Time for family, friends, food, presents, festivities and crime! Last year I wrote about the 12 scams of Christmas, and got a lot of positive feedback. So, I decided to write an updated 12 scams list for 2010, with help from the folks over at McAfee. Unfortunately, scams always seem to ramp up with everything else around the holidays. Be sure to watch out for these tricks to keep yourself safe this holiday season.

Scam 1: Free iPads
You’ve undoubtedly already seen links for free iPad offers this holiday season, and hopefully you haven’t fallen prey. With the iPad topping the charts for the most sought after new tech gadget, these scams are sure to ramp up as the big day approaches. This scam is rampant on social media sites where visitors are asked to take a survey for a free iPad. Be wary of any survey that asks you to submit any personal information. Often these will ask for your cell phone number and then will bill you for $10/week.

Scam 2: Social Networking – A Cybercriminal “Wants to be Your Friend”
I know how flattering it is to think perfect strangers want to be friends, but beware. This year there are more fake profiles than ever. These scammers are out to install malware on your PC and steal your password. And you just wanted to be friends!

Scam 3: Charity Phishing Scams – Be Careful Who You Give To
It’s a low down, dirty game but this scam hits you when you deserve it the least (not that you ever deserve it, but you know what I mean). Watch out for emails claiming to be from a charitable organization. They might contain links to fake websites set up to steal your donations and/or personal information.

Scam 4: Fake Gift Cards
Gift cards are extremely popular this year—in fact we ran our own gift card promotion in September. Like many other scams, fake gift card offers ask for your personal information. When in doubt, DON’T PROVIDE IT. Stay safe.

Scam 5: Help Me Overseas!
This variation on the overseas needy gets personal when scam artists hack into email accounts and send fake distress messages to family and friends. The scammers ask for wired money, claiming dire straits in foreign lands. Before sending money, give your loved one a call and make sure they really need help.

Scam 6: Fake Job Offers
This is a real heartbreaker—fake job offers targeting the out-of-work and desperate. You’ve likely encountered plenty of these scams on classified sites and otherwise legitimate job listing sites. Any time you see the words “work at home” or “I made x amount of dollars in one week” or anything else that seems too good to be true, IT IS. Avoid these scams at all costs, and protect your personal information!

Scam 7: Smishing
This silly word refers to a very serious crime. Smishing is phishing via SMS text messages sent directly to your phone. They appear to come from a retailer or your bank, and have already fooled many consumers who aren’t used to receiving spam on their phones.

Scam 8: Holiday Rentals
Many people are looking for nice rental properties for their families during the holiday season. Never send anyone a down payment unless you’re sure they’re legitimate. Use rental sites with consumer protection, and be sure to google names and locations for more information. Often, people that have been duped before you will post their experiences online to protect future consumers. Make the most of this early alarm system.

Scam 9:  The Dangers of Holiday E-Cards
Happy Holidays! Celebrate with the gift of malware. ‘Tis the season! This scam was popular last year too, and apparently it works because it’s making the list again. Beware.

Scam 10: The Recession Money Scams
This is another one that’s been around for years: low-interest and pay day loans. Don’t buy the hype: free money isn’t free! Pay-in-advance credit cards are another popular one this year.

Scam 11: Holiday-Themed Downloads
Downloads are the easiest way for cyber criminals to install malware on your computer. Be wary of holiday screensavers, apps, jingles and animations, even if the link is sent by a friend. Scammers are increasingly using the names and information they collect to target friends and family members of the stolen addressee. It’s a sad thing, but you really can’t trust anyone—even people you know.

Scam 12: Price Traps
Any time you see a deal for something you want at a price far below market, beware. Many cyber criminals are using popular classified sites to post fake deals for popular brands. Always make sure the URL of the website you’re on corresponds with the company.

Yikes!

It’s a scary Internet out there but you can protect yourself by keeping your security software up to date and your wits about you. Avoid strange links, don’t open weird attachments, and keep your chin up!

We hope you have a safe, happy and crime-free holiday!

This year, e-commerce sales are predicted to jump 15% from last year. This is big news! Not only does this make 2010 the biggest e-commerce year ever, it’s happening in the midst of a major long-term recession. If you are one of the many companies that sells products or services online, this holiday season could be huge for your company, and it couldn’t be coming at a better time. So, what can you do to maximize sales and make sure you’re getting the most out of your site traffic? Hold on to your hats, folks, and pay attention…

Clean House and Take Names
We’re getting close to the wire with Christmas only a few weeks away, and online sales (as opposed to in-store retail) is predicted to ramp up and up as the big day approaches. If you haven’t done it already, visit your own site with a critical holiday shopping eye. Don’t just visit the front page—pretend you’re a customer and make a purchase. Do your best to catch any typos, bugs, or strange formatting. Make the process as pretty and seamless as possible to maximize sales.

Holiday Themes
Tis the season to decorate your site with holiday images, from front to back. Make your site feel as festive as possible and visitors will respond. Studies show, the more festive the atmosphere, the more sales retailers make. This is just as true for online stores as it is for brick-and-mortar. Just do a google search for some festive images and be sure to make them non-denominational. The last thing you want to do is offend your shoppers.

Put Your Best Promo Forward
Lead the pack with an unprecedented sale or special to entice new customers. While you might balk at the idea, sales are more valuable than the amount of money they bring in. A first-time shopper is much more likely to become a repeat customer if you make them remember you with a huge discount. Also, word-of-mouth spreads fast at the holidays, with coupon sites running up-to-the minute promotional specials from all over the Internet. Take a few moments and submit your coupons everywhere you can, and talk them up on forums. One satisfied customer can quickly become many as the sale catches fire.

Boost Your Bandwidth
Get ready for the influx by beefing up your hosting for the holidays. Many retailers forget this vital step and it results in lost profits, sometimes in the thousands. If your customers can’t access your site, they can’t make a purchase. It seems obvious, but many people don’t think about it until they’ve already lost money. Contact your hosting provider now and upgrade your plan. You can downgrade again after the holidays. The money you spend now will come back to you many-fold, and you’ll save yourself the embarrassment of a down website at the busiest time of the year.

Market Market Market
Use your company newsletter to announce your last minute holiday sales to your customers. Provide a special newsletter-subscriber-only link for a VIP discount to make your readers feel appreciated and valued. Highlight a few big sellers—products or services that have been selling well so far. Provide added discounts for these products and be sure to emphasize that they’re only available for a limited time. Use social media to spread the word too.

Fraud Protection
Fraud is rampant this time of year. Make sure you have a powerful e-commerce platform or third-party security solution to protect yourself and your customers from holiday fraud. Taking this added precaution now will protect your business’ reputation, and it will protect you from the infamous charge backs that darken the new year for many online merchants.

And… Remember to Check Out TurnKeyCommerce!

Happy Selling!

This holiday season, the airwaves are full of hardship stories. So many good companies that help people are going under because they just can’t afford to keep themselves going. Many of these companies are experiencing the vicious cycle:

– Money problems lead them to cut back on marketing efforts
– Cutting back on marketing efforts stalls growth
– Stalled growth limits opportunities for funding and expansion
– Money problems get worse

This cycle happens again and again because the last thing a company wants to do when money is tight, is spend money on expanding the business. Unless these companies get help, this cycle brings them down, and fast. This happens in all types of business, but it is especially prevalent for non-profits and educational institutions that rely on donations, grants and other sources of funding for operation costs. Those funding sources are driven by outreach. Without the outreach, the organization loses visibility and with it goes legitimacy. When your funding depends on your presence, losing that presence ruins your business.

We realized that our business solutions do the one thing these organizations need: grow businesses. But we were seeing a lot of our non-profit clients fall by the wayside because of budgetary hardship. We are in a unique position to provide lifeblood services to stagnating businesses, and we’re doing just that.

This holiday season, TurnKey Internet launched the TurnKey Technology Grant to address this problem by providing these companies with the tools they need to bolster their image, communicate with members and market new projects. With the TurnKey Technology Grant, TurnKey Internet hopes to help organizations that help people–to further their missions while keeping their companies strong and vibrant in their communities.

The TurnKey Technology Grant is worth over $5000 and provides the recipient with 10 premium business solutions including: TurnKeyWebsite, TurnKey Newsletter, Voxwire web conferencing, TurnKeyVault, TurnKeyMail, TurnKey Monitoring, TurnKey Blog Hosting, TurnKeyDesk, TurnKeyVPN and TurnKey Virtual Office.

All of these solutions are easy-to-use and include detailed instructions and support. Combined, they cover all the business visibility basics—from inter-office organization and efficiency (platforms for collaboration, storage, backups, mail, and networking) to marketing outreach (newsletters, webinars and blogs). These solutions can transform a business, literally, overnight, from one with little to no presence, to a savvy front-and-center contender in the online marketplace.

TurnKey Technology Grants are available to non-profit organizations, accredited public and private educational institutions and individual classroom teachers. To learn more and apply, visit: http://turnkeyinternet.net/grant.

E-commerce is a ubiquitous tool in the online marketplace, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to find a platform that works well, let alone one that is easy to use and has good back-end support. If you think about it, your e-commerce platform is just as important as the rest of your website. It may even be more important!

Once a customer reaches your store, chances are good they’ve decided to make a purchase. Your website has done its job, and you are about to make a sale, but you’re not home free. If your store is confusing, unattractive or makes your customer feel unsafe, all your hard work may go right out the window. Consumers are used to a certain standard for online stores, and anything less won’t fly. Would you risk your credit card information in an online store you didn’t trust? I sure wouldn’t.

It’s clear that professional, clean, secure e-commerce solutions are critically important for online success—so which one do you choose? Surely there are many options out there, but you probably don’t want to just try one and hope for the best. Unless you have the luxury of lost clientele, you’ll likely want a solution you can stick with. You’ll likely want a solution you can set up easily, without a steep learning curve. I can’t help but suggest TurnKey Commerce.

TurnKey Commerce offers a free 14-day trial, so I signed up to try it so I could write an informed post for our customers. I’d never seen the interface before and was interested to see how long it would take to start actually doing business. I can honestly say the process was fast, easy and fun—that’s right: setting up an online store was fun. The thing I enjoyed the most was playing with the templates, and configuring my store items. Even though I work for a company that specializes in easy online solutions, this particular solution seemed too good to be true and it was a shock that I was actually able to create a functioning, professional-looking store so quickly.

Really though, whether you choose TurnKey Commerce or another e-commerce solution, make sure you have back-end support, and that the solution works securely before you open it to the public. Your business depends on it. Learn more: http://turnkeycommerce.com