Here’s another reason to have a sit-down with your elderly relatives and make them promise that if they ever, ever find out they’ve won some money in a lottery they didn’t enter, they should tell family members immediately.
overseas
Looking For A Job? The Foreign Service Is Hiring
By 12.22.08
The New York Times reports that the freeze on Foreign Service hiring has been lifted, so if you’re willing to endure being moved to a new (occasionally dangerous) country every 2 to 3 years…
Fake IRS Fax Demands Your Bank Account And Passport
By 10.10.08
Nick has written in to warn us about a fake IRS scam that lately has been targeting nonresident aliens (e.g. teachers and researchers) working in the U.S., as well as American citizens working abroad. In the scam, which has been going on since at least 2002 (pdf), the target receives a faxed request from the IRS to provide his name, SSN, and pretty much every other bit of data you’d need to take over a person’s financial identity.
How Often Do Companies Check On Overseas Manufacturers?
By 11.1.07
With the Gap embarrassed this week by reports that Indian children as young as 10 were making Gap Kids clothing, a lot of people are asking, just how frequently and to what degree do large U.S. companies like Gap and Wal-Mart monitor their foreign manufacturers? According to Slate, “anywhere from six months to once every several years.” Unfortunately, because the visits are usually announced ahead of time, factories can hide violations, coach employees on what to say, get rid of the child workers, and forge records. In China, there are consultants who will prepare a factory for inspection, going so far as to fake missing records.
Under Crescents and Scimitars, USBGeek Delivers
By 6.14.06
Exhaling plumes of velveteen smoke from his hookah, propped up against an Ottoman, surrounded by Turkish succubi fluidly gyrating in diaphanous silks, Consumerist J.K. dreamed of a better world… a world where USB gadgets at hot, affordable prices would be delivered to Istanbul with an affordable shipping option.
