Identity theft is of major concern to the Australian Federal Government and it should be of concern to you too…

Why?

Because there was more than $2,000,000,000 (two billion dollars) in known losses caused by Identity Theft in 2005 alone.

This has risen dramatically since then and is likely to continue to rise until average everyday people start to protect their privacy.

There are a number of things you can do initially to lessen the likelyhood of you becoming a target of Identity Theft:

• Completely destroy any information that may have your personal details on it (Before it’s thrown away) - such as electricity or phone bills, credit card statements, bank statements, rates notices etc.
• Don’t give out personal information by email or on social networking sites unless you are sure of the identity of the person at the other end of the conversation.
• Never give out personal information over MSN and other Chat Programs as the security of these types of services has been breached a number of times.
• Check your accounts and records carefully for anything that you don’t remember doing, like a few ’small’ transactions on your credit card (these can often be ‘test’ charges)
• When disposing of personal information (Like statements and bills) make sure they are shredded, burnt, cut up into tiny pieces or in some way completely destroyed to ensure the information can not be ‘found’ in your rubbish.

One quick way to see if you might have been targeted for possible Identity Theft is to get an up to date copy of your credit file.

There are a number of agencies out there that will supply you with a copy of your credit file from within one day to 2 weeks.  There is also one known firm that will guarantee you a copy of your credit file in less than 3 business hours.  That firm is MyCra.com.au

Once you have a copy of your credit file, have a look through and make sure you personally have made each and every application for credit that is listed on your credit file.
And YES, every time you make an application for a credit card, mobile phone, electricity account, home phone, interest free purchase or any other kind of finance, it will be listed and recorded on your credit file.

If there are any unknown applications or enquiries, you should begin the process to find out ‘what the heck is going on’.

There are a number of resources available that you might like to look at:

• Consumer Affairs Division – Department of the Treasury   (http://www.ecommerce.treasury.gov.au/)

• Ministerial Council on Consumer Affairs   (http://www.consumer.gov.au/)

• Net Alert    (http://www.netalert.net.au)

• Australasian Centre for Policing Research    (http://acpr.gov.au)

Further information and reading can also be found at www.MyCra.com.au

This video goes for a little over an hour but is a must see if you are interested in the next big thing to come from Google.

This will replace email, MSN and other hosted solutions all in one….

I watched and thisk it is super cool and reccommend you all watch it as soon as you can.

I will be implimenting Google Wave as soon as I can (on my websites) to make communication with my friends, family and clients a whole lot easier.

Please let me know what you think once you have watched as well.

Until next time, continue to enjoy…..

…..yourself.

Graham Doessel can be contacted at Mortgage Now, 246 Stafford Road, Stafford, Qld.  4053 | Telephone 1300 667 239 | www.mortgagenow.com.au | info@mortgagenow.com.au

Mortgage Now is Australias largest exclusivly nonconforming mortgage broker and has been placed as a finalist in the Australian Mortgage Awards Best Broker of The Year (nonconforming) for 2008 and again in 2009.  In 2006 Mortgage Now was placed as a finalist in the Telstra Business of the Year Awards.

Be Aware, If You Have A Facebook Account, You Might Be Next.. Be Careful..

The following story was copied from and belongs to:

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/security/robbed-by-facebooks-enemy-in-the-camp-20090908-ff5q.html

Robbed by Facebook’s enemy in the camp

Natasha Cann … victim of a Facebook scam.

Natasha Cann endured the Father’s Day from hell on Sunday when hackers broke into her Facebook account and proceeded to scam her closest friends out of significant amounts of money.

The 34-year-old professional who works for BHP Billiton in South Australia - and used to work in IT for the military - thought her account was locked down but the painful reality hit her on Sunday night when a friend phoned her from Singapore.

The friend had just received a Facebook message, purportedly from Cann, saying she had been seriously assaulted and robbed at gunpoint in London and urgently needed money to get home.

The message, which was sent to all of Cann’s 400 friends, asked for an initial amount of $10,000, which had to be wired in cash as soon as possible to a Western Union account.

“They were alleging that I only had my passport on me and that I couldn’t get to a bank or anything - that Western Union would be the only way,” a distraught Cann said in a phone interview.

Cann immediately contacted Facebook asking it to disable her account but Facebook only got around to doing it about 12 hours later, by which time one of Cann’s friends in Western Australia had already transferred $1000 to the scammers.

Cann tried publishing warning messages on her Facebook wall from her partner’s account before her account was disabled but these were quickly blocked by the scammers, who changed her password and the email address linked to her account.

She said she had received just 11 calls from friends about the matter and is worried about how many others had sent money to the scammers.

Furthermore, the scammers could now use the personal details gleaned from her friends’ pages to conduct targeted attacks on them.

Since Facebook is her main avenue for contact with a lot of her far-flung friends, she didn’t have email addresses or phone numbers that she could use to warn most of them.

“It’s horrendous in that it’s people I know and that I care for who could just be scammed out of a great deal of money - they’re preying on people’s good nature and good intent to make sure that I’m OK,” said Cann.

“The chap that rang from Singapore was about to jump on a plane to London and we have friends in Greece that were about to fly over as well.”

The scammers even contacted the friend who had given the $1000, saying the money wasn’t enough and that more was necessary.

Cann is frustrated that Facebook does not provide contact numbers for users to call in these situations and took so long to respond to her emails.

She believes Facebook should have contacted her friends quickly, telling them her account had been compromised and at the very least provided an online system for her to disable her account instantly using a secret question or other security measure.

Cann filed a report with South Australian Police yesterday but is not hopeful that they will be able to do anything to bring the overseas scammers to justice.

Sean Richmond, senior technology consultant at the security firm Sophos, said Cann’s story was “not terribly uncommon”.

He said Facebook was in a tricky position because introducing new security measures allowing people to disable their accounts instantly in the event of an attack could simply open up a new avenue for hackers.

But Richmond said that, unlike banks, who cover customers’ losses to credit-card fraud, Facebook does not suffer financial penalties when its users are defrauded.

“Facebook has not got a whole lot of incentive to do things super fast because they’re not the ones that are suffering,” he said.

Facebook would not comment on the specific issues and suggestions raised by Cann. Instead, it provided a generic statement pointing people to its security page and an email address for users to report abuse.

Until next time, continue to enjoy…..

…..Good Things

Graham Doessel can be contacted at Mortgage Now, 246 Stafford Road, Stafford, Qld.  4053 | Telephone 1300 667 239 | www.mortgagenow.com.au | info@mortgagenow.com.au

Mortgage Now is Australias largest exclusivly nonconforming mortgage broker and has been placed as a finalist in the Australian Mortgage Awards Best Broker of The Year (nonconforming) for 2008 and again in 2009.  In 2006 Mortgage Now was placed as a finalist in the Telstra Business of the Year Awards.

The word on the street is that the Reserve Bank will raise Australian Interest Rates by ½ of one percent before Christmas this year.

A lot of people may be thinking that now is the time to fix… before it goes up too much. And I agree that it makes sense on the surface of it… Until you dig a little deeper.

If you have a look, you may notice that fixed rates are as much as 2 full percentage points higher that variable rates.

The 2% difference will cost you an additional $583 per month on a $350,000 home loan or $166 per month on every $100,000 (of Mortgage you have).

So, what to do?

Here’s something to think about..

If interest rates go up at ¼ of a percent every 3 month, then in 2 years, the variable interest rates will catch up to the current fixed rates.  What will it have cost or saved you?

I have done up a table showing the differences between the variable rates with the rate rise every 3 months starting in December.  The difference is more than $7000 over the 2 years or an average of an additional $328 each and every month for the next 2 years…

(No one knows when the rates are going to go up and the table below is for illustration purposes only)

If you keep this going to see the fixed Rate ’V’ Variable Rate break even point, you will see that it is December 2013 before the extra you are paying on a fixed rate home loan actually catches up…

Now, I like to think I know my market (and I do) but who knows what the Government will do? Do you?

I know that I personally will be staying on a variable rate with my home loan.

Keep in mind also, that if you want to sell your home or refinance it (while still in the fixed term mortgage), you will have an awful experience when you want to ‘break’ the fixed rate term agreement and it could cost you $thousands in break fees.

Please give it some serious thought before you decide to ‘fix’ your home loan.

If you would like to discuss your mortgage, Please call me (or my team) on 1300 667 239 for a free no obligation chat.

Until next time, continue to enjoy…..

…..Good Things

Graham Doessel can be contacted at Mortgage Now, 246 Stafford Road, Stafford, Qld.  4053 | Telephone 1300 667 239 | www.mortgagenow.com.au | info@mortgagenow.com.au

Mortgage Now is Australias largest exclusivly nonconforming mortgage broker and has been placed as a finalist in the Australian Mortgage Awards Best Broker of The Year (nonconforming) for 2008 and again in 2009.  In 2006 Mortgage Now was placed as a finalist in the Telstra Business of the Year Awards.

As Australias Largest exclusively NonConforming Mortgage Broker, this is one of the most common situations we hear about.

Clients call up and explain their situation - they have had unexpected expenses, lost a job or a range of other equally unavoidable circumstances.. means they have been unable to keep up with their home loan payments.

What should they do?

In most cases, it is what should they have already done.

As soon as you know you won’t be able to make the payment on time, you should contact your lender and let them know you are in a little trouble.  There are often a number of options available to you from simple things like :

• delaying the payment  by a week
• applying for hardship relief
• getting a moratorium on the payments

Everyones situation is very different but there are a number of standard options that can be accessed to get you through.

Other things to consider prior to getting into trouble:

• income protection insurance
• mortgage protection insurance
• unemployment insurance
• save a minimum of 3 months mortgage payments for a rainy day
• make your payments weekly instead of monthly and you will always be ahead
• setup an offset account

Everyones situation is different and at Mortgage Now ( www.mortgagenow.com.au ), we will work with your situation to find you a loan even if you are behind in your payments and been toldd no bu everyone else.

You can reach Graham Doessel and his helpful team on 1300 667 239 for a one on one no obligation chat