WitzEnd Consulting

03/03/2022

When a large part of my work days are spent on Zoom, this crosses my mind. 😁

09/06/2020

HOW TO RECOGNIZE A SCAM WEBSITE OR PRODUCT
You know, most people don't realize that you can tell if a store is a scam just by looking at the name. For example, 'poukcily', 'dresslily' 'liliedswan', 'missrol'... DO THE NAMES MAKE SENSE? 'Enrichgo', 'uwvuuk', 'cogohoney' ... so many of them. They love to advertise on Facebook because Facebook never checks to see if they are scams.
So how do I know what the scams are? Consider my occupation; I can smell a scam a mile away. The triggers are:
1) the website name
2) a lack of transparency as to where they are located (many of the scammers ship ,if they even bother, out of China)
3) If you read the shipping policy, they indicate a delivery time of up to 25 days
4) A seemingly unfinished website (seeing "placeholder text" like latin, your content goes here, etc)
5) the price is unrealistically cheap. For example, a $350 product for $25. There's always a reason for a price that's a tenth of the normal retail. Even legitimate clearance prices are more than that. They are either shipping you a piece of garbage that doesn't work, or just taking your money.
6) The product description doesn't quite make sense, or looks like a non-english-speaking person wrote it.
7)Facebook always gives businesses the ability to automate certain responses to questions like "what are your business hours?", BUT... if you notice that of all the people who have responded and asked different questions, the automated response is the ONLY response -- no legitimate human is paying attention to the actual questions.
These websites are designed to take money and disappear. If they get 10,000 people to buy their fake product, they take down the website and set up again under a new fake name. The cycle is endless, and not only have they stolen your money, they've also stolen your credit card information.
Be safe. Be smart. Remember these things and avoid the scams.
Feel free to repost.

07/17/2020

Did you get an email from someone threatening to expose pornographic view history and claiming to have your password? Don't give in! Read this post from ZoneAlarm, a leader in antivirus and security.

Sextortion: All You Need to Know

Sextortion – a portmanteau of the words s*x and extortion – is a broad term used to describe the practice of exploiting a person (usually in an attempt to get money) by threatening to reveal evidence of their s*xual activity, often explicit photos or videos. Sextortion is not a new concept, and ...

12/31/2019

Our Wordpress Getting Started class is mentioned in the Cascade Business News! Get enrolled now to save your seat!

The location for all of the winter WordPress classes is COCC’s main Bend campus at the computer lab in the Boyle Education Center | Photo courtesy of COCC Every business needs a website to be viable. Save money by building your own! If you are just starting out with WordPress, cover the basics wit...

12/05/2019

Your Christmas gift; one hour free! - https://mailchi.mp/487098d0d017/your-christmas-gift-one-hour-free

11/25/2019

Need inexpensive web hosting on a high quality server? Check out Bluehost today! WitzEnd Consulting is a longtime affilate for Bluehost and we recommend their hosting!
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07/18/2019

It's all over the news about the FaceApp, that one that shows you what you look like when you age -- but with this and every other crazy app out there, you run the risk of exposing your privacy and potentially getting infected, hacked, etc. I don't do them because, well, I'm in IT and I know what they do. But for everyone else NOT in the industry, I'm telling you... DON'T USE THOSE APPS, no matter how entertaining they may be.

FaceApp breaks through with all new methods of vulnerabilities, including having access to all your photos, all your contacts, and being able to manipulate said photos for malicious purposes. It's Russian-owned and their privacy policy, which no one EVER reads, is purposely vague. They basically have unrestricted access to every photo you have. We used to be able to trust that if an app was in the Google Play Store or Apple's Store, it was safe -- but not anymore.

Please, resist the urge to play around with these apps.

"Your face will most likely end up training some AI facial-recognition algorithm"