ADLANDS'    DIGEST
                    A Free subscribed Discussion List
                                of 10,496  subscribers
                     on web marketing and promotion
                 supported by Adland World's Classifieds
                       at http://www.adlandpro.com
                         Bogdan Fiedur,  Publisher
                     mailto: Bogdan@softfornet.com
                         Vol. 1, #125,  Sep 07, 1999


      POST AND UNSUBSCRIBE INFO AT BOTTOM


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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Topics in this issue:

         Sponsor Message
         Word from Publisher
        =====================

C o n t i n u i n g   D i s c u s s i o n s (1)
=============================================

1.) Doorway pages!
    ~ Rick Barr
    ~ Howard Hazelwood
    ~ Robert Olson
    ~ Judith Tramayne-Barth


N e w     P o s t s   (3)
==========================

1.) Daniel Kurtz
    ~ What is The Problem?

2.) Fiona & Joan
    ~ Credit card fraud and Credit Checks

3.) Don Wetmore
    ~Rate of return


Site Review Responses (0)
==========================

Site Review Requests (0)
===========================


G u e s t   A r t i c l e (1)
================================
You, the Net, and Credit Card Fraud!
By  Michelle M. Rahm


Joke of the Day
===============


===============================================================

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                                            ----===(*)===-----

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Digest sponsorship info http://softfornet.com/archives/Advertising.htm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



=========================== Word from publisher ========================

Greetings All

Welcome  over 60 new subscribers who joined list since last mailing.



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There are  also requests for site review.

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See here currently designed logos.
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                                        ----===(*)===-----

If you think,  you have an interesting success story to tell, please send
it to digest as usual and indicate as such.
At the end of 1999  I will create web page and will invite everybody
to vote for the "Success Story Of The Year"
Best voted story will receive one FREE year of advertising
in the form of  small button at the bottom of each Adland page.
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==========C o n t i n u i n g   D i s c u s s i o n (1.1)=============
From: "Rick Barr" <rickbarr@prodigy.net>
Subject: Doorway Pages

I was just wondering if somebody could post a message that has
an example of a doorway page. There seems to be alot of confusion
as to how to make one and I learn best by seeing it in action.

Thanks in advance
Rick Barr

------------------------------------------------
rickbarr@prodigy.net
http://www.angelfire.com/nh/biz1st
Free newsletter for Internet Marketers
Weekly publication, subscribe now by sending an email to:
market_tips-subscribe@topica.com
------------------------------------------------


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Editor note.

Rick

Howard Hazelwood and  Robert Olson  anticipated your question
and posted their message. See below.


==========C o n t i n u i n g   D i s c u s s i o n (1.2)=============
From: "Howard Hazelwood" <hhazelwood@thegrid.net>
Subject: Doorway pages!


Hi Bogdan!

It's been awhile, but I notice your site count continues to rise quite nicely.

In response to the Search Engine Doorway Pages article, I have placed a page on
my sites that explain Doorways quite well.

See: http://www.tryDigital.com/doorways.html or
http://www.ccMerchants.com/doorways.html

A Professional Search Engine Doorway Page is not a mirror page from your site.
They are a specially designed pages for the search engines to read, not people.
Their only purpose is to rank high on the major search engines and then drive
traffic to your site.

What the author did not mention is that a separate doorway page must be
optimized for each one of the major search engines; AltaVista, Infoseek, Excite,
Lycos, &  HotBot.

The Doorway Pages I recommend are optimized for these 5 engines, but will also
work well with most other search engines. For AOL NetFind, Magellan, and
WebCrawler use the Excite Doorways and these engines should also rank your pages
highly. For MSN, you may use the HotBot Doorways and they should do well also.

How are they created?

Each Doorway Page is custom generated by a computer that is programmed
specifically for each search engine.  By reverse engineering the major search
engines to find out how each search engine indexes pages, a page can be
generated that takes advantage of each search engine's characteristics. This
program uses the keyword phrases you provide and combines it with short
sentences you create (of 5 to 7 words) describing the content of your site and
then makes pages that will rank high on each individual search engine. Since
each page is professionally designed, unique and not a copy of a page on your
site there is no worry about spamming as long as your keyword phrases relate to
the content of your site. In reality, you don't want hundreds of people coming
to your site looking for "Hot Sex" just to be disappointed if they can't find it
there.

Once the pages are made, then what?

When the pages are ready, they get uploaded to your website (root directory or 1
level down) where they will be indexed by the major search engines. We also
create a link page, which contains URL links to all your other Doorway Pages
which is uploaded to the same directory. You will put a link to this page on one
or two other main pages of your website to make sure the search engine spiders
index all your Doorway Pages.

Are these pages used for web content?

No, you don't have to add anything to these pages. They are designed
specifically so people will find your website when they do a search on your
keyword phrases. For our site we designed a special background image to hide the
text that is generated for these pages, since they are for a computer to read,
not a person.

To see a sample Doorway Page "Without" the background image visit:
http://www.ccmerchants.com/entry/website-promotion-ex.html

Finally! When someone finds my site on the search engine what happens?

Since you can have hundreds of Doorway pages ranked high on the major search
engines, then many more people can find your site. When someone clicks the
search engine link to one of your Doorway pages the page will open in their
browser just like any other web page on your site. The difference is, they will
only see the specially designed image inviting them to enter your site. This
Doorway page contains special code that will take them to your site no matter
what they do next, short of turning off their computer. If they hit BACK,
REFRESH or
CLOSE the window, your site will open in a new browser window. If they click the
"CLICK HERE" image they will enter your site in the same browser window. In
other words, they will at least see your main page, if nothing else.

To see how this works visit:
http://www.ccmerchants.com/entry/urls934404201.html
and then select any of the 190 Doorway links.

I hope this response will clarify a few things for those who want to use real
Professional Doorway Pages!

Keep up the good work Bogdan and I want to wish you the most success possible.

Your friend,
Howard Hazelwood



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==========C o n t i n u i n g   D i s c u s s i o n (1.3)=============
From: "robert olson" <ro@artelco.com>
Subject: Doorway pages!

Fill in this Template to get Top Search Engine Ranking!

Below you will find a template of a simple web page called a doorway page. They
are also known by other names such as gateway or bridges. These types of pages
give the search engine user a precise listing of what content they will find at
your site.

Sixty days ago I started using doorway pages. Prior to then, I could not find
the pages I submitted to the search engines. The first doorway page I tried,
brought me up to number 34 on Altavista ....I was sold! I started to make
several doorway pages for an  affiliate program that consisted of a classified
ad site. The competition is pretty stiff in this area but in 60 days of using
doorway pages I am rated #7 out of over 3000 other affiliate ad sites. Some of
my doorway pages are coming up #1 and many in the top 20 listings. No matter
what any critic says, doorway pages do work....and even for the internet
beginner. I know, I am one!


Now you can try making doorway pages with this easy to use template. Many people
have stopped short of buying software to create doorway pages not knowing if
their expenditure would be worth it. Now you can try out a few doorway pages
before you make that decision.  You would be wise to make several varying pages
each similar but with slightly different keyword  phrases.

You can cut and paste the template to your html editor like a  MS Notepad. All
you will have to do is fill in the blanks in the meta-tags title, description
and keywords. Then in the body of the page, you will fill in the headline, a few
short descriptive,  benefit filled paragraphs and fill in your url where
indicated.

Want to see what a doorway page looks like before you make one? Do a search on
Infoseek for 'placing free classified ads'. We have been listed #1 for some
time with the url: http://freeyellow.com/members7/roann99/pagefrontdoor.htm
Under 'free classified ads', we have been list #24. We make doorway pages for
many different phrases people may use when looking for free advertising.

Instruction are in the template for filling it out. Just remember to delete the
instructions as you fill it in.
Here is the template.
http://softfornet.com/archives/Adland%20Tips.htm#doorway
Do not put any distracting banners on your doorway pages. You want the people to
come straight to your home page and they will with doorway pages!

See You at the Top!

Robert Olson
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==========C o n t i n u i n g   D i s c u s s i o n (1.4)=============
From: Judith Tramayne-Barth <trabar@trabar.com>
Subject: Doorway pages!


<snip>
about doorway pages which had different
URL and didn't have any counter.
http://freeyellow.com/members7/roann99/index.html
I'm not quite sure what was your point.
I invite you to write an article how  things are really
done.
Although my site receives daily about 200,000 hits I would
like to know how
you achieved your 2 million.

****************

And, I would like to know specifically how you both did it
<G>  I do not mean generalities but in particular a generic
type schedule of what you do each day, week, month to
promote your site to get visitors to your site.  I'm sure
ever one subscribing to Adland's would relish reading the
steps either of you took to reach this success.

Judith Tramayne-Barth

---------------------------------------------------
Enrich Your Soul, Delight Your Eyes
and Improve Your Mind
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---------------------------------------------------

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Note from Editor.

Judith first I need to explain what I meant by saying that
my site receives 200,000 hits daily.
I said this  on purpose after  Jay Andrassy in his post
said that

>I have been on the net for 9 years
>and did Cindy Margolis's first site which had up to 2 million hits a day
>that's a server turned up to 150 hits a second with 500 sockets full for 4
>hours solid.

Hits in that respect are meaningless for general audience.
Marketers don't care about hits, but unique visitors or page views.
You can easily impress somebody saying how many hits is your server
receiving. In fact my server receives well over  200,000 hits a day  in above
terms.
Hit is each instance of  work server has to do. Which means each graphic
object on the page is an instance of hit, each call to  CGI, ASP or activeX
engine is a hit, each call to the database interface is a hit. My pages have
number of calls to the database and up to 10 images each.
This way, each page generates about 15- 20 hits.


This is only an issue for people working on performance of web server  but not
marketers.

Now how you achieve that?
Even if I haven't done any  doorway pages yet,  Adland can be found as 18-th on
Altavista (used to be number one for a while ) and 9-th at Infoseek for keywords
"free classifieds"
And is indicated as Editor Choice at Netscape
http://directory.netscape.com/Business/Classifieds/Free_Classifieds/
It used to be top hit for classifieds at Lycos and I'm working now on getting it
back there.

Although these are relatively good results from searches on above search engines
Yahoo is bringing me half of the visits from all of the search engines and there
is
no way to find my site by searching there  using any other keywords then
Adland.

In addition if you search on keyword Adland on any of search engines,
you will get from 1000 to 5000 hits.

My next project will be working on doorway pages, being inspired by
Robert Olson.
I will share my result with you.

My traffic in 75%  is coming from sites affiliated with AdlandPro.
http://members.adlandpro.com/Affiliate/Affiliate.aspx

This was my area of focus up to that point and I will explore others also.

It is also important to mention that ratio of sales to visitors is much
higher from affiliate sites than from search places.
Sales are what we want not traffic. Although traffic is giving some
indication of site popularity it shouldn't  be the only indicator.

B. F.


======================N e w    P o s t i n g (1)========================
From: Daniel Kurtz  <DKurtz@webtv.net>
Subject: Re: Adland Digest #124  - Beyond Doorway Pages


You know, I get thousands of  ads advising of  how to reach millions of
people .  One I pay for , and it is currently down.  The others are FREE
I am getting 0 results according to my site counter.   I have signed up
for ad ad ad.  Can anyone help?  I have some information I need to get
advertised quickly and effectiely.  Im tired of ths bull----!  I use the
internet  about 35 hours or more weekly.  I am currently on ffa pages
all over  I have submitted to search engines after search engines.
Classified after Classified.  What is The Problem.  I have been doig
this about  3 months!


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Note from Editor.

It seems  paradoxical that when you  complain about lack of effectiveness
from posting free ads, two of URLs from your signature are promoting exactly
this.  You just had an opportunity to get some traffic and advertise what ever
opportunity you had to 10,500 readers if you would put it in your signature,
unless this is what you are advertising.

Last two issues of Adland Digest  and this one, are talking about building
doorway pages and I believe this is an alternative for you to get some traffic
either by building such pages yourself or finding businesses  which can do
it for you.

Other ways of getting paid traffic for your business is advertising in e-zines
and site which offer advertising.

Get this free book which will tell you about e-zines which accept advertising
http://www.ezine-publishing.com/epub/freebook.htm

You can try AdlandPro paid options.
http://members.adlandpro.com/Advertisers/Advertising.aspx
or become AdlandPro affiliate and in addition to earning money get some
free promotion.
http://www.adlandpro.com/become_an_affiliate.asp

B.F.



======================N e w    P o s t i n g (2)========================
From: Fiona & Joan <info@jofi.net>
Subject: Credit card fraud and Credit Checks


Dear Bogdan,
I am wondering if any of your people may be able to help us out with any
suggestions.
A few months ago we were asked to market for another site Beer in Mind
(which I am pleased to say we have been successfully doing).
Anyway they had a series of 3 sales to Egypt from the same person. However
the person used 3 different cards. This raised some suspicion but as they
received cc authorisation they shipped the goods. 3 months later they had a
letter from the credit card co. and bank to say that the card owner had not
made the purchase and in fact the owner lived in the States and that the
credit card had been fraudulently used. The bank then reversed the payment
out of Beer In Mind's account. (This actually happened three times!)
Needless to say BIM are NOT very happy.

Now we realise that cc authorisation does not guarantee payment, however
after 3 months we thought this was really a bit on the nose. Not a lot we
seem to be able to do about it.

I think the system here in NZ is somewhat different to what you may have
there in the States.
My questions are these: How does the credit card/merchant services work
there for you is it similar? Here there is no online authorisation. we are
required to phone in with cc # and expiry dates for authorisation.
If it is different I am wondering if it would pay to open a US bank account
and merchant service rather than one here in NZ... Do your cc services offer
any more protection for the merchant?

Secondly; For larger orders what sort of credit checks do people use? Is
there an online service that will do credit checks? Here the banks will NOT
give out any information, even if you are suspicious of a credit card user.
(We have a privacy law here, which the banks seem to use to their advantage
to negate any responsibility in cc and cheque fraud)
Thank you for any response.
Fiona & Joan


----------------------------------------------------
For Busy People -Gift Buying
>From JoFi New Zealand http://www.jofi.net/
For MORE ezine subscribers click here  http://www.bestnewsletters.com/
For all your rugby and beer gear. Over 300 products online!
http://www.beer.co.nz/
---------------------------------------------------------

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Note from Editor

I realize how painful it is  when after so much work done,
transaction appears to be fraudulent. Today's guest  article talks exactly about
your problem and although might not be direct solution for you
(since only works in US) it will give you an idea what is available elsewhere.

B.F.



======================N e w    P o s t i n g (3)========================
From: "Don Wetmore" <ctsem@email.msn.com>
Subject: Rate of return


Time Management is not necessarily doing what we are doing faster. If we are
doing the "wrong" things to begin with, that just gets us "nowhere" faster.
Time Management is doing the "right" things.

One of the "right" things to do is to continually monitor and adjust our
"investment quotient", making sure we are allocating and investing a
sufficient quantity of our time for future payback.

I discuss this more fully in an article entitled, "A Higher Rate of Return".
I would be happy to share it with members of the List. To get yours, email
your request for "higher" to: ctsem@msn.com

Don Wetmore-Professional Speaker


----------------------------------------------------------------
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60 Huntington St. P.O. Box 2126 Shelton, CT 06484
(203) 929-9902
mailto:ctsem@msn.com
http://www.balancetime.com
------------------------------------------------------------------



===================G u e s t   A r t i c l e (1)=====================
You, the Net, and Credit Card Fraud!
By  Michelle M. Rahm



If you own a commerce site and you're serious about your Internet business, you
probably already accept credit cards. And as we all know, there is a myriad of
positive benefits associated with accepting credit cards including customer
convenience, increased sales, professional image...and the list goes on.

But it's also important to know that credit card fraud runs rampant on the
Internet. And unfortunately as merchants we bear the primary responsibility for
ensuring a transaction is legitimate before filling the order. In other words,
if a transaction is fraudulent, and you failed to take the all important steps
to verify the legitimacy of the order, you will be left holding the bill when
the cardholder challenges the purchase.

In this article you will learn:

important measures you should take to avoid becoming a victim of credit card
fraud what you should do if you become a victim of credit card fraud
what you can do if you suspect an attempted purchase is fraudulent

Be Diligent...VERIFY!
When a transaction goes through on my website, the first thing I look for are
those all important words...TRANSACTION APPROVED! It's like money in the bank,
right?...Wrong! When I first got my merchant account, I thought that was all I
needed to worry about. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that this is only a
starting point. Of far more importance to whether a credit card transaction is
approved or declined, is the AVS response code given for that transaction. If
you are not receiving an AVS code for each credit card transaction made on your
site, you need to find out how you can get this crucial information.

AVS stands for Address Verification Service. This code will tell you whether or
not the address given in the order actually matches that of the cardholder. On
my real-time processing system, the AVS code is comprised of three numbers. The
first corresponds to the numbers in the street address. The second corresponds
to the zip code. And the third is an overall verification of both. For example,
an AVS code of YYY means: "yes" the address matches, "yes" the zip code matches
and "yes," both the address and zip code match the cardholder's. But an AVS
response code of NYZ means "no" the address does not match, "yes" the zip code
matches and only the "zip" code matches.

There are about ten different letters used for AVS response codes, and it's
important for you to know all of them and what each means. For a list of the
most common AVS response code letters and their meanings, click here.
http://www.jewelryimpressions.com/fraud.html

If a transaction is approved with an AVS response code of YYY, AND if the order
is to be shipped to that same address, then you have nothing to worry about. You
can feel confident you have a legitimate order. But if the AVS code does not
match, you need to decide whether to ship the product, or whether to do further
checking before shipping the product. Be aware, however, that if you ship the
product without further verification and the purchase is fraudulent, your
account will be debited for the full purchase amount as a result of a chargeback
by the cardholder.

If you receive an AVS code that is unacceptable to you and you'd like to do
further checking, the first thing you should do is call your merchant provider.
(You can also call Visa/MasterCard, Discover & American Express directly. Click
here for a listing of their numbers.)
http://www.jewelryimpressions.com/fraud.html

Mention that you are calling for a
cardholder's issuing bank phone number. You will need to give your merchant
number and the first six digits of the credit card in question. They will then
give you the number of the issuing bank for the credit card in question. Call
that number and tell the person helping you that you would like a cardholder
verification.

Calling the issuing bank of a cardholder has many advantages over simply calling
the credit card company for an address verification. First of all, the credit
card company will only tell you the same information your AVS code did, and
sometimes a mismatch is simply due to outdated information. Calling the issuing
bank enables you to verify not only the address and zip code of a cardholder,
but also the cardholder's name and phone number (something the credit card
company cannot do). You can even inquire if an address mismatch is due to a P.O.
Box listing rather than a physical street address.

With all this information, you can make an informed decision about fulfilling
the order. Be sure to take notes when you call the issuing bank for
verification. Write down with whom you spoke, the date and time you called, and
include notes concerning the outcome of the phone call. That way you'll have the
information if you need to defend yourself against a chargeback later.

Be Observant! YYY can still mean "No, No, No!"
Don't be fooled by YYY response codes. Some crooks have access to the
cardholder's address information. Be observant and know what red flags to look
for. Pay close attention to: the product ordered and order size; the e-mail
address given; the ship-to address and shipping method requested among other
things. Be suspicious of sizeable purchases that are being shipped to a
different address, especially if express shipping is requested. Pay attention to
whether or not the e-mail address given is valid. If the e-mail address is a
person's name, check to see if it matches the cardholder's name. These, among
other things, are all red flags to look for.

Follow your gut instinct. Let me give you an example. I sell jewelry and watches
of all types (dead ringer for credit card fraud). Many of my costume jewelry
customers are high school aged boys buying large figaro chains (it's the "in"
thing). Most of these guys are harmless and I enjoy their business. But last
weekend, I received a $200 chain order on my costume jewelry site. The order was
much larger than a standard order from that particular site and the quantity for
each item was suspicious. The AVS code for the purchase came back as YYY, but
the person's name on the e-mail address was different from the cardholder's
name. The order was also being shipped to someone other than the cardholder and
the person requested overnight shipping (a huge red flag as thieves want to
receive their products before getting caught).

My gut instinct was that something was not right with this order. I called the
phone number provided on the order and it was disconnected. First thing Monday
morning I called Discover Card directly. Not only was the phone number on the
order a mismatch, but the cardholder had called sometime after I received the
order to report his card was stolen. In this particular instance, had I not been
so diligent in verifying everything possible, I would be out the cost of those
goods. Luckily, my instinct was correct and the perpetrator was an 11-year old
boy who will be spending some time in juvenile court.

Obviously, you will need to adopt your own policy outlining how far you will go
to verify information for each order. You may not want to worry about verifying
small purchases of $20 or less. The fraudulent orders I receive are typically
much larger than average. Look for things that are suspicious such as those I
mentioned earlier, and make your guidelines accordingly.

What If I Become A Victim?
If you have the misfortune of sending merchandise to a crook, there are a few
options available to you to try and recover your merchandise or to see justice
done. This is a rather complicated issue for merchants though and you may hit
several stumbling blocks along the way.

Be persistent! Try all your options.
The first thing you can do if you become a victim of credit card fraud is call
the police to report the crime. Be aware, however, that until you're left
holding the tab for the crime, you're not considered the victim, the cardholder
is. If you're trying to stay ahead of the game and you're not sure yet who will
ultimately be responsible for the lost dollars, you need to contact the
cardholder.

Call the cardholder's issuing bank and ask them to do a courtesy call to the
cardholder. Mention that you have the address where the product charged to the
cardholder's credit card is being shipped. That information will usually entice
the cardholder to return your call. Convince the cardholder to report the crime
to the police in the town where the crime was committed (where the product was
shipped). If that police department has a detective that works on credit card
fraud cases, you can at least get the ball rolling to possibly recover the
merchandise and/or see justice for the actual crime.

Some police departments will be more helpful than others. Find out the
parameters of your state law concerning issues of credit card fraud. In some
states, all credit card fraud is considered a felony and the crime is taken more
seriously. You may be lucky to find a police department that has a detective
dedicated to crimes involving credit card fraud. Such was the case in the
incident involving the 11 year-old. Although I never sent the product, we were
still able to get some justice for the crime. And hopefully, he will be one
credit card crook who learned his lesson early and won't do it again. In a case
like this, you may or may not recover your lost merchandise, but at least you've
done your part to help put an end to the crime.

Here in Colorado, as in many states, credit card fraud is considered a
misdemeanor unless the actual dollar value of the loss (cost of goods in the
merchant's case) reaches $400. From $400 - $15,000 the crime is considered a
Class 4 Felony. Above $15,000 the crime is a Class 3 Felony. Admittedly, many
police departments simply do not have the manpower to dedicate a detective to
misdemeanor crimes and the cases are closed leaving the merchant holding the
bill.

If this is the case in your situation, and if you truly feel you did everything
you could to verify the cardholder information before shipping the product, then
you need to take the issue up with the credit card company when you receive your
chargeback notice. Take some time to write out a strong defense for yourself.
Include the notes from your conversation with the cardholder's issuing bank.
Hopefully, the credit card company will reverse the chargeback and you won't be
responsible for the lost dollars in the crime. In this case, you may not see
justice for the crime, but at least you've recovered your losses.

Be proactive! Put yourself in the cardholder's shoes.
There doesn't have to be a monetary loss or even a purchase made in order for a
crime to be committed. As merchants we must be proactive against credit card
fraud, even if it is only an attempted purchase. This is called "criminal
attempt" at unlawful use of a credit card, and it is still a crime.

Pay attention to failed credit card transactions that are suspicious. Again,
look for the red flags that I pointed out earlier and check the AVS response
code. If you suspect a purchase attempt was fraudulent, you owe it to yourself
and to the cardholder to do your part in stopping the crook before he succeeds.

Again, call the cardholder's issuing bank and ask them to do a courtesy call to
the customer. Be sure to give your phone number so the cardholder can call you
back. Mention that you had someone attempt a purchase on your website with
his/her credit card and you suspect it may be a fraudulent transaction. If
you're right, hopefully the cycle will start all over again with the cardholder
calling the police to report the crime just as if a purchase was actually made.

This happened just recently on my site and I did just as I stated above. When
the cardholder returned my call, she was so grateful I had taken the measures I
did. She didn't even know her purse had been stolen until she got the call from
American Express. Because I was proactive, we were able to stop the crook right
away, and criminal charges are now pending against him.

Don't be passive about potential credit card fraud just because you may not be
out anything...YET. As a community of Internet entrepreneurs we must stand
strong and stand united against credit card criminals. If you are a
netrepreneur, trust me, it's only a matter of time before this crime affects you
in some way. Be proactive against the crime, regardless of what your loss may or
may not be.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article by Michelle M. Rahm, of JewelryImpressions.Com,
a division of Quality Merchandise Brokers. Michelle is an award-winning Internet
entrepreneur with a professional background in Direct Mail and Service Quality
Management. She has been operating her business solely on the Internet since
1997 and sells a variety of product lines including gold costume jewelry, fine
14-karat gold jewelry, fine watches and discount gems among others. E-mail
Michelle with your comments or questions at fraud@jewelryimpressions.com.


======================Joke of the Day=====================
Joke provided by
Laurie Delk <delk@columbia.total-web.net>

When Ads Go Bad: Bloopers!

Continuation from previous issue.

"Christmas Tag Sale: Handmade gifts for the hard-to-find person."

"At the farm: Cattle-Please Close Gate."

"Now is your chance to have your ears pierced and get an extra pair to
take home, too."

Sign posted at a used-car dealership: "Why go anywhere else to be cheated?
Come to us first."

Wanted: "Widower with school-age children requires person to assume
general housekeeping duties.  Applicant must be capable of contributing to
growth of family."

"The Superstore! Unequaled in size, unmatched in variety, unrivaled
inconvenience."

"We will oil your sewing machine and adjust tension in your home for only
$1."

"Outside a jeweler's shop: Ears Pierced While You Wait."

In a laundromat: "Please Remove Your Clothes When The Light Goes Out."

Fertilizing Manure: "$2 per Pre-Packed Bag, $1 Do It Yourself."

Inscribed above a church door: "This is the Gate of Heaven. Enter All
           Ye by This Door."

Sign on the door: "This door kept locked because of draft. Please use side
door."

At an office building: "Toilet Out of Order.  Please Use Floor Below."

At a furniture store: "We Promise the Lowest Prices and Workmanship. No
Children Aloud."

In a dress shop window: "Come In and Have a Fit."

Sign outside a disco: "The Most Exclusive Place in Town. Everyone
Welcome!"

Wanted: "Hair cutter. Excellent growth potential."

In a pharmacy: "We Dispense with Accuracy."

Sign outside a dance studio: "Watch Your Step."

"Would the person who took the step ladder bring it back or further steps
will be taken."

>From a restaurant menu: "If any of our wait staff seem rude, you should
see our manager."


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