Take head to the article please everyone watch out for your hard earned money!

‘Tis the season to be mindful of your money.

That’s the mantra of charity evaluators, consumer advocates and security experts as unscrupulous retailers and scammers target holiday shoppers nationwide, both online and off. From bogus charities to identity theft to Web sites selling purportedly authentic wares, consumers can quickly lose their seasonal cheer unless basic preventative steps are taken.

Earlier this week, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed a lawsuit against one of New York City’s most visible homeless charities — the United Homeless Organization, which solicits donations on numerous street corners. Cuomo said the organization is a sham and that almost all donations purportedly destined for services at shelters and drug treatment centers end up being pocketed by staffers and the group’s founders.

“UHO exploits the good intentions of people who thought that their charitable donations were helping to fund services for the homeless," Cuomo said in a written statement. "Instead, their donations go directly to UHO’s principals and workers, who abused the organization’s tax-exempt status to line their own pockets."

To avoid being taken for a similar ride, Ken Berger, president of Charity Navigator, the nation’s largest independent charity evaluator, suggests you do a little homework before doling out your hard-earned cash.

“People should start with their hearts when they give, but they should also use their heads to make sure that donation is truly going to help,” Berger told FoxNews.com. “It’s critically important.”

Berger strongly advised against making donations to street solicitors and giving money over the phone.

“You could very well be enabling a drug habit or bad behaviors that could actually do more harm than good,” Berger said. “We recommend cutting them a check directly or giving online.”

Charitable organizations should be vetted by visiting evaluation sites like Charity Navigator, Berger said, or by perusing the charity’s Web site to ensure it’s a tax exempt 501(c)(3) organization.

‘You need to look and see if they’re being investigated by anyone,” he said. “You should also call and say, ‘Show me data that indicates you’re having meaningful results in people’s lives.”

Charities that Berger recommends include the Nurse Family Partnership, Harlem Children’s Zone and Youth Villages. Due to the tight economy, Berger said people are looking for more out of their goodwill.

“More and more people are thinking it’s not just a donation, but a social investment that has meaningful results,” he said. “So don’t just give from your heart, use your head too.”

Meanwhile, for those looking to buy gifts for loved ones rather than making donations, the Better Business Bureau recommends brick and mortar shoppers keep wallets or purses snugly beneath their arms or in front pockets. Receipts should also be kept in a wallet rather than stored in a bag that could be swiped if left unattended, and credit card statements should be checked early and often rather than at the end of the month.

Online shopping, where 40 percent of holiday buyers purchased gifts last year, can be trickier, experts say.

According to a report from Javelin Strategy and Research, 10 million people were identity theft victims in 2008, a 22 percent increase from a year earlier. And with shoppers looking to get the best deal possible in a poor economy, this holiday season has the potential to be record-breaking for cybercriminals who have bilked $8 billion from consumers in the past two years, according to Consumer Reports’ 2009 State of the Net Survey.

“We find that usually with the holiday season, your scams are going to center around buying presents online,” said Alison Southwick, a spokeswoman for the Better Business Bureau. “So you need to be cautious.”

Southwick said BBB officials have noticed a sharp increase in Asian-based Web sites selling seemingly high-end electronics.

“But they only accept payments via wire transfer,” Southwick said. “Right there, that’s a big flag. And of course, you never get the item.”

Southwick also warned against phishing e-mails in which consumers receive a message indicating a problem with an order or the user’s account. In just a few clicks, victims can quickly find themselves on a malicious Web site out to pilfer their financial information.

“Don’t click on any links in the e-mail,” Southwick said. “Pick up the phone and call someone or go directly to their Web site. But don’t just follow the links.”

Holiday e-cards can also bring trouble into inboxes, where worms masked as Hallmark e-cards and McDonald’s and Coca-Cola holiday promotions were discovered last year by security firm McAfee Labs.

“You do need to be very cautious when opening e-cards,” Southwick said. “Check the link and make sure it’s legitimate.”

To be entirely safe, Dave Marcus, director of security research and communications at McAfee Labs, suggested treating every holiday-related e-mail received from now until the end of year with caution.

“During the holiday season, the bad guys know that people are more apt to give more, to be more generous,” Marcus said. “They know people are doing seasonal shopping, so the bad guys take the step of registering and creating fake Web sites. They read the same news as we do and prepare for the holidays and seasonal trends.”

Consumers can also be targeted with invoices and delivery notifications purportedly from reputable retailers like Federal Express or UPS, so they should exercise caution during virtually every transaction this holiday season, which has the potential to be a “record” holiday season for scams, Marcus said.

“People are going to be looking for bargains,” he said. “It all kinds of comes together and the bad guys have done the prep.”

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DEVELOPING: A pair of mass shootings at Ft. Hood military post in Texas left at least 7 dead and as many as 30 wounded Thursday, and one suspected gunman is on the loose, the Army said.

A massive manhunt was under way for the suspect at large, Fox News confirmed, and one person was in custody. The New York Post said that there were two shooters at the Army post massacre; other reports said there were three.

An Army spokesman at the Pentagon said the shootings began about 1:30 p.m. Thursday at a personnel and medical processing center at Ft. Hood.

The center in a place soldiers go when getting ready to deploy and when returning from deployment for processing issues, paperwork, screening etc. It is not a place where soldiers get anymedical-type treatment.

Lt. Col. Nathan Banks said two shooters were apparently involved. There is no word yet on who they were, nor on the identities of the dead.

The second incident took place at a theater on Ft. Hood, according to Banks.

The FBI said they don’t believe terrorism was involved.

Some media reports said the number of victims remained unclear.

Banks said a motive wasn’t immediately known and it is too soon to tell whether there is any link to battle stress or repeated deployments. Army officials didn’t know whether the victims were civilians or military personnel.

The men were reportedly dressed in Army fatigues, but military officials couldn’t confirm that they were Army personnel.

Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison said the shooting was a terrible tragedy for all of the military families affected.

She said the post is a processing center where soldiers are processed before going to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Retired Army Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis told Fox News those at the base are trained for combat and it is not unusual to see armed people there.

The base and area schools were on lockdown after the mass shooting, and all those on the Army post were asked to gather for a head count.

The FBI was going to Ft. Hood to provide assistance.

There have been several previous deadly incidents at Ft. Hood, including a shooting of one soldier by another at a party in July; a rape and fatal shooting of an Army medic at her apartment near the post 11 years ago; and the murder-suicide of a lieutenant by a soldier in September 2008.

KECN/NBC is saying that they are with gunmen in a standoff with MP’s on base…

DEVELOPING: A mass shooting at Ft. Hood military post in Texas has left at least 7 dead and 20 wounded and one suspected gunman is on the loose, officials told Fox News.

A massive manhunt was under way for the suspect at large, Fox News confirmed. One person was in custody. The New York Post said that there were two shooters at the Army post massacre; other reports said there were three.

The attack apparently happened at Ft. Hood’s Soldier Readiness Center. Army officials didn’t know whether the victims were civilians or military personnel.

Other media reports said the number of victims remained unclear.

The men were reportedly dressed in Army fatigues, but military officials couldn’t confirm that they were Army personnel.

The base and area schools were on lockdown after the mass shooting, and all those on the Army post were asked to gather for a head count.

The FBI was en route to Ft. Hood to provide assistance.

There have been several previous deadly incidents at Ft. Hood, including a shooting of one soldier by another at a party in July; a rape and fatal shooting of an Army medic at her apartment near the post 11 years ago; and the murder-suicide of a lieutenant by a soldier in September 2008.

Click here for more from MyFoxDFW.com.

At Least 7 Dead, 20 Wounded in Shooting at Ft. Hood in Texas

DALLAS – A carjacking led to six school lockdowns, a full-scale search and an accident involving a Dallas police patrol car on Monday morning before the suspect was finally caught.

The whole thing started at 6:45 a.m. when a man pulled a gun on 17-year-old Jennifer Saenz at her home in the 300 block of S. Waverly Drive.

Police say the man stole her 2000 turquoise Mazda Protege and her pink Razor cell phone.

A short time later, the man was spotted on foot near Illinois and Ravinia. As a precaution, DISD put six schools in lockdown in the surrounding area, just as students and parents were arriving for morning classes. The six schools were:

Moreno Elementary – 2115 S. Hampton Road
Cowart Elementary – 1515 S. Ravinia Drive
Henderson Elementary – 2200 S. Edgefield Ave
Salazar Elementary – 1120 S. Ravinia Drive
Stockard Elementary – 2300 Ravina Drive
Hall Elementary – 2120 Keats Drive

Students were allowed into the schools, but parents were kept out.

Finally, just before 9 a.m., police spotted the suspect near Illinois and Wilbur and gave chase.

One of the responding officers turned on her lights and sirens to get through the intersection of Brooklyn Ave. and Oak Cliff Blvd.

But unfortunately, a motorist driving a Buick Armada didn’t see the officer and drove into the intersection. The officer’s squad car T-boned the Armada, knocking it on its side.

The driver was taken by ambulance to a local hospital, and the DPD officer was treated at the scene.

Other officers captured the carjacking suspect and are questioning him now.

Teen Carjacked En Route to School

Scientists have found that psychopaths who murder and rape others have faulty connections between the part of the brain that deals with emotions and handles impulses and decision-making, Reuters reported.
The British scientists observed psychopaths who had committed murder, manslaughter, multiple rape, strangulation and false imprisonment, and found that roads linking the two crucial brain areas had "potholes," while those of non-psychopaths were in good shape.
Dr. Michael Craig of the Institute of Psychiatry at London’s King’s College Hospital said the study opens up the possibility of developing treatments for dangerous psychopaths in the future, and may have profound implications for doctors, researchers and the criminal justice system.

Study Shows Psychopaths Have Faulty Brain Connections – Science News – red Orbit

The Senate voted to confirm Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court today, making her the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice and just the third woman to sit on the court.

This is great news for all Hispanics, Mexican Americans throughout the United States

Senate Confirms Sonia Sotomayor as Nation’s First Hispanic Supreme Court Justice

Airport officials tell Globo TV the teen suffered a cardiac arrest a few hours before the plane was to land in Sao Paulo on Sunday.

Copa Airlines said two doctors who were passengers on the flight tried to revive the teen, but she was already dead when the plane arrived.

The Tia Augusta tourism agency that booked the girl’s flight said in a statement that she had gone to an Orlando hospital with flu symptoms and tested negative for swine flu before being authorized to fly back to Brazil.

Brazilian Teen Dies on Flight After Disney World Trip – International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News – FOXNews.com

You answer the phone, and it’s a recorded message:

“By now you should have received your written note regarding your vehicle warranty expiring. This call is to give you a final opportunity to extend coverage before it is too late. Press ’1′ now to speak to a warranty specialist regarding your options on your vehicle.”

Upon pressing “1,” you are transferred to a “warranty specialist” who lies to you, telling you he is affiliated with an automobile dealer or manufacturer and that your warranty is up. And before long, you may have agreed to put $450 down on an extended service contract that costs up to $3,000, the balance to be paid in monthly payments.

Or maybe you hang up — only to be called again. And again. Because more than a billion of these automatically dialed “robocalls” have been sent to cell phones, government offices and even 911 operators.

What’s surprising is that these billion-plus calls allegedly stemmed from three companies — Transcontinental Warranty, Voice Touch and Network Foundations.

And behind those three companies are four human faces: Christopher Cowart, James and Maureen Dunne, and Kamian Kohlfeld.

Court documents filed last month in a Federal Trade Commission civil lawsuit against the three companies allege that their illegal calls have resulted in at least $10 million of ill-gotten gains since 2007. The FTC alleges that the firms’ deceptive practices violated the Federal Trade Commission Act by misrepresenting or omitting material facts in their sales pitches, and that they violated the Telemarketing Sales Rule by “flatly ignoring” rules that prerecorded calls disclose the identity of the seller “promptly, and in a clear and conspicuous manner,” according to court documents.

Those documents contained few details about Cowart, the Dunnes and Kohlfeld. But a FOXNews.com investigation of the four reveals misleading online resumes, lengthy criminal histories, claims of innocence all around — and a great deal of finger-pointing.

Meet the main players behind the alleged scheme:

— Christopher D. Cowart, 47, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., owns Transcontinental Warranty, a Delaware company based in Fort Lauderdale. A graduate of Southeastern Louisiana University, Cowart likes to read, travel and play golf in his spare time. He also maintains a Facebook page and uses a LinkedIn profile to advertise his latest business ventures.

— James A. Dunne, 36, of Daytona Beach, Fla., owns Florida-based Voice Touch with his wife, Maureen. Dunne has a checkered legal past, including charges of filing a false report of a bomb that landed him six months in jail in 1991. He was most recently arrested in 2001 for indecent exposure, but those charges were later dismissed.

— Maureen E. Dunne, nee Maureen Geisen, is James Dunne’s wife. Little information can be found pertaining to her.

— Damian P. Kohlfeld, 35, of Valparaiso, Ind., is the owner of Network Foundations, which is based in Chicago. Kohlfeld allegedly supplied the technical know-how for the alleged telemarketing scheme employed by all three companies. The Arizona State University graduate has more than a decade of experience writing software and building computer networks. His latest hit, according to the FTC, was a “spoofing” device that tricked caller ID systems.

As a direct marketer of extended auto warranties, Cowart acknowledged in an interview with FOXNews.com that he used the Dunnes’ telemarketing firm, Voice Touch, to “transfer leads.” He says he was contacted by James Dunne last spring to enter into a business relationship.

But Cowart says he was “undeniably misled” by Dunne, because Dunne told him that the caller information provided to Transcontinental was for consumers who registered to be solicited.

“We were told that it was co-registration data,” Cowart told FOXNews.com. “We gave him a test and he delivered. We had no reason not to believe what was said.”

Shortly thereafter, Cowart said, his employees began reporting angry consumers who said they were one of 160 million Americans registered on the federal Do Not Call registry. Cowart says he terminated his relationship with Voice Touch in December.

“We never had that before,” Cowart said of the Do Not Call-related complaints. “But with the volume of calls we were making, some were going to get through.”

Cowart flatly denied the allegations of illicit sales and marketing tactics.

“We’ve admitted to doing nothing wrong as to how we sold it, nor will we ever,” he told FOXNews.com. “The fact is, 140 employees were put out of work and we hope to restart operations with the blessing of the FTC, as it were.”

Cowart has some falsehoods on his LinkedIn profile, but he says they’re not his doing. The profile currently lists Louisiana State University’s Paul M. Hebert Law Center among his education experience, although registrar officials say they have no record of him being there.

“I didn’t put that up there,” Cowart said. “I never go on LinkedIn.”

While working with technology supplied by Kohlfeld’s Network Foundations, James Dunne, who owns Voice Touch with his wife, Maureen, claimed to have done more than $40 million worth of dialing for extended warranty companies, including more than 1 billion calls for Missouri’s National Auto Warranty Services, according to court papers.

That company, now doing business as US Fidelis, is one of several firms sued by former Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon last year for misleading sales pitches.

Philip Jehle, the former chief financial officer and vice president of operations at US Fidelis, told FOXNews.com that he raised concerns about James Dunne and Voice Touch in June 2007, eight months before the company says it stopped using the Dunnes’ firm.

“I did everything I could to try and dissuade them from this and they refused to do anything,” Jehle said of US Fidelis management. “I could not stand by knowing that the company was continuing to violate the [National Do Not Call Registry and the FTC Act].”

“These calls were placed at random, they had no idea who they were calling,” Jehle told FOXNews.com. “They would just blast whole area codes. It was really egregious.”

Jehle, now a self-employed accountant, resigned in October 2007. US Fidelis sued him regarding that departure, but it dropped the case two months later, he said.

In a statement to FOXNews.com, US Fidelis officials characterized Jehle’s account as that of a “disgruntled” former employee.

For his part, Dunne said he has cooperated with FTC investigators and denied any wrongdoing.

“This is like a divorce, people will throw mud, point the finger at the next guy,” he said outside of his Florida home. “I was completely hands-off, just putting this guy with this guy.”

Dunne — whose criminal history includes charges of trespassing, battery, filing a false report of a bomb and firearm violations — declined to answer specific questions regarding the FTC’s allegations.

“All you can do is comply and hopefully the truth will set you free,” Dunne said. “I’ll take my licks for whatever they find that I did wrong, but at the end of the day, I think all I did was broker long distance. The truth will come out.”

Kohlfeld, principal of Network Foundations and the technological guru behind the massive scam, according to FTC officials, also claims to be the wrong target of the probe — although investigators say he earned nearly $5 million for his services from December 2007 through January of this year. Kohlfeld’s “spoofing” technology allegedly duped caller identification systems to display bogus, untraceable numbers, leaving consumers without recourse to file complaints.

Like Dunne, Kohlfeld, who served less than five months for a robbery conviction in 1993, claims he merely followed orders.

“I have spent the last 15 years writing software and designing/building computer networks for several companies,” Kohlfeld said in a statement to FOXNews.com. “Some of these companies are on the Fortune 500 list. Throughout my adult life, I have held positions of great responsibility and have always faithfully executed those responsibilities.”

FTC spokesman Peter Kaplan said it’s “uncertain” what fines await the defendants if found guilty, but since a federal court issued a restraining order in the case that froze the companies’ assets last month, followed by a preliminary injunction last week, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said he’s sure consumers are noticing.

“I have never seen an issue that resonated so much,” Leibowitz told FOXNews.com. “When I was at my daughter’s soccer game, people came up to me and said, ‘Thank you so much for stopping these guys.’ It resonates because this is all about protecting Americans’ privacy.”

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