Scammers -Festiva, FAMINU and Viniva

I have had many dealings in the online community in the last few years, be it from social communications, job searches and housing searches. That means that I have also had my share of experiences with scammers, even the Nigerians. This newest one, however, is going to hit and hurt a lot of people who, in this job market, are desperate for a job.
I applied for a position that was listed on Craigslist and received a reply e-mail within ten minutes, at 10:45pm. It was sent from a Blackberry which suggested to me that they had not even read my resume, but they were inviting me to interview the next morning. This came from FESTIVA RESORTS (http://www.festiva.travel/). I found this article during my skeptical search and was not interested in them even if there was a job. They are ripping people off with fake timeshares and I sure couldn't be a part of it.

The second company, or two companies, are a bit more serious. I sent another resume out from Craigslist and received a reply the next day, saying this:
Hello A*******,



Thank you for submitting your resume for our receptionist position.



We have been getting a lot of applications for this opening, but I am happy to let you know that I have reviewed your resume and it looks good.



Before I can set you up with the final interview, you need to complete a short personality screening, which can be found at our web site.


Your resume has been assigned with a personal application code which is: XXXXX



Please go to http://faminu.com/jobs/receptionist/ enter your code and complete the personality screening, so we can progress with the application process.



Thank you in advance and have a great day!



Best regards,

Jeremy Timmons

Faminu

I clicked the link and saw that it asked for a copy of my credit score and if I didn't have a copy to upload, I could click another link where I could obtain one (I don't know what happens when you click the link to get your credit score. It may have been spam or virus, who knows. I didn't click it).
I started searching again and found their site (http://faminu.com/), which offers no information, and I found the much more telling information on Whois. If you don't know Whois, you should. Unless you're an actual creepy stalker, so I won't tell you any more. But Whois gave this info. Basically the company is in the Bahamas, has been moved around the net and had been on several servers over a short amount of time. Without the Whois information, it would have been harder to get info on Faminu because they are a coverup for another company called Viniva, which has been targeted for scamming before. People were sent the exact e-mail that I got, but from Viniva.

Also, for those in New Orleans area, there are often posts on Craigslist warning about job offers from Bruno Inc, a real estate company. He has been scamming home buyers and even companies- at some point he sold an apartment complex in Metairie that he didn't own. He operates under a few other company names, but they're usually listed together. So I would also suggest being cautious about renting from him/his company as well as any job offers he has.

I advise that everyone be cautious when using online resources and pay close attention to the information you receive from smoeone. If you feel like something's wrong, chances are, it is.

Funny stuff

People are stupid. People are funny. Here are some examples:

Which performance are we worried about him enhancing? FAIL.
Marina Abramovic made me cry. If you even know who that is, yay for you. But this is one of the weirdest things that other people seem to think is normal.
Awesome Chatroulette screencaps. I thoroughly enjoyed.
Sometimes SNL has some random gems and something funny pops up,like this video for "Single Ladies".
Funny GIF animations. I think they're all real, and they're worth a chuckle.

Important in the news

Let's get shocking!

Bring your gun to church day!Proposed bill will allow concealed guns at church, but of course at the discretion of the minister. Yeah.

California takes the fun out of fast food. I think it's great that California tries to be progressive, but if you want to talk about losing freedoms or governments taking over (that goes out to all those folks that like to say Obama is a Socialist), California is leading the race. They are now banning fast food places from giving toys with kids meals that are over 485 calories, in an attempt to curb fat kids' desire to eat fat kids food. Because that is the REAL problem. */sarcasm*

NASA image of the oil slick off the coast of Louisiana. It is being proposed that they just set the slick on fire.

Ok, a little less shocking:

A book I'd recommend:Fifty Dangerous things You Should Let Your Kids Do. I agree that parents have become over-protective worry warts that don't allow their children to be free to scrape their knees or get Chicken Pox. Let your kid stick his finger in a fan-the blades will stop, it won't cut his finger off. I know a guy who electrocuted himself three times before the age of ten, ate dog food and stuck red beans in his ears and he is quite the normal adult. Here's a PDF of item 46.

Instructional diagrams for socially inept people. I wish they'd picked more. There are so many more lessons for people to learn.

New Fall shows that might not suck

Is this a Dutch movie?

I don't have cable anymore and find myself watching World programming. And sometimes reading articles.

Phil Collins makes Motown covers album. Let's talk about this, please? Have a healthy discussion about why this can't happen? Several other artists have attempted this and it ends badly. The kind of voice that Collins has is just SURE to make this album a mess.

Review of Theresa Andersson's live DVD. She's a New Orleans favorite and I must say that I respect her and her creativity tremendously. Everyone should giver her a listen, just once.

F.Scott Fitzgerald is a hit. A movie adaptation of Tender is the Night will feature Matt Damon and Keira....that chick.

Six ways for teens to lose distractions. I think this would be more suited for parents of teens who can "remove" these distractions for them, more than asking a teenager to give them up willingly.

20 things you didn't know about digestion and sugar.

Car commercials suck

AKA Why I Love My Yaris

I have been deeply annoyed recently with the new Ford commercials that prod people to "swap their ride" or whatever the promotion is. They ask a HONDA driver to get behind the wheel of a Ford and expect ME, as a viewer, to believe that she really loved that POS Ford more than her HONDA. HONDA is one of the three top car companies. Hondas are so good that I couldn't find a used Accord or Civic last year when I was car shopping. Nowhere in Southeast Louisiana. People don't get rid of Hondas because HONDAS NEVER DIE. My sister is still driving her manual Accord coupe from 1999 (although she also has a nice Lexus to troll the city in). My Dad has a 2004 Accord that he bought a companion 2010 Accord for as his retirement car. I don't think anyone who has owned a Honda is going to be swayed by a bluetooth phone system or parallel parking system. As a note to anyone looking to buy a car- the more bells and whistles a standard quality car has (like bluetooth), the less reliable and lower quality the car is. They want to distract you from the shit falling off the car.

Toyota is another one of those top three car companies. This was a huge factor in why I bought one. I couldn't afford a Prius, but I'd rather the lower end of a high performing car company than anything from a low performing company (CHEVY CAN SUCK IT!!!) Last week I was shown just how trusty my tiny Toyota is (who is nicknamed "Pip the Pirate" because he's a YARRRRis):


I was rear-ended by a Toyota Landcruiser which is so big that I could fit my Yaris inside of it. Toyota;built Ford tough. He had not even a scratch. I was told by the adjuster that most cars would buckle in the middle behind the front and back doors, which would cause serious structural damage. My trunk crumpled like an aluminum can but there was no damage to anything but it and the bumper. I could have been screwed with a totaled out car but instead I am driving a CHEVY COBALT while my car is being repaired. Ford, Chevy, you can all eat dirt while me and my Toyota keep cruising with my super awesome gas mileage. I've had the Cobalt for less than a week, have been nowhere but to school on Wednesday and to work on Thursday and I have already used half a tank. Oh, Chevy, you can suck it. Make better cars and you wouldn't have to lie to try to sell yours.

Shortcut info for healthcare and thensome

I have been linked to two good sites that have the healthcare reform broken down into easy to understand terms. Many sites aren't easy to grasp, and are STILL skewed away from certain facts that have already been clarified. So I'll share these two:

Reuters offers info in a year by year breakdown so that it is easy to see what changes will come and when.

PoliticFact Top 10 things you should know about these changes.

Also, for those that still like to use words like "socialist" and "unconstitutional", I'd like to provide THIS.

Keeping with my previous hippie post, I also wanted to include the video for The Story of STUFF. It is 20 minutes long but goes much more in dept than the others and is really important for consumers to understand just how they have been puppetted in the last sixty years. So the next time my friends come over and make fun of my tube TV or old laptops, printers and stuff, they'll shut the hell up because they will now know why I haven't fallen for the banana in the tailpipe with being a greedy consumer.

A few things to know about bottled water

This is a very well done video that warns people of becoming obsessed with the bottled water movement. I hate the bottled water movement, and have been drinking tap water all of my life (save occasions where I need water and a fountain is not available and buying a bottle is about my only option). There are a lot of other things that could be included in the video but then it would be a two-hour long Michael Moore movie.

http://storyofstuff.org/bottledwater/

Give it a quick look, and maybe take a second to consider what you might able to do differently.