subject lines and body copy and CTA buttons. Fill your emails with a blend of their voice and your brand voice and your customers will instantly feel connected to your brand,” Geisler suggested. An example from my spam archive on how not to empathize includes this 2004 doozy from one Gaza F. Fussbudgets:
Subject: Hello! Date: Thu, 06 May 2004 23:31:24 -0700 From: Gaza F. Fussbudgets To: Thinking of driving in that condition, sir? New jobs: Stay-at-home manager Honest people for hire! Do you have only a part-time job? Do you have much free time? Are you a student? Does your class schedule impair working hours? Your luck has just happened! Are you outgoing and honest? We need someone just like you! This is a business that requires a only limited amounts of your time. All job applicants from Australia welcome. Vacancies are ending, don't waste time and use this super offer. YOUR ONLY CHANCE! CONSIDER THIS GREAT OFFER! Remaining questions? Check out our website. Questions? We've got answers.
Despite its reassurance that "Your luck has just happened!" and a feeble attempt to empathize by asking a few questions, this spam email fails on all accounts. Don't be like Mr. or Ms. Fussbudgets, and instead always take the extra time to learn more about your email marketing audience. [bctt tweet="“Empathizing with your audience is an important part of successful email marketing. Understanding the concerns and hopes of the people you’re connecting with are vital for providing the information they are seeking.” @lanerellis" username="toprank"]
2 — Fill Each Email With Unique Value
Savvy email marketing brings your audience something they can’t find anywhere else, whether it’s a first glimpse at a new product or service, a behind-the-scenes look at one of your team members, or even a unique report made exclusively for your email audience. One of the many reasons spam email universally misses the mark — along with tone-deaf legitimate campaigns — is that it doesn’t offer anything unique, instead relying on cookie-cutter copy or only minimally customized content, and the long-shot promise of one response from millions of emails sent out. Consider the following spam message sent to me in 2014:
Subject: Claims Prize Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 03:19:40 -0430 (VET) From: Fedex Delivery Company Reply-To: *We have a Fedex package containing $850,000.00 USD to be delivered to your home address as a Christmas Presentation. Send Fullname, Home address, telephone. Note: Delivery fee is $75 only.*
A scam with a promise to send a box of riches to you "as a Christmas presentation" in exchange for a small fee is the antithesis of how email marketers should go about providing value to their audiences — an effort that today is delivered in the form of digital content providing relevant information. B2B content marketing and its penchant for creating a variety of relevant re-purposed content lends itself well to email marketing efforts, and we’ve got you covered with the following looks at the types of information that can add unique value to your email marketing:
5 Examples of Effective B2B Content Marketing in Times of Crisis
Where’s the Marketing in Content Marketing? 10 Essential Promotion Tactics That Drive Results
5 Ways to Humanize B2B Content Marketing
A Tasty, Strategic Addition to the Content Marketing Table: ‘Repurposed Content Cobbler’
3 — Respect Your Email Recipients
Treat your email audience with respect and they’ll be more open to your messaging, and more likely to continue as long-term recipients of your email campaigns. Respect in email marketing is shown — and earned — in several ways, including:
Practicing genuine interest by providing only the most relevant information
Applying mindfulness when it comes to the frequency of contacting your audience
Honoring all inquiries with a thorough and thoughtful response from your appropriate team
Don't go overboard with insincere respect, however, as the sender of the following 2005 message unfortunately did:
Subject: Palmer Berryhill I hope you like this wrist clock Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 18:09:07 +0400 From: Madiha To: My Dear Palmer Berryhill, Honestly, you have earned it. Take the moment and get it. Make sure while you are at the web-site, that you also get the little box to keep it in. You get a little reward today. Last night I saw you looking at these replica watches and I could tell you wanted one. Go ahead and get it. There are just so many things to handle each day, we just don't often get a little surprise. This is a good internet-site for you to find it from because they have gift trailing. I am totally aware of how many times you have looked at these quality replica watches at this internet-site. Please go and get one. I know they are duplicates and we can afford it. My love to you, Madiha
Although I never did treat myself to Madiha's replica "wrist clock" surprise or the little box to keep it in, this classic spam message does serve as a fine example of forced and ingenuine caring, despite all the love this writer claims to have sent my way 15 years ago. It's also important to respect the fact that whether you have a smallish mailing list or one numbering in the millions, maintaining your email audience’s trust is key for long-term success, as our senior content strategist Nick Nelson explored in “Return to Sender: Email Marketing Is NOT Dead, But It Needs Rejuvenation.” [bctt tweet="It’s better to write for 10 people who truly want to receive your messages than 100 who are ambivalent or worse. @NickNelsonMN #EmailMarketing" username="toprank"]
4 — Use A Healthy Dose of Character & Passion
Knowing your audience is only one important part of your email marketing efforts, however it allows you to understand the voice and tone that will best suit your brand, and will play a big part of imbibing character and passion into your email marketing campaigns. Your email marketing communications should incorporate the universal truths of your brand messaging, however that doesn’t mean it can’t use its own email-campaign-specific voice with its own energy and unique flavor. Not too unique or too full of seasoning, however, or you could end up with something like the following spam message I got in 2002, which ranks up there as one of the nuttiest emails I've received since I went online in 1984:
Subject: Chichi Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 13:50:01 -0500 (EST) From: Ray To: Hello, If you are a Time Traveler I am going to need the following: 1. A modified mind warping Dimensional Warp Generator # 52 4350a series wrist watch with memory adapter. 2. Reliable carbon based, or silicon based time transducing capacitor. I need a reliable source!! Please only reply if you are reliable. Send a (SEPARATE) email to me at: [redacted]
I never did send in that dimensional warp generator — with or without the wrist-watch memory adapter — however this message did certainly deliver on the unique content front, and was presented with its own wacky sort of memorable messaging. Some of the top email and newsletter marketers look at the channel as a special way to make a person-to-person rather than simply a B2B connection, such as MarketingProfs chief content officer Ann Handley, who over the years has shared a great deal of valuable email marketing insight. “Write to one person. Not a segment or customer base or persona. One. Person. At. One. Time,” Handley recently offered up in “2020 Small Business Email Marketing Statistics from AWeber.” [bctt tweet="“Write to one person. Not a segment or customer base or persona. One. Person. At. One. Time.” — Ann Handley @MarketingProfs" username="toprank"]
5 — Seek Further Connection Opportunities, Test & Refine
Email still offers a powerful way to keep in touch with the people who care most about your brand, however another part of good email communications is letting your audience know the other ways they can get your latest updates and other information. Sharing links to your various social media properties, blog, website, and any virtual events where customers can learn more from your brand is a helpful way to add value to your marketing emails. Don't, however, follow in the footsteps of the author of the following spam message I received in 2014, with a hook of "Outsource your pain to us!"
Subject: Partnership proposal : Outsource your pain to us! Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 02:16:43 -0400 (EDT) From: Christina Zalpa To: Hi There, I got your reference from google search. Through this mail, I would like to seek your opinion of doing some business together. We are company West Midland, UK based company.We are in business of Web Development, SEO, PPC and Chat support. We have experience of web design and SEO too. What we can do: We can reduce your expenses and increase your revenue. To discuss further, I will be available at your suitable time. Looking forward to do some mutually rewarding business together. Warm Regards Christina Zalpa Skype:
Spam such as this — although purely an unadorned scam — does serve to show us that even the lowest form of email marketing sometimes has a call-to-action (CTA), an aspect also featured in the best email campaigns. Don’t miss email marketing’s many excellent opportunities for testing, either, as send frequency, subject lines and all aspects of content can be part of A/B testing as your brand looks to find an optimal balance. [bctt tweet="“Rather than sending more, test what you already do. Then test frequency. There’s no sense sending more of that doesn’t work, nor less of what does work. Test, test, test!” — Mark Asquith @MrAsquith" username="toprank"]
Don’t Do That — Turn Your Spam Lessons Upside Down
via GIPHY By empathizing, providing unique value, respecting your email audience, using character and passion, and seeking out new connection and test opportunities, your email marketing efforts will have a leg up on much of today’s competition. Whether you're looking for professional help with your email marketing or B2B influencer marketing efforts, contact us to learn why brands from Adobe and LinkedIn to Dell and 3M have chosen TopRank Marketing.
The post Don’t Do That: Email Marketing Lessons From My 26 Year Spam Archive appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.
from The SEO Advantages http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OnlineMarketingSEOBlog/~3/3aor_IXSZiY/
0 notes
jennifersnyderca90 · 6 years
Text
How to Shop Online Like a Security Pro
‘Tis the season when even those who know a thing or two about Internet scams tend to let down their guard in the face of an eye-popping discount or the stress of last-minute holiday shopping. So here’s a quick refresher course on how to make it through the next few weeks without getting snookered online.
Adopting a shopping strategy of simply buying from the online merchant with the lowest advertised prices can be a bit like playing Russian Roulette with your wallet, for the simple reason that there are tons of completely fake e-commerce sites out there looking to separate the unwary from their credit card details.
Even people who shop mainly at big-name online stores can get scammed if they’re not wary of too-good-to-be-true offers. For example, KrebsOnSecurity got taken for hundreds of dollars just last year after trying to buy a pricey Sonos speaker from an established Amazon merchant who was selling it new and unboxed at huge discount.
I later received an email from the seller, who said his Amazon account had been hacked and abused by scammers to create fake sales. Amazon ultimately refunded the money, but if this happens to you around the holidays it could derail plans to get all your shopping done before the expected gift-giving day arrives.
Here are some other safety and security tips to keep in mind when shopping online:
-WHEN IN DOUBT, CHECK ‘EM OUT: If you don’t know much about the online merchant that has the item you wish to buy, take a few minutes to investigate its reputation. After all, it’s not uncommon for bargain basement phantom Web sites to materialize during the holiday season, and then vanish forever not long afterward.
If you’re buying from an online store that is brand new, the risk that you will get scammed increases significantly.  How do you know the lifespan of a site selling that must-have gadget at the lowest price? One easy way to get a quick idea is to run a basic WHOIS search on the site’s domain name. The more recent the site’s “created” date, the more likely it is a phantom store.
-USE A CREDIT CARD: It’s nearly impossible for consumers to tell how secure a main street or online merchant is, and safety seals or attestations that something is “hacker safe” are a guarantee of nothing. In my experience, such sites are just as likely to be compromised as e-commerce sites without these dubious security seals.
No, it’s best just to shop as if they’re all compromised. With that in mind, if you have the choice between using a credit or debit card, shop with your credit card.
Sure, the card associations and your bank are quick to point out that you’re not liable for fraudulent charges that you report in a timely manner, whether it’s debit or a credit card. But this assurance may ring hollow if you wake up one morning to find your checking accounts emptied by card thieves after shopping at a breached merchant with a debit card.
Who pays for the fees levied against you by different merchants when your checks bounce? You do. Does the bank reimburse you when your credit score takes a ding because your mortgage or car payment was late? Don’t hold your breath.
-PADLOCK, SCHMADLOCK: For years, consumers have been told to look for the padlock when shopping online. Maybe this was once sound advice. But to my mind, the “look for the lock” mantra has created a false sense of security for many Internet users, and has contributed to a dangerous and widespread misunderstanding about what the lock icon is really meant to convey.
To be clear, you absolutely should run away from any e-commerce site that does not include the padlock (i.e., its Web address does not begin with “https://”).  But the presence of a padlock icon next to the Web site name in your browser’s address bar does not mean the site is legitimate. Nor is it any sort of testimonial that the site has been security-hardened against intrusion from hackers.
The https:// part of the address merely signifies that the data being transmitted back and forth between your browser and the site is encrypted and can’t be read by third parties. Even so, anti-phishing company PhishLabs found in a survey last year that more than 80% of respondents believed the green lock indicated that a website was either legitimate and/or safe.
Now that anyone can get SSL certificates for free, phishers and other scammers that ply their trade via fake Web sites are starting to up their game. In December 2017, PhishLabs estimated that a quarter of all phishing Web sites were outfitting their scam pages with SSL certificates to make them appear more trustworthy. That percentage has almost certainly increased a year later.
-CHCEK THE SHIPPING
Often times, items that are advertised at steeper discounts than other online stores make up for it by charging way more than normal for shipping and handling.
Be careful what you agree to: Check to make sure you know how long the item will take to be shipped, and that you understand the store’s return policies. Also, keep an eye out for hidden surcharges, and be wary of blithely clicking “ok” during the checkout process.
-DON’T TAKE THE BAIT
Be on guard against phishing and malware schemes that take advantage of shopper distraction and frenzy during the holidays. In years past we’ve seen both leverage emails crafted to look like they were sent from a name-brand store claiming that there was a problem with your order or some component of the shipping process.
One perennial phishing and malware scam that seems to kick into high gear around the holidays is spam that purports to have been sent by the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx, UPS or some other shipping service, warning of a wayward package.
When in doubt about such a message, visit the e-commerce or shipping site directly, and avoid clicking on links or attachments in email — particularly missives that warn of some dire consequences unless you act quickly. Phishers and malware purveyors typically seize upon some kind of emergency to create a false alarm that often causes recipients to temporarily let their guard down.
-SCOUR YOUR STATEMENTS
Some credit card companies offer cardholders that ability to use “virtual credit cards” — apps that generate a unique, ephemeral credit card number that is good for just one purchase or for a short period of time. The idea being that if fraudsters compromise the virtual card number, your bank doesn’t have to issue you a new card and you won’t have the headache that comes with entering new card details at all of the sites where you’ve set up automatic monthly payments.
These virtual cards are nice in theory, but I’ve never been a big fan. Probably because in many cases they require users to have risky add-ons installed and enabled — like Java or Flash Player. But, hey, if this works for you, great.
Most importantly, keep a close eye on your monthly statements. If I were a fraudster, I’d most definitely wait until the holidays to cram through a bunch of unauthorized charges on stolen cards, so that the bogus purchases would get buried amid a flurry of other legitimate transactions. That’s why it’s key to closely review your credit card bill and to quickly dispute any charges you didn’t authorize.
-BUDDY UP
If you’re planning to spend time with friends and family this holiday season, consider giving the gift of your time and helping out with a security checkup. This might involve making sure that new or old PC has up-to-date security software and the requisite software patches, or locking down their wireless router by enabling security features and disabling risky ones.
If you’re visiting parents or older relatives, consider helping them plant their flags at various online sites and services if they haven’t already done so, such as at the Social Security Administration, the U.S. Postal Service, or their wireless phone provider and/or Internet Service Provider (ISP).
You’d definitely make it off of Santa’s naughty list if you helped your loved ones take stock of which online accounts could benefit from more robust multi-factor authentication — and perhaps even guiding them away from SMS/text messages for multifactor toward more secure app- or key-based options, where available. You might even take a minute to explain the perils of re-using passwords across multiple sites, and see if they’re interested in using a password manager.
While you’re at it, ask your friends and family if they’ve frozen their credit files at the major consumer credit bureaus. If not, talk with them about what this entails and how it can help ward off identity theft. If they’re game, you might even consider helping them set it up and ensuring that freeze PINs are securely stored so the information is easily available when and if their credit files ever need to be thawed.
from https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/11/how-to-shop-online-like-a-security-pro/
0 notes
nedsvallesny · 6 years
Text
How to Shop Online Like a Security Pro
‘Tis the season when even those who know a thing or two about Internet scams tend to let down their guard in the face of an eye-popping discount or the stress of last-minute holiday shopping. So here’s a quick refresher course on how to make it through the next few weeks without getting snookered online.
Adopting a shopping strategy of simply buying from the online merchant with the lowest advertised prices can be a bit like playing Russian Roulette with your wallet, for the simple reason that there are tons of completely fake e-commerce sites out there looking to separate the unwary from their credit card details.
Even people who shop mainly at big-name online stores can get scammed if they’re not wary of too-good-to-be-true offers. For example, KrebsOnSecurity got taken for hundreds of dollars just last year after trying to buy a pricey Sonos speaker from an established Amazon merchant who was selling it new and unboxed at huge discount.
I later received an email from the seller, who said his Amazon account had been hacked and abused by scammers to create fake sales. Amazon ultimately refunded the money, but if this happens to you around the holidays it could derail plans to get all your shopping done before the expected gift-giving day arrives.
Here are some other safety and security tips to keep in mind when shopping online:
-WHEN IN DOUBT, CHECK ‘EM OUT: If you don’t know much about the online merchant that has the item you wish to buy, take a few minutes to investigate its reputation. After all, it’s not uncommon for bargain basement phantom Web sites to materialize during the holiday season, and then vanish forever not long afterward.
If you’re buying from an online store that is brand new, the risk that you will get scammed increases significantly.  How do you know the lifespan of a site selling that must-have gadget at the lowest price? One easy way to get a quick idea is to run a basic WHOIS search on the site’s domain name. The more recent the site’s “created” date, the more likely it is a phantom store.
-USE A CREDIT CARD: It’s nearly impossible for consumers to tell how secure a main street or online merchant is, and safety seals or attestations that something is “hacker safe” are a guarantee of nothing. In my experience, such sites are just as likely to be compromised as e-commerce sites without these dubious security seals.
No, it’s best just to shop as if they’re all compromised. With that in mind, if you have the choice between using a credit or debit card, shop with your credit card.
Sure, the card associations and your bank are quick to point out that you’re not liable for fraudulent charges that you report in a timely manner, whether it’s debit or a credit card. But this assurance may ring hollow if you wake up one morning to find your checking accounts emptied by card thieves after shopping at a breached merchant with a debit card.
Who pays for the fees levied against you by different merchants when your checks bounce? You do. Does the bank reimburse you when your credit score takes a ding because your mortgage or car payment was late? Don’t hold your breath.
-PADLOCK, SCHMADLOCK: For years, consumers have been told to look for the padlock when shopping online. Maybe this was once sound advice. But to my mind, the “look for the lock” mantra has created a false sense of security for many Internet users, and has contributed to a dangerous and widespread misunderstanding about what the lock icon is really meant to convey.
To be clear, you absolutely should run away from any e-commerce site that does not include the padlock (i.e., its Web address does not begin with “https://”).  But the presence of a padlock icon next to the Web site name in your browser’s address bar does not mean the site is legitimate. Nor is it any sort of testimonial that the site has been security-hardened against intrusion from hackers.
The https:// part of the address merely signifies that the data being transmitted back and forth between your browser and the site is encrypted and can’t be read by third parties. Even so, anti-phishing company PhishLabs found in a survey last year that more than 80% of respondents believed the green lock indicated that a website was either legitimate and/or safe.
Now that anyone can get SSL certificates for free, phishers and other scammers that ply their trade via fake Web sites are starting to up their game. In December 2017, PhishLabs estimated that a quarter of all phishing Web sites were outfitting their scam pages with SSL certificates to make them appear more trustworthy. That percentage has almost certainly increased a year later.
-CHCEK THE SHIPPING
Often times, items that are advertised at steeper discounts than other online stores make up for it by charging way more than normal for shipping and handling.
Be careful what you agree to: Check to make sure you know how long the item will take to be shipped, and that you understand the store’s return policies. Also, keep an eye out for hidden surcharges, and be wary of blithely clicking “ok” during the checkout process.
-DON’T TAKE THE BAIT
Be on guard against phishing and malware schemes that take advantage of shopper distraction and frenzy during the holidays. In years past we’ve seen both leverage emails crafted to look like they were sent from a name-brand store claiming that there was a problem with your order or some component of the shipping process.
One perennial phishing and malware scam that seems to kick into high gear around the holidays is spam that purports to have been sent by the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx, UPS or some other shipping service, warning of a wayward package.
When in doubt about such a message, visit the e-commerce or shipping site directly, and avoid clicking on links or attachments in email — particularly missives that warn of some dire consequences unless you act quickly. Phishers and malware purveyors typically seize upon some kind of emergency to create a false alarm that often causes recipients to temporarily let their guard down.
-SCOUR YOUR STATEMENTS
Some credit card companies offer cardholders that ability to use “virtual credit cards” — apps that generate a unique, ephemeral credit card number that is good for just one purchase or for a short period of time. The idea being that if fraudsters compromise the virtual card number, your bank doesn’t have to issue you a new card and you won’t have the headache that comes with entering new card details at all of the sites where you’ve set up automatic monthly payments.
These virtual cards are nice in theory, but I’ve never been a big fan. Probably because in many cases they require users to have risky add-ons installed and enabled — like Java or Flash Player. But, hey, if this works for you, great.
Most importantly, keep a close eye on your monthly statements. If I were a fraudster, I’d most definitely wait until the holidays to cram through a bunch of unauthorized charges on stolen cards, so that the bogus purchases would get buried amid a flurry of other legitimate transactions. That’s why it’s key to closely review your credit card bill and to quickly dispute any charges you didn’t authorize.
-BUDDY UP
If you’re planning to spend time with friends and family this holiday season, consider giving the gift of your time and helping out with a security checkup. This might involve making sure that new or old PC has up-to-date security software and the requisite software patches, or locking down their wireless router by enabling security features and disabling risky ones.
If you’re visiting parents or older relatives, consider helping them plant their flags at various online sites and services if they haven’t already done so, such as at the Social Security Administration, the U.S. Postal Service, or their wireless phone provider and/or Internet Service Provider (ISP).
You’d definitely make it off of Santa’s naughty list if you helped your loved ones take stock of which online accounts could benefit from more robust multi-factor authentication — and perhaps even guiding them away from SMS/text messages for multifactor toward more secure app- or key-based options, where available. You might even take a minute to explain the perils of re-using passwords across multiple sites, and see if they’re interested in using a password manager.
While you’re at it, ask your friends and family if they’ve frozen their credit files at the major consumer credit bureaus. If not, talk with them about what this entails and how it can help ward off identity theft. If they’re game, you might even consider helping them set it up and ensuring that freeze PINs are securely stored so the information is easily available when and if their credit files ever need to be thawed.
from Technology News https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/11/how-to-shop-online-like-a-security-pro/
0 notes
amberdscott2 · 6 years
Text
How to Shop Online Like a Security Pro
‘Tis the season when even those who know a thing or two about Internet scams tend to let down their guard in the face of an eye-popping discount or the stress of last-minute holiday shopping. So here’s a quick refresher course on how to make it through the next few weeks without getting snookered online.
Adopting a shopping strategy of simply buying from the online merchant with the lowest advertised prices can be a bit like playing Russian Roulette with your wallet, for the simple reason that there are tons of completely fake e-commerce sites out there looking to separate the unwary from their credit card details.
Even people who shop mainly at big-name online stores can get scammed if they’re not wary of too-good-to-be-true offers. For example, KrebsOnSecurity got taken for hundreds of dollars just last year after trying to buy a pricey Sonos speaker from an established Amazon merchant who was selling it new and unboxed at huge discount.
I later received an email from the seller, who said his Amazon account had been hacked and abused by scammers to create fake sales. Amazon ultimately refunded the money, but if this happens to you around the holidays it could derail plans to get all your shopping done before the expected gift-giving day arrives.
Here are some other safety and security tips to keep in mind when shopping online:
-WHEN IN DOUBT, CHECK ‘EM OUT: If you don’t know much about the online merchant that has the item you wish to buy, take a few minutes to investigate its reputation. After all, it’s not uncommon for bargain basement phantom Web sites to materialize during the holiday season, and then vanish forever not long afterward.
If you’re buying from an online store that is brand new, the risk that you will get scammed increases significantly.  How do you know the lifespan of a site selling that must-have gadget at the lowest price? One easy way to get a quick idea is to run a basic WHOIS search on the site’s domain name. The more recent the site’s “created” date, the more likely it is a phantom store.
-USE A CREDIT CARD: It’s nearly impossible for consumers to tell how secure a main street or online merchant is, and safety seals or attestations that something is “hacker safe” are a guarantee of nothing. In my experience, such sites are just as likely to be compromised as e-commerce sites without these dubious security seals.
No, it’s best just to shop as if they’re all compromised. With that in mind, if you have the choice between using a credit or debit card, shop with your credit card.
Sure, the card associations and your bank are quick to point out that you’re not liable for fraudulent charges that you report in a timely manner, whether it’s debit or a credit card. But this assurance may ring hollow if you wake up one morning to find your checking accounts emptied by card thieves after shopping at a breached merchant with a debit card.
Who pays for the fees levied against you by different merchants when your checks bounce? You do. Does the bank reimburse you when your credit score takes a ding because your mortgage or car payment was late? Don’t hold your breath.
-PADLOCK, SCHMADLOCK: For years, consumers have been told to look for the padlock when shopping online. Maybe this was once sound advice. But to my mind, the “look for the lock” mantra has created a false sense of security for many Internet users, and has contributed to a dangerous and widespread misunderstanding about what the lock icon is really meant to convey.
To be clear, you absolutely should run away from any e-commerce site that does not include the padlock (i.e., its Web address does not begin with “https://”).  But the presence of a padlock icon next to the Web site name in your browser’s address bar does not mean the site is legitimate. Nor is it any sort of testimonial that the site has been security-hardened against intrusion from hackers.
The https:// part of the address merely signifies that the data being transmitted back and forth between your browser and the site is encrypted and can’t be read by third parties. Even so, anti-phishing company PhishLabs found in a survey last year that more than 80% of respondents believed the green lock indicated that a website was either legitimate and/or safe.
Now that anyone can get SSL certificates for free, phishers and other scammers that ply their trade via fake Web sites are starting to up their game. In December 2017, PhishLabs estimated that a quarter of all phishing Web sites were outfitting their scam pages with SSL certificates to make them appear more trustworthy. That percentage has almost certainly increased a year later.
-CHCEK THE SHIPPING
Often times, items that are advertised at steeper discounts than other online stores make up for it by charging way more than normal for shipping and handling.
Be careful what you agree to: Check to make sure you know how long the item will take to be shipped, and that you understand the store’s return policies. Also, keep an eye out for hidden surcharges, and be wary of blithely clicking “ok” during the checkout process.
-DON’T TAKE THE BAIT
Be on guard against phishing and malware schemes that take advantage of shopper distraction and frenzy during the holidays. In years past we’ve seen both leverage emails crafted to look like they were sent from a name-brand store claiming that there was a problem with your order or some component of the shipping process.
One perennial phishing and malware scam that seems to kick into high gear around the holidays is spam that purports to have been sent by the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx, UPS or some other shipping service, warning of a wayward package.
When in doubt about such a message, visit the e-commerce or shipping site directly, and avoid clicking on links or attachments in email — particularly missives that warn of some dire consequences unless you act quickly. Phishers and malware purveyors typically seize upon some kind of emergency to create a false alarm that often causes recipients to temporarily let their guard down.
-SCOUR YOUR STATEMENTS
Some credit card companies offer cardholders that ability to use “virtual credit cards” — apps that generate a unique, ephemeral credit card number that is good for just one purchase or for a short period of time. The idea being that if fraudsters compromise the virtual card number, your bank doesn’t have to issue you a new card and you won’t have the headache that comes with entering new card details at all of the sites where you’ve set up automatic monthly payments.
These virtual cards are nice in theory, but I’ve never been a big fan. Probably because in many cases they require users to have risky add-ons installed and enabled — like Java or Flash Player. But, hey, if this works for you, great.
Most importantly, keep a close eye on your monthly statements. If I were a fraudster, I’d most definitely wait until the holidays to cram through a bunch of unauthorized charges on stolen cards, so that the bogus purchases would get buried amid a flurry of other legitimate transactions. That’s why it’s key to closely review your credit card bill and to quickly dispute any charges you didn’t authorize.
-BUDDY UP
If you’re planning to spend time with friends and family this holiday season, consider giving the gift of your time and helping out with a security checkup. This might involve making sure that new or old PC has up-to-date security software and the requisite software patches, or locking down their wireless router by enabling security features and disabling risky ones.
If you’re visiting parents or older relatives, consider helping them plant their flags at various online sites and services if they haven’t already done so, such as at the Social Security Administration, the U.S. Postal Service, or their wireless phone provider and/or Internet Service Provider (ISP).
You’d definitely make it off of Santa’s naughty list if you helped your loved ones take stock of which online accounts could benefit from more robust multi-factor authentication — and perhaps even guiding them away from SMS/text messages for multifactor toward more secure app- or key-based options, where available. You might even take a minute to explain the perils of re-using passwords across multiple sites, and see if they’re interested in using a password manager.
While you’re at it, ask your friends and family if they’ve frozen their credit files at the major consumer credit bureaus. If not, talk with them about what this entails and how it can help ward off identity theft. If they’re game, you might even consider helping them set it up and ensuring that freeze PINs are securely stored so the information is easily available when and if their credit files ever need to be thawed.
from Amber Scott Technology News https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/11/how-to-shop-online-like-a-security-pro/
0 notes
toptecharena · 6 years
Text
PrestaShop is a powerful and popular open-source e-commerce application used by more than 270,000 web stores worldwide.
Experts can download, install and set up PrestaShop for free. It has everything you need to build a catalogue of products, both physical and digital, then create your own custom web store, manage the checkout and payment process, keep track of orders, and market and grow your business.
PrestaShop Ready is a more beginner-oriented service which enables users to set up their web store with the minimum of hassle. There’s no software to download and install, no need to organize hosting, and no web development experience required. PrestaShop Ready already has all the technical basics sorted, leaving you to focus solely on your products and the store.
You can sign up for PrestaShop Ready here
Pricing is simple, with PrestaShop Ready currently only available in a single ‘Start’ plan. The specs look good to us, with support for unlimited products, images and staff accounts, along with customizable and mobile-friendly themes, a blog, newsletter, SSL certificate, and payment accepted via PayPal and card. Prices start at a reasonable 24.90 euros (£22.26, $28.40) for monthly billing, 19.90 (£17.79, $22.71) if you pay for a year up-front.
There are also some down sides. Regular PrestaShop has huge libraries of add-ons and themes, for example, but PrestaShop Ready has only a few essential options. It’s still a very capable system, but if you’re a PrestaShop expert, you could be frustrated.
It looks to us like PrestaShop Ready could be an interesting product for more demanding e-commerce newcomers, though. If that sounds like you, the service is available as a free 15-day trial, with no payment details required.
Getting started
To start your PrestaShop Ready trial, you must first hand over some personal details, including your email address, name, gender (why?), and, optionally, your phone number.
Next, the website prompted us for our store name. This can easily be changed, later, but for now allows you to access the site as a PrestaShop Ready subdomain (yourname.prestashopready.com.)
A Localization page then asked us to enter our location, in order that it could set our main currency and tax rules. During the review, the website only allowed us to choose between France, Italy and Spain, but it also explained that many more currencies were available from the full store administration console. We opted for France.
That was the end of the question, and we had nothing else to do beyond agree to the Terms and Conditions and hit the Create Store button. After a pause of around a minute, as the service created our store, the website redirected us to our PrestaShop Ready console.
This opening interface has menus which can take you to some very complex setup areas, but also does its best to cater for beginners, with clearly-labelled buttons to view the default store layout, manage your store, add a custom domain name and more, as well as a pointer to a set of online video tutorials where you can find out more. 
Creating your store
Tapping the Manage Store button took us to the PrestaShop Dashboard, and gave us a first look at just what the package could do. A sidebar gave us access to site design, shipping, payment and localization tools, our product catalog, customer service module and more, while the main screen provides detailed analytics on traffic, orders, newsletter subscribers and other key details.
If you’re new to e-commerce, a set of tutorials are available to walk you through the initial setup process. This starts by choosing a shop theme. There are only eleven of these, but they’re all high-quality and very customisable, and it’s likely you’ll find something that appeals.
Your chosen theme can be further configured in many ways. This can start with some high-level design decisions, so for example we were able to decide whether to set up ‘Featured Product’, ‘Top Sellers’ and ‘New Products’ content blocks on our own store. But you can also fine-tune low-level details from color schemes to button styles and system fonts. There’s a lot to learn in figuring out how this is done – PrestaShop has its own interface for these tasks, and it’s nothing like a conventional website builder – but that’s inevitable when you have this much power, and if you’re happy with the defaults, you can ignore most of the advanced design tweaks for now.
It’s a similar picture when building your product catalogue. Drag and drop some images, add a product name, a rich text summary and description, and a price, and you could, maybe, stop there. But explore the menus a little and you’ll find options to configure product type (single physical, a combination of physical products, a downloadable product, a service), variations (size, color), quantities (minimum per order, stock management), taxes, a complex set of shipping rules, SEO, smart redirection (display another product or category if this one is disabled), associated files (instructions, manual), and more.
Again, there is real power and industrial-strength functionality here, but you don’t have to worry about the low-level complexities, most of the time. You can create a minimal product set with a very few options, preview your website to see how this works, and modify the results as you go to make whatever changes you need.
Alternatively, if you’ve already created a product catalog with another e-commerce platform, there’s a very good chance that PrestaShop can import it for you. The hugely sophisticated import module supports multiple file types (.csv, .xls, .xlsx, .xlst, .ods, .ots), allows mapping source columns to the appropriate PrestaShop fields, and can import a host of other business-related data, including product categories, customizations, suppliers, customers and more.
Payment processing support is more typical, with support for cards (via Stripe), PayPal, bank transfer and check. The stand-alone PrestaShop has many more, including WorldPay, CCBill and Amazon Pay. PrestaShop Ready is relatively easy to set up, though, and we think it’s likely that other payment processors will be added over time.
While these functions worked well, being forced to choose another country for our location (France) presented us with some issues, including elements of our website and the interface being displayed in French. Exploring the International and Localization tools revealed ways to fix these, one by one, but they weren’t always obvious, and life would have been much easier if we had been given a full set of locations in the first place.
PrestaShop Ready is a relatively new service, so hopefully the language issue will be fixed soon. But even with the problem, the service still provides a comprehensive interface which enables building a good-looking and feature-packed web store.
Running your business
PrestaShop Ready comes with a stack of order processing tools, covering invoicing, credit slips, delivery slips and more. Setting up shipping is more awkward than we would like, but PrestaShop’s bundled Upela module can help by comparing multiple carriers – FedEx, TNT, UPS, DHL, dpd, Colissimo, Chronopost, Mondial Relay, Correos, SEUR, BRT, SDA, ASM, Nexive – and, apparently, getting discounts of up to 75%. 
A built-in customer service module provides a unified IMAP-based system to organize customer emails and messages into individual discussion threads. A default response template helps to get you started, file attachment support allows customers to send additional information, and you can easily forward messages to another employee for handling, or mark them as Closed when they’re complete. It’s not a full-strength helpdesk, but it’s good enough for most purposes.
Once your website is up and running, the Dashboard begins to fill with handy stats and details on every aspect of the business. There’s basic visitor and unique visitor figures, traffic sources, the number of recent online visitors and active support carts, and details on pending orders, abandoned carts and more.
You can also browse historic charts of visits, sales, orders and net profits, as well as measure your current performance against forecasts. A convenient Demo Mode populates all these charts and graphs with sample data, allowing you to see how these analytics work before you sign up.
If all this gets too much, or you run into problems, a Help button bottom-right gives you instant access to the support system. 
A pop-up window includes a search box where you can look for support articles matching various keywords. There’s a lot of content, but it’s not always as direct or immediately helpful as we would like. If you want to know how to add a carrier to your website, for instance, searching for Carrier will lead you to a promising-looking Managing Carriers article. But despite being more than 1,200 words and crammed with general information, it doesn’t contain the step-by-step guidance you might expect.
Fortunately, live chat and telephone support is available if you’re losing track. Our test question got a speedy and helpful response, as well as a pointer to more detailed tutorials which we otherwise might have missed.
Final verdict
PrestaShop Ready isn’t quite as easy to set up as the company claims, but it does allow you to build an industrial-strength web store for a very reasonable price.
We’ve also highlighted the best e-commerce platforms in this roundup
Go to Source Author: PrestaShop Ready PrestaShop is a powerful and popular open-source e-commerce application used by more than 270,000 web stores worldwide.
0 notes
thisdaynews · 6 years
Text
Breaking News: Ex-spy accused of selling secrets to China claims he was trying to help the United States
New Post has been published on https://www.thisdaynews.net/2018/05/29/breaking-news-ex-spy-accused-of-selling-secrets-to-china-claims-he-was-trying-to-help-the-united-states/
Breaking News: Ex-spy accused of selling secrets to China claims he was trying to help the United States
Kevin Mallory, a former CIA officer, admits he met with Chinese spies. He admits he planned a covert meeting with one of the operatives, that he handed over U.S. intelligence documents and that he accepted thousands of dollars.
Federal prosecutors call it espionage. But the Virginia man, who for years held a top-secret clearance, says it was no crime. He contends it was a ruse intended to out the spies to U.S. authorities.
On Tuesday, Mallory goes on trial in federal court in Alexandria, where a jury will decide which story they believe.
Mallory, 61, of Leesburg, is a fluent Mandarin Chinese speaker who spent two decades working in U.S. intelligence. Public defenders Geremy Kamens and Todd Richman say he used that experience to ensnare two Chinese intelligence operatives who approached him as staffers for a Shanghai think tank.
“He sent what he thought was worthless information to keep his Chinese contacts interested in him until the CIA would meet with him,” the defense attorneys wrote in one court filing.
Prosecutors say that, on the contrary, Mallory’s plan was to cash in on his covert knowledge to get himself out of debt. If he did not share everything he knew, they argue in court filings, it was only because he was holding out for better pay. And if he was somewhat open with old colleagues at the CIA, it was only to cover his tracks.
He “was seeking to develop a long-term, financially profitable relationship,” prosecutors John Gibbs and Jennifer Kennedy Gellie said in one motion.
Mallory is one of two former CIA officers accused in Alexandria federal court of working with Chinese intelligence. Jerry Chun Shing Lee, 53, is set to go to on trial in February on similar charges. Prosecutors say Lee, like Mallory, was co-opted by Chinese spies when his post-government career was foundering.
Mallory served in the military from 1977 to 2011, on active duty for the first decade and as a reservist after. According to his defense attorneys, he was kidnapped and seriously wounded while serving in Iraq in 2005.
He also spent years in the intelligence world, working as a covert case officer for the CIA from 1990 to 1996, for the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2007 to 2010, and at various government agencies and defense contractors in between. Since 2012 he has run his own consulting business.
Prosecutors say that business was failing though, and Mallory’s only income in 2017 was the $25,000 he was paid by the Chinese spies.
Court filings say Mallory was contacted by one of those spies through the networking site LinkedIn in February of 2017. Richard Yang presented himself as a recruiter for the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, a think tank prosecutors describe as, in part, a cover for government spies. In March, Mallory went to Shanghai and met Yang and his boss, Michael Yang.
Before that trip, according to court filings, Mallory asked Michael Yang for a mobile phone, saying he might bring some information on an SD card. Mallory told Yang to put the phone in a double-sealed envelope, and to initial around the seals before leaving it for him at his hotel. He emailed Yang three documents he had scanned at a FedEx store in Virginia that were not classified but were government documents related to intelligence.
“I will look for a person who has a newspaper under their left arm with keys in their left hand,” Mallory wrote, according to the filings. “Please find a private place that we can meet one another for a few minutes.”
The Chinese contacts paid Mallory $10,000 in cash on that trip, according to prosecutors, and for his hotel and flights. Mallory did not declare the cash to customs when he returned.
On another trip the following month, Mallory was given a Samsung phone and paid $15,000, according to the court filings. In May, he sent two more documents that have been determined to contain classified information. Prosecutors say he even lied to the Chinese and claimed the $15,000 was seized at the U.S. border, asking them to replace it. He promised to deliver more documents, prosecutors added.
“Your object is to gain information, and my object is to be paid for it,” he said in one message, according to court filings.
Yet all along, Mallory was also reaching out to former contacts at the CIA, and he told them he had been approached by Chinese intelligence.
“I’ve been over their again, and I keep getting banged on,” he wrote in one text message, according to court filings. “In the past I suspected who they are and didn’t really know but this time they were even more suspicious with me.”
In May 2017, Mallory sat down with a CIA agent, revealing he had met intelligence agents in Shanghai and he had been given a phone. He said he would meet again with the CIA and bring the phone to be examined.
The next meeting was two weeks later. Instead of CIA officers, Mallory was met by two FBI agents.
He let the agents copy the phone. But according to his indictment, Mallory was surprised when messages he had sent and received appeared, saying he thought the phone was set up to delete all previous history.
He also lied, prosecutors say, claiming he had given the Chinese only unclassified white papers on policy in exchange for the $25,000.
From jail, Mallory asked his wife and son in Chinese to look for the SD card he had bought. FBI agents had found it wrapped in foil in a shoe in his closet; eight documents containing classified information were on it, according to court papers, including the two given to the Chinese.
But Mallory said then and argues now that the documents he did hand over were to string the operatives along.
He believed the information he gave “was essentially worthless,” his attorneys argue in one filing, while he withheld his knowledge of “several highly classified and sensitive projects that would be of enormous interest and value to the People’s Republic of China.”
In one document Mallory added false classification markings, according to his attorneys, and another contained “virtually illegible handwritten notes” that were not classified.
Prosecutors say they will call witnesses from intelligence agencies who will say they disagree with Mallory’s characterization. In court filings, defense attorneys say Mallory’s own expert on classification, a 27-year veteran of the CIA named Harry P. Cooper Jr., is being intimidated. A senior attorney for the CIA Office of General Counsel called Cooper, they say, to remind him of his obligation not to reveal classified information if he testifies for the defense.
This is not the first time Mallory has been accused of handing over classified information. According to an inspector general’s report, Mallory shared details on sources with a defense contractor in 2010 while trying to launch a career outside government.
Mallory had been suspended by the Defense Intelligence Agency for “performance issues” when he started consulting without telling the government, according to the report.
Mallory denied the transgression, saying he had only “spoken in generalities” to the contractor. His security clearance was revoked and he resigned.
Mallory has been active in the Montgomery Chinese Branch of the Mormon Church. He and his wife, who was born in Taiwan, have three children.
“I have always known Kevin to be a man of integrity,” wrote fellow church member Benjamin Tsai in a letter to the court. “He is fiercely loyal to His country and to His God.”
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Articles, Marked With "Marketing Strategy"
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londoncourier · 7 years
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Same Day Courier Service London | Urgent Next Day Delivery UK
shipping scams
Online shopping has been skyrocketing year after year thanks to the wide range of products and conveniences it offers. It’s estimated that e-commerce generates over $1 million every 30 seconds. This is a massive amount of money with heavyweights such as Amazon, eBay, and Walmart in the lead. But, where there’s money there’s always someone trying to be crafty and exploitative. This is the reason online shopping is tainted by a dark history of frauds and shipping scams. So, how do you stay safe from shipping scams?
This post is going to explore some of the ways to avoid falling into the trap of scammers. Read on to learn more.
1. Search the Company Online
This is an obvious step, but it can be tricky as well. Seasoned scammers are usually willing to create websites that look and feel authentic. They will even add images, reviews, and testimonials to make their sites appear more legitimate.
So, when researching about a company, don’t just check their website. Look at their reviews on Yelp and their BBB profile. Try to find out the number of complaints and negative reviews they have. Most importantly, pay attention to what other customers are saying about them.
Check their online ratings. As a rule of thumb, any service rated three out of five and below is poor service. This will help you to avoid some of the common shipping problems.
2. Determine Their Years of Operation
The number of years a company has been in business can also give you some clues about them. Dropshipping and freight forwarding are some of the businesses that have become easy to start today. Today, anyone with a phone and internet connection can start these businesses.
There are many factors, such as weather conditions, labor strikes, and customs policy changes that affect the shipping industry. A seasoned shipping company will likely know what to do in the event of these circumstances. Plus, they have a track record of successful shipments and package delivery.
If you choose to work with a new company, you might experience several issues, including delays and hidden costs. This what happened to customers who used Medrano Express in Houston and Atlanta. The company was also banned from North Carolina and ordered to refund its customers.
3. Verify the Agent’s Details
In some cases, you can encounter an agent claiming to work for a popular shipping company. In this case, you can use a popular shipping company or freight forwarder, but your money and goods get stolen because you worked with a fake agent.
Before moving forward with an agent, be sure to request their details and verify them with the company they claim to work for. When contacting the shipping company for to verify the details, only use the contact information listed on their website or social media pages. Do not accept any contact details from the agent.
You might also fall victim to a case of identity theft. In this case, an agent can approach you with the details of an actual employee of the company. You want to make sure that the contact details for the person match up with what the shipping company has.
4. Don’t Fall for Scam Emails
This is one of the common shipping scams that many Americans face every day. It’s usually common around the holidays and during shopping seasons, such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
If you’re expecting any packages, you’re a good target for scammers. You’re likely to receive an email that looks like it’s from the U.S Postal Service, FedEx, or DHL. The email can be a notification of package arrival or delivery failure.
It might contain documents that you’re supposed to print and take it to the local postal office. The email may also contain other links that request or confirm your personal and payment information. Some may also tell you to take immediate action to avoid penalties.
Over the years, shipping scam emails have been perfected, so you need to be very careful. Con artists will use names, logos, and other relatable information of a legitimate company.
5. Check for Red Flags
Customers are usually most vulnerable when they’re expecting package delivery. You want to be very cautious when you receive emails, calls, or text message regarding a shipment or package.
Verify the email address to ensure it’s the real company
Poor grammar and spelling mistakes are red flags
Emails with threats for penalties shouldn’t be trusted
Emails that lack your package order or tracking code are spams
Most importantly, you need to have the contact details of your shipping company at hand.
6. Sheeping Fees and Money Transfer
Just because a shipping company offers a lower quote than the standard shipping rates, doesn’t mean they’re a good option for you. Absurdly good rates and discounts can also be a red flag, as the con artist wants you to rush the transaction. Keep in mind that shipping rates can’t be the primary determining factor for your choice.
Some services may ask you to send the shipping fees to their preferred shipper. Others will tell you they have a preferred vendor they have worked with for long and you should use them, too. These are cases you should first investigate or avoid all together to avoid getting scammed.
There are also services that will request additional payment for package rerouting. Make sure that a service can ship to your desired address before placing your shipping order.
Shipping Scams – Be Careful!
Online shopping has made things convenient for shoppers. However, it’s growth and popularity has exposed shoppers to a variety of shipping scams. Whenever you shop online or you hire a shipping or courier company, take the necessary precautionary measures to ensure your safety and security.
If you’re looking for a trusted and reliable shipping service for air freight, rush courier or luggage delivery, get a quick quote here or contact us for further assistance.
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The following news article Avoiding Courier Service and Shipping Scams is republished from: Parcel Connect London For more content visit: Parcel Connect | Parcel Connect on Youtube | Parcel Connect Twitter
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brajeshupadhyay · 4 years
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The N.F.L. team in Washington has hired the law firm Wilkinson Walsh to review the claims of 15 women who, in an article published by The Washington Post on Thursday, said they were sexually harassed while employed by the team. The article detailed numerous allegations of sexual harassment, misconduct and abusive behavior by several team executives and football personnel over more than a dozen years. Male executives, the women said, commented repeatedly on their looks, sent them inappropriate text messages and pursued unwanted relationships. After The Post contacted the team with the allegations, according to the article, its longtime play-by-play announcer, Larry Michael, retired, while Alex Santos, the director of pro personnel, and Richard Mann II, the assistant director of pro personnel, were both fired. All three were accused of sexual harassment by former team employees, according to the article. Michael declined to comment about the reason for his departure before The Post’s article was published. He did not return a call for comment after the allegations against him were made public. Santos and Mann could not be reached for comment. Dennis Greene, the team’s former head of business operations, was accused of sexually harassing women on the staff when he encouraged them to wear tight skirts and low-cut shirts, and asked them to flirt with people who own luxury boxes at FedEx Field, the team’s stadium in Landover, Md. Greene, who resigned under pressure in 2018 after 17 years with the team, had been in charge of selling luxury suites and oversaw a program involving cheerleaders called ambassadors, who had been hired not to cheer, but solely for their attractiveness. He left the team in May that year, the day The New York Times published an investigation into the program. That report described him as examining each ambassador from head to toe as the group stood in an inspection line for him on game days. Greene also oversaw a 2013 cheerleader calendar photo shoot in Costa Rica. The team collected the women’s passports at the start of that trip, depriving the women of their official identification. Several cheerleaders who were there told The Times that they were forced to act as escorts for male corporate sponsors and luxury box owners invited on the trip. Those sponsors and well-heeled supporters watched as some cheerleaders posed topless for the calendar shoot. “It’s disheartening, but I wouldn’t say that I’m surprised at all,” said Allison Cassidy, a defense contractor and former team cheerleader who attended the Costa Rica trip. “When I was there, management held this power over you, and it was this abusive power dynamic that made you feel 100% replaceable. Even if we wanted to complain about the harassment, there was no one we could tell without feeling like we’d lose our job.” Beth Wilkinson, a founding partner of Wilkinson Walsh, confirmed in an email that her firm would conduct “an independent review of the team’s culture, policies and allegations of workplace misconduct.” A N.F.L. spokesman, Brian McCarthy, said the league had no comment about the internal investigation at the team. In a statement, the team said it “takes issues of employee conduct seriously.” It continued: “While we do not speak to specific employee situations publicly, when new allegations of conduct are brought forward that are contrary to these policies, we address them promptly.” The decision to begin an internal investigation comes at a turbulent time for the franchise, which has been embroiled in a public controversy over the team’s name and has had numerous staff members depart over the past year. Under pressure from several of its largest corporate sponsors, the team said Monday that it would drop its logo and the name “Redskins,” an about-face by the team owner, Daniel Snyder, who for decades said he would never change the name, which has long been considered a racial slur by many. Fred Smith, the chairman of FedEx and a minority shareholder of the football team, and two other shareholders have been trying to sell their stakes in the team, which amount to about 40 percent, for months. The team is in the process of choosing a new name and logo. Several front office executives have left or been dismissed from the team in the past year, some of whom were not accused of harassment in the article. In October, the team fired Jay Gruden, the head coach who had a losing record since he took over in 2014. Gruden’s team had lost its first five games of the 2019 season. Bruce Allen, who was hired as general manager in 2010 and made team president in 2017, was fired in December. Larry Hess, the team’s trainer for 17 years, was fired in late December. In January, the team let go of Eric Schaffer, its vice president for football operations and general counsel, after 17 years with the club. Santos and Mann also left last week. When the team’s 2019 season ended, Snyder hired Ron Rivera, the longtime coach of the Carolina Panthers. “He is widely respected around the league as a man of great integrity and has proven to be one of the finest coaches in the country,” Snyder said in a statement. Rivera has brought in new coaches and other front office personnel involved in evaluating players, a step common for incoming head coaches. But Rivera has had to make several key hires and sign free agents and rookies at a time when players and personnel have been unable to travel as usual because of the coronavirus pandemic. Eric Stokes, who ran college scouting for the Panthers when Rivera coached there, was recruited to replace Santos, and Jeff Scott, an assistant under Mann, was promoted. Rivera also brought in Rob Rogers, who spent 25 years working on salary cap-related issues and contracts with the Panthers organization, to replace Schaffer. Snyder has not hired a new team president or general manager. It is unclear how long the law firm’s investigation will take.Wilkinson Walsh has represented the N.F.L. in a lawsuit brought by DirecTV Sunday Ticket subscribers, and before founding the firm, Beth Wilkinson represented the league in the extensive concussion lawsuit. ESPN first reported that Washington’s N.F.L. team had hired the firm. In response to The Times’s report on the cheerleaders, the Washington team denied any wrongdoing, but still conducted a three-month investigation into its cheerleading program after Greene resigned. A team spokesman said substantial changes to the program followed, including the organization no longer inviting sponsors on calendar shoots, and cheerleaders no longer being assigned to work at private events. The last team to confirm it was undergoing a major internal review was the Carolina Panthers. In 2017, when allegations of sexual harassment were made against Jerry Richardson, the club’s founding owner, the team hired Erskine Bowles, a former White House chief of staff and one of the team’s minority shareholders, to lead an investigation into the claims. The league stepped in and hired a different law firm to take over, and Richardson sold the team the next year. Last month the Panthers took down a statue of Richardson that was outside its stadium, saying they were worried protesters against racism and police brutality would try to topple it. Former Washington players were not eager to talk about the culture of the club. Josh Norman, a cornerback now with the Buffalo Bills after spending the past four seasons in Washington, sent a cryptic message on Twitter on Thursday that seemed to reference the events surrounding his old team. “Look Don’t ask me NO QUESTIONS!” Norman wrote. “But I will say this, what goes around comes around. What’s done in the dark will surely come to the Light!” The post Washington NFL Team Faces Sexual Harassment Claims from 15 Women, Hire Law Firm appeared first on Shri Times.
http://sansaartimes.blogspot.com/2020/07/washington-nfl-team-faces-sexual.html
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