Good Tuesday morning!
Here's
your "life's too short to be that
gullible"
Dose
of Dover
The
most reliable source for un-common
sense advice,
insights and
cover-your-hiney strategies you simply can't find
anywhere else.
Take
your best shot...try to put me
out of a job!
How?
Forward
this week's newsletter
to
everyone in
your Address Book
and
with any luck, make 'em a little lot
smarter.
[C'mon...be
a big shot!]
Spread
the word and share the wealth of
Tuesday, June
3, 2003:
Didja miss the best 2-hours in
talkradio Sunday morning? Whether you were sleeping late or
live outside the Southern California broadcast area of KFI: Now
listen to what you missed! Click here to access Ben's
on-line radio show archive.
Yo, Einstein! Are
you taking advantage of Brother Ben's hard work that
goes into every show, every KFI Update and every Dose
of Dover Newsletter? [I doubt it.]
Seriously...you're leaving a bunch of additional information
and entertainment value on the proverbial table if you don't
"click over" hot-linked [highlighted] words
or sentences you come across. Incredible insights and
[frequently] twisted
humor are only one click away...
Your insurance company's more
interested than ever before in what you're doing in your
spare time: Couple
this with the spike
in e-mails from Dover Disciples twisted off
about rising premiums for auto, health and homeowner's
insurance and you've got the Top
Three Triggers that'll either jack-up
your premiums, get your policy canceled outright, or
even get you blacklisted faster than Bill
Clinton being ejected from a Jerry Falwell prayer
breakfast.....
Trigger #1:
Your Personal Driving Risk Assessment Report is all over
the road. When was the last time you saw a copy of
yours? In
the spirit of "disclosure for a profit," the
big information clearing house known as ChoiceTrust will
be happy to sell you a copy of your report (and a
look at what the insurance industry uses to grade you
when it's time to write a policy) for a mere $12.95.
These C.L.U.E.
Personal Auto reports show a 5-year history of your
automobile-related claims.
Dover's
Driving For Dollars Tip #1? Check
out your own Personal Driving Risk Assessment Report:
- Once every few years just to
make sure you know what's on it;
- If you've gotten popped recently with
a big auto insurance premium increase recently;
- If you're thinking about changing
insurance companies.
Trigger #2:
Almost every major U.S. employer has some sort of
Employee Assistance Program staffed by company-paid
counselors ready to help you with personal challenges
ranging from domestic violence to substance abuse to
depression.
It's not too early to start
planning for holiday travel, and not just the 4th of
July!!! Getting a jump on Thanksgiving or
Christmastime planning will really save you some
major dough! The
source for great deals--whether you're planning for travel
through the end of the year, or spur-of-the-moment/let's
get away this weekend hotel rooms and condos that are hard
to beat, check out www.hotels.com.
And for those of you wanting to get equally-competitive
rental cars to drive once you arrive, cruise over to www.travelnow.com
to get more miles outta your travel dollars.
But wait! There's
more!!! The scammers at LeaseComm
wrote
the contracts in a way that forced their victims into
paying, even when vendors used fraud or the products
failed to perform as advertised. So
how
did LeaseComm promote these bogus Internet
mall, medical billing, coupon clipping get-rich-quick
schemes? At seminars and conferences, where overly
optimistic consumers (naive's another good descriptor)
were given little time to read and understand the complex
contracts they were being brow-beaten into signing.
And this is where it gets really
ugly: Once consumers
figured out they'd signed up for a worthless business
opportunity and stopped making monthly payments, the
low-life lawyers of LeaseComm sued them, getting
default judgments that they'd then collect on by garnishing paychecks
and cleaning out bank accounts.
So. Have I gotten your
attention yet? I hope so because here's
the first of three huge lessons you must take away from
this story:
Lesson #1: Understand
what you're signing before you sign it!
I know this may seem like a revolutionary concept, but
you've gotta do it, folks...and here's a great example
that hammers home this point: The LeaseComm contracts
allowed them LeaseComm) to sue their victims in
Massachusetts, instead of the home state where consumers
lived and purchased the business opportunity. Since most
people couldn't afford to travel to contest the charges,
the bad guys slam-dunked them with default judgments. In
fact,
Leasecomm got more than 27,000
default judgments over the past three years using this
technique!
Lesson
#2: Anyone selling amazing business opportunities
should instantly send up red flags and trigger a reminder of
Dover's Basic Rule of Street Survival: If it sounds
too good to be true...it almost always is!
Lesson #3: Don't let anyone
hotbox you into making any sort of decision, especially
when it involves the always-popular "this is a
limited time offer and you've gotta sign up now or lose
your chance" bullying sales technique.
Companies promoting vacation timeshare packages are the
absolute worst; you've gotta turn and run anytime
anyone tries to use a "now or never" ultimatum
to get you to sign a contract.
Legitimate
companies won't force you to make a decision on the
spot...anyone who doesn't encourage
you to have your attorney look at the contract first is
obviously
afraid of what your attorney might find!
Whip
out your calendar and take note...Father's Day is now 12
days away: Quit wasting your cash on stuff
he'll never use and only pretend to like. Get something cool
for dear ol' Dad and
of course I have two suggestions: #1 It's the most amazing
towel he'll ever wrap around his weather-beaten self, from
our pals over at ww.fattowels.com. Or
#2? Don't think Mom's
the only one that likes flowers; help Dad explore his "sensitive
side" and get him some exotic
flowers shipped straight from the state that gave us Steve
McGarrett. C'mon ya tightwad, they're
extremely affordable, so go hit the official source
of entertaining vegetation outta Hawaii (where are
the Oreos
you ask?)...not
that sorta vegetation, I'm talkin'
about flowers from www.tropicalcolors.com!
Could the country's
biggest automobile manufacturers be hooked on crack?
Okay...maybe it's just the sales incentive
version of crack, but they're still hooked...which
is great news for you if you're looking for a new
set of wheels.
Thanks to
lower-than-hoped-for sales in May, The Big Three
automakers are are about to dangle a whole new bunch of
sweeter incentives to get you in a buying mood:
- Chrysler's summer campaign will
increase deals on vehicles such as Jeep Liberty, Chrysler
PT Cruiser and premium-priced minivans.
- GM's going to pile more dealer
incentives on top of what is now $3,000 worth of customer
rebates on almost all of its vehicles.
- Ford's already got their own
crack-like incentive scheme into full swing, with rebates
up to $5,000 floating around.
Ben's Bottom Line?
Be patient. If auto
sales don't pick up, expect to see bigger incentives later
this summer, including more of those 0% financing deals
that have been knocking the crap outta the leasing market
for the last 18 months.
Interest rates are are even
lower 40-year levels...you've gotta cash in
while you can lock in the lowest levels in decades. Re-finance
your current mortgage and cut the term to 10 or 15 years!
Or buy a house and quit throwin' your dough away on rent: It's
easy to get educated about the process first...and
the price is right! Everything
you need to know, and the price is right [free!] can
be found on-line; get your own copy of Ben's 2003
Home Buyer's Guide by clicking here.
Here's
the perfect way to cut back on the caffeine and maybe
even lose a few extra pounds: It should
be easier to do than ever before, according to one of the
country's biggest employee drug screening labs. Learn how
to paint your house all by yourself in 4 hours
or less...go
blow your nose and read all about it...
