Telemarketers are bad enough; at least you know they’re trying to sell you something. But when entering a contest or calling an 800 number leads to unexpected charges “crammed” onto your telephone bill, the annoyance becomes a full-on headache.
“Cramming” happens when fees appear on a phone bill for services the consumer didn’t authorize or agree to. In some cases, consumers [...]

read more from " You’ve heard of spamming… How about cramming? "

We’ve mentioned before that junk mail destroys 100 million trees per year. That’s like cutting down every tree in the Rocky Mountain National Forest, three times over. But what does that actually MEAN? It’s hard to wrap our brains around a forest. How about these stats, from newdream.org:
• There were 5.8 million tons of catalogs and [...]

read more from " Junk Mail Grows, the Environment Suffers "

In the constant fight to protect personal privacy and security, few things put the average consumer on edge more than the thought of a credit card being stolen. Even if an individual isn’t liable for most of the spending a credit card thief might do, the hassle of cleaning up the mess and getting the [...]

read more from " Card Shaving Nicks Many Consumers "

A natural disaster like Hurricane Ike can be safely managed, assuming people follow the recommendations of local authorities, secure their homes, and if needed leave town.
A disaster can also put a strain on local law enforcement officials and thus ‘post-hurricane’ has always been a popular time for crooks to take advantage of empty homes and [...]

read more from " Hurricane Ike – Protecting Your Personal Privacy "

This just in: hackers know the name of your dog.
You know those security questions that websites ask you when you forgot your password? It turns out those aren’t very secure, at least from a hacker’s perspective. When you think about it, it makes sense: it’s easier to guess someone’s favorite color or dog’s name than [...]

read more from " Forgot Your Password? A Hacker Might Reset It For You "

Junk mail and SPAM has taken over our lives. The Privacy Council is an organization dedicated to removing unsolicited junk mail, email and phone calls from our society.
Help spread the word about the Privacy Council by embedding the official widget:

read more from " Spread the Word – Help end SPAM and Junk Mail "

Ask anyone who gets email, and they’ll tell you how much they hate email spam. We all get tired of the dozens of messages that end up in the “bulk” or “spam” folders of our inboxes, advertising cheap (and questionable) pharmaceuticals or fabulous (and also questionable) mortgage rates. We install increasingly-sophisticated spam filters in an [...]

read more from " Spam isn’t going anywhere as long as it works "