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Posts Tagged ‘Financial Crisis’

Ford Motor Company OFFERS: Ford Fusion HYBRID Model 2010

May 14th, 2009 Greg Smith 1 comment

Today I received a Nigerian style email scam where the sender pretends to be from Ford Motor Company. It includes a .html file that when filled out will send contact information to the perpetrator of the scam. According to the Detroit Free Press, the FBI was alerted and the scam originates from Europe. Normally I would post this on my spam blog, but I just find this too amusing that I decided to post it here.

Date: May 14, 2009 4:01:20 PM MDT
From: news@ford.news.com
Subject: Ford Motor Company OFFERS: Ford Fusion HYBRID Model 2010
To: undisclosed-recipients: ;
Reply-To: no-replay@ford.com

Dear Mr/Ms,

Due to the World Economy Recession, Ford Motor Company, Inc undergo a statistic fall in Sales and result in a drastic financial crisis this last season.

The United States Government has given us the opportunity to bounce back on our feet, but unfortunately we have not achieved the fund necessary.

Therefore, we offer you the opportunity to purchase a very good Auto at half of the price. We decided to pull the sales of 500 cars at a very low price for us to aquire the capital needed to bounce back in business and to use this medium to increase the scale of our valued customers.

We offer Ford Fusion HYBRID Model 2010:
Pricing Information: $15,500
Vehicle Features:
Transmission: Aisin Powersplit eCVT Auto
Package: HYBRID
Model: High Version
Engine: 2.5L Atkinson I4
Exterior: White Platinum Tri-Coat Met
Interior: Charcoal Black
VIN: 3FADP0L34AR136254 (more information in the file attached)

The payment shall be made in installments through the bank at 1 month after signing the contract.
If you are interested in this offer please fill out the contact form, A representative will contact you about this vehicle within five business day.

Sincerely,
Gary Settles,
Ford Sales Manager
Ford Motor Company
P.O. Box 6248
Dearborn, MI 48126

vin.pdf

10 Interesting Links From March 21st

March 22nd, 2009 Greg Smith Comments off
  • Under 35? Hurray for the meltdown! – MSN Money – If you're 35 or older, the financial crisis may seem to have no upside. Your retirement funds, home equity, job prospects and credit lines have withered so much that it's hard to focus on anything but what you've lost.
    If you're young, though, the biggest threat to your future financial security isn't the current crisis. Your greatest risk is that fear will cause you to miss some once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.
  • Al Jazeera English – Europe – Italians hold anti-mafia protest – Tens of thousands of people have marched through the streets of Naples to commemorate the victims of mafia violence and demand an end to organised crime in southern Italy.

    Demonstrators, many clad in white, held banners and pictures of relatives killed by mafia gangs, as the names of some 900 mafia victims were read out through loudspeakers on Saturday.

  • Tech Trader Daily – Barron’s Online : Dell: Dude, What Did You Do With Your Cell Phone? – Shaw Wu, an analyst at Kaufman Bros., asserts in a research note today that the company’s first attempt was basically rejected by the carriers as too, well, Dell-like.

    He asserts that Dell showed a prototype to the carriers, but that they weren’t all that impressed. “From our conversation with supply chain and industry sources, it appears that it ultimately came down to lack of carrier interest and small subsidies, making it difficult for Dell to make a profit,” he write. “In our view, the last thing Dell needs is to enter another money losing business as it seeks to preserve its operating margins of 5%-6%.” (Which he notes compares to Hewlett-Packard at around 11%, and Apple and IBM at 15%.)

  • Part of Biosphere 2 to get boost from sun to run things – Biosphere 2, the giant terrarium in Oracle, plans to use the sun's energy to operate a portion of the facility.

    Solon Corp., a solar-panel manufacturer with a factory in Tucson, is donating more than $200,000 in solar panels to the research center.

  • Report: BofA CEO wants to repay TARP money by 2010 – New Mexico Business Weekly: – Bank of America Chairman and CEO Ken Lewis said he’d like to repay the government’s $45 billion investment in his bank later this year or in early 2010.

    “In terms of paying it totally back then you’re probably talking about sometime late this year or sometime early next year when we see the economy improving,” Lewis told the Charlotte [N.C.] Observer this week.

  • New Mexico Independent » New Mexico’s brave new world of film and TV — courtesy of you! – Gov. Richardson liked the idea of luring movies and TV to New Mexico so much that he expanded the incentives package — increasing what had been a 15 percent film production tax rebate to 25 percent. The Democratic governor also led the charge to relax state sales taxes on the industry, and he added a program to subsidize the training of New Mexico residents in so-called “advanced below-the-line” crew positions — a subsidy that amounts to a reimbursement of half of the trainees’ wages.
  • Goodbye Google | stopdesign – Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that. I’ve grown tired of debating such miniscule design decisions. There are more exciting design problems in this world to tackle.
  • PETA: Ingrid Newkirk’s Unique Will – a. That the “meat” of my body, or a portion thereof, be used for a human barbecue, to remind the world that the meat of a corpse is all flesh, regardless of whether it comes from a human being or another animal, and that flesh foods are not needed;
  • Was Eliot Spitzer Taken Out Because He Was Going to Bust AIG? | PEEK | AlterNet – Today in Slate Eliot Spitzer has a short op-ed that speaks volumes about what is going on, and indirectly, if you follow the money, what happened to him. Plainly stated, Spitzer brings the AIG Ponzi Scheme one step closer to the revered establishment when he explains how the bailout money was funneled straight into the top players, with Goldman Sachs being the name that comes up again and again. These top players already got bailout money, and Goldman is looking at zero losses at this point, while regular Americans are being asked to make concessions or just plain losing everything. here are the biggest financial entities in the world, making billions on what appears to have been nothing but air traded back and forth, and having gutted the American people they are walking away with 100% return to their stockholders.
  • Despair over financial policy – Paul Krugman Blog – NYTimes.com – To this end the plan proposes to create funds in which private investors put in a small amount of their own money, and in return get large, non-recourse loans from the taxpayer, with which to buy bad — I mean misunderstood — assets. This is supposed to lead to fair prices because the funds will engage in competitive bidding.