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The Guide to Internet Job Searching

The 2008-2009 edition of The Guide to Internet Job Searching is now available. Order your copy from Amazon.com

The Riley Guide: About the Guide

New What's New! New

Interested in an RSS feed for this page? I don't have a way to create an RSS feed for you, so I suggest Page2rss.com. If you follow this link, it will give you the instruction for adding this page to your RSS reader.

May 7, 2008

Yes, I changed the design of the site. It's been a few years so I figured it was time to repaint the walls and get some new drapes for the windows. Please let me know if you have any problems with navigating the site, especially anyone using assistive software to read the site. Suggestions for improvements are always welcome.

Sorry, but it does not appear I will be able to get to an update this week. Too many things happening. I have made some corrections on individual pages, but new listings will have to wait another week.

Updates / Edits / Corrections

May 1, 2008

New This Week

Updates / Edits / Corrections

April 24, 2008

New This Week

Updates / Edits / Corrections

April 15 -- update will be delayed another week

Sorry, but a death in the family is taking me out of town for a few days. I have gone over the link report for the site and made the following changes. I will be back here on Monday, April 21.

Updates / Edits

April 13, 2008 -- Warning about A Highly Unethical Site

I received the following email from a counselor at a California Employment Services Office:

I have recently received an e-mail from our State EDD staff that a website, Unemploymentadvisor.com, is charging people $9.95 to file an unemployment insurance benefit claim. The reports have just started to reach our office today but it appears to be occurring widely. From what I have learned, the website does not actually file a claim for the paying customer. [...]

The unemploymentadvisor.com site appears to be more pernicious in that it not only extracts personal information but also charges the person providing it.

I have looked AT the site and looked UP the site in Google and various WHOIS databases, and I do not have a good feeling about it. I am not suggesting that these folks are operating a scam, but I will suggest what they are doing is at best confusing and at worst highly unethical. Let me take you through my thoughts and discoveries.

I have gone to unemploymentadvisor.com, and the first thing I see is "Receive up to $16,500 in Unemployment Benefits!* $515 paid weekly." Woah. Okay, so what is that asterisk? I see nothing to explain why that statement has an asterisk, a usual indicator that this statement has conditions.

I start reading the page, and here is the first paragraph, copied and pasted from the website:

"The Unemployment Advisor is available to provide assistance you with assistance if you have recently separated from your employment and are currently unemployed or underemployed."
Anyone besides me see the error? Read that quote again very carefully. Textual, grammatical, and spelling errors are usually an indication of a quickly established website and a clue that you should be on your guard.

I can find nothing on this site that says who is operating the site, so I am heading to Whois-search.com to find out. Uh oh. The UnemploymentAdvisor.com domain was registered through a service called Domains by Proxy, which means we don't know who is operating the site. Also, it was created in December 2007 (not long ago) and is only active until December 2008, which to me says "they don't plan to be in business for that long." Not a good sign.

I'm reading on the site's Terms and Conditions, which includes the name of the organization behind the site and includes much legalize to legitimize this operation but another reason why I find it confusing site. Why isn't this spelled out more clearly and much more prominently in the full site? Again, I am copying and pasting text from the site.

"The Unemployment Advisor is a division of Mindful Investments Inc (Hereinafter "MINDFUL") is in no way affiliated with any unemployment office or other government agency. MINDFUL is not giving legal advice or practicing law. The materials purchased and provided are on an As Is basis. It is not the intention of MINDFUL to provide unemployment benefits, but rather to provide information that may aid consumer understanding in obtaining unemployment benefits."

Please read that statement again very carefully. They are not affiliated with any government agency and they are not providing you with benefits. They are trying to sell you a guide designed to help you understand and maybe get unemployment benefits. Furthermore, they even go on to state "MINDFUL makes no guarantees that unemployment benefits will be obtained by the purchase of our product nor does MINDFUL provide monetary compensation." No guarantee. Period. And finally, they also state "REFUND POLICY: We do not refund payment for any other reason." If you are not happy, your money will not be refunded. This is all stated clearly.

Okay, so who is Mindful Investments Inc.? A quick Google search does not turn up much. Apparently they also operate a site called MyLendingSuite.com, which also has a strict "no refunds" policy, but this site offers you a business address, 5348 Vegas Drive, Las Vegas Nevada. A quick Google search on that address brings up many various business establishments in various offices with various complaints and a few notices of administrative proceedings against businesses at that address from multiple state securities commissions. Hmm, not good at all. Seems that there is also no consistent manner of numbering the offices in that building -- some offer letters many offer numbers. There's a lot of businesses at this address. This building must be huge or the offices very small...

I have a lot of links to a Mindful Investments LLC, but the folks running UnemploymentAdvisor.com say they are Mindful Investments Inc. Not quite the same. I'll leave that little bit of business specificity to others to sort.

Another clue I have discovered is if you click the Getting Started link you are taken to the order page, but that page is hosted by Wildfirebroadcasting.com. Back to the WHOIS to find that Wildfirebroadcasting.com was established in October 2007 and will expire in October 2008, and again, it was registered through Domains by Proxy. So as before we don't know who is operating the site and they apparently don't intend to be in business for long.

Have I scared you enough yet? No? Then let me give you the last little tidbit I found here. Scroll to the bottom of the Home page, or the bottom of the Site Map page and read the copyright statement (again, copy and paste)

Copyright 2008 The Unemployment Advisor. All rights reserved. OriginateNOW! Content Management System

If you click on OriginateNOW! you are taken to the Veterans Home Mortgage recruiting page at http://www.vhmdirect.net/members/originatenow. Yes, they want you to sign up to be a certified loan broker and work for them. WHOIS again reports a private domain registered through Domains by Proxy, and we are again running in circles.

Folks, I am begging you. Please think about what I am telling you and do not do business with UnemploymentAdvisors.com. Do not use this site if you think it will get you the unemployment benefits you think you deserve. Go directly to your state employment office or your local public library and ask for their advice and assistance!

I have the earlier "What's New" announcements archived on my hard drive. If you really want to see them, contact me

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