Priority Box

District Attorney, Nola Tedesco Foulston, is pleased to announce completion of an investigation involving a nationwide marketing company, US Work Alliance, Inc., a Georgia Corporation d/b/a Exam Services, and one of its principals.

In documents filed with the District court, the District Attorney alleged the company violated the Kansas Consumer Protection Act, by deceptively soliciting consumers to purchase postal exam preparatory materials after falsely implying such materials would help consumers obtain jobs with the United States Postal Service.

The District Attorney reached a settlement requiring Defendants to pay $90,000 in restitution to approximately 781 Sedgwick County consumers at an average recovery of $119 each.

Specifically, the District Attorney alleged that Defendants placed advertisements under the “Employment and Business Opportunity” section of local papers, such as the “Penny Power,” announcing purported job placement opportunities along with various other representations regarding salary, benefits and vacation associated with a job opening with the United States Postal Service. The ads also invited consumers to call an 800 number and provide a reference number when inquiring.

When consumers called this number, Defendants utilized a telephone script asking for a reference code from the advertisement, the consumer’s name, and whether the consumer would be willing to take a drug test before starting work. Once a consumer answered the questions and indicated a willingness to submit to a drug test, they were told, “Congratulations, you are eligible for positions with the United States Postal Service.” Defendants did not disclose they had no affiliation with the United States Postal Service and could not actually place applicants with the Postal Service.

Utilizing the phone scripts, Defendants led consumers to believe they were eligible for a position with the Postal Service and that it would provide materials to help them gain such employment, including exam preparation materials. Defendants charged consumers $119.45 for preparation materials that had the appearance of coming from the Postal Service, as the booklet was blue and white with a postage stamp and American Flag as symbols, and titled “Postal Battery Exam Study Guide.” preparatory materials. Defendants’ materials were similar to other postal exam preparatory materials available in book stores for significantly less money and from the United Postal Service for free.

The District Attorney’s Office is sending letters out to consumers who are eligible to receive a refund. If you do not receive a letter and believe you may have been a victim of this business, please contact Charles Rutter, Prosecuting Attorney, or Andrea Souders, Senior Investigator, assigned to the case at (316) 660-3600.

Remember, the alleged misrepresentations were made over an approximate two year time period, from January 2005 to October 2007. Consumers purchasing materials before or after these dates would not be eligible under the terms of the settlement. Furthermore, any consumer making a claim under this settlement must provide proof of purchase of such materials from U.S. Work Alliance and have received no refund/credit from the company, bank, or credit card issuer.

As rumored the USPS has announced they will not accept the 6014 as a legal document.  The original purpose of the document was never meant to serve as a transfer of liability from the mailer to a 3rd party.  Basically, the 6014 will not be accepted as proper certification of Move Update Compliance, and the mailer paying the postage will be held liable for a failure.

The USPS will treat detection of Move Update Compliance like any other verification test.   The same rules will apply to a Move Update Compliance failure as a barcode failure or presort error.  The presenter will have the options of paying additional postage or taking the mail back to resolve the problem.

This doesn’t change the fact that the document signed is a legal document.  The 6014 or any similarly signed document would hold as an agreement between the mail preparer and their client.  The document was never meant to serve as an agreement between the USPS and the client of the mail preparer.

The options for Move Update Compliance are:

• OneCode ACS™ (Address Change Service) in conjunction with an Intelligent Mail barcode and a mailer ID or Address Change Service used with an ACS participant code and an appropriate on-piece ancillary service endorsement

• NCOALink™ processing.

• FASTforward® MLOCR processing (letter mail only).

• Ancillary Service Endorsement.

Input Technology is asking clients to use one of the above methods for all mailings.  Most of our clients simply take advantage of our cost-effective 48 month NCOA processing service.  We require all clients mailing through us to sign a PAF (Processing Acknowledgement Form), if not using an alternative addressing format or one of the above methods.

The Processing Acknowledgment Form is required by the USPS to adhere to the Privacy Act of 1974.  The purpose is to assure that the processing and returned data isn’t used for any purpose other than updating a mail list.

Alternative addressing includes using simplified addressing such as “Current Resident” or “Postal Customer”.  It can also be exceptional addressing such as “Or Current Resident” as well as “Or Current Occupant.”  If the client uses alternative addressing, we require nothing additional from them, since Move Update does not apply.

1. Flip blogs. This is done by tweaking your blog, do everything you can to drive traffic into it before you do the selling. A good readership is your ultimate goal here. A blog without readers is useless. Make it worthy to read about, and make everyone online get interested to what your blog talks about. You can earn a profit just by doing this for about a few hundred dollars to thousand more dollars.

2. Donations. You may notice that many bloggers are already asking for donations to make some cash out of their content posted in their blogs.

3. A Blog for Business. Blog is also open for companies and businessmen. It is their one way of raising a bar with their business or company. Some would use it as a job portal to hire bloggers and article writers on the web.

4. Network Blogs. Bloggers are making some extra cash by grabbing sponsored blogging opportunites. There are advertisers who are seeking for bloggers to fill their blog with content, or to simply promote their sites for search engine optimization purposes.

1. Comment on Other Experts’ Blogs

Frequently leave comments on some experts blogs which have high traffic and Alexa ranking will increase your blog traffic as well. Do not comment using anonymous. Remember to leave only quality comment instead of saying a word “Hello”. Leave some quality comments so that other people will get interest on you and then visit your blog.

2. Submit Article to Articles Directories

Article marketing is the oldest way to increase traffic but it still very effective. It will bring you tons of traffic. When I mean tons, I mean it. Submit 10 articles to EzineArticles and GoArticles will do. Do not forget to put a link which link back to your blog. For more information about article marketing, click here.

3. Participate in Community Forums

I like forums. It also brings me lots of traffic. I love forums very much because I can boost my traffic. At the same time, I can always update and enhance my knowledge. Remember to put a link which will link back to your blog in your signature. You can ask a question, discuss a topic, post your ideas and articles in the forums.

4. Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking can also increase your traffic. Bookmark your blog posts to social bookmark networks like Digg, StumbleUpon and Reddit. Do not forget to submit your blog post every time you publish a post.

5. Update Your Blog Frequently

Never let your blog die. You will lost many traffic if you do not update your blog for a long time. I suggest you to publish at least 3 posts per week. If you can update your blog everyday, then that’s good =)

6. Use Paid Advertising

Paid advertising will definitely boost your traffic. What you need to control is just your budget. Do not spend too much on paid advertising. You can advertise your blog or sales page via service like Google AdWords. Alternatively, you may us BidVertiser as it is not so expensive compare with AdWords. You can also select a blog which have high visits and Alexa ranking to advertise your blog. Remember that only choose blog which have same niche with you so that you can traget your readers.

7. Organize Contests

Run contests on your blog also a way to boost your blog traffic. The form of contest and gift is based on your budget and what your readers need. Think a creative way which can grab more readers to read your blog post. Example, the top commenter of this month will be rewarded a copy of your e-book.

8. Link Exchange

Link exchange is also a great and effective way to boost your traffic. You can go to Google Blog Search and find few blogs which have same niche with you and request link exchange with the webmasters by contact them. If you able to exchange a link with a blog which have high visits and traffic, your traffic also will increase after that =)

9. Submit Your Blog to Blog Directories

This step is very important to get traffic for your blog. Submit your blogs to Technorati, Techmeme, Blogcatalog and other blog directories. Blog directories are places which you can submit your blog to get massive traffic. Thus, do not be lazy on this.

10. Offer Something Free

I realize that many people like free stuff. Even me like free stuff. This way works if you are creative enough and you know what stuff your readers actually need. If you are using auto responder for blogging, you can gift out free stuff to encourage more people join your mailing list. If your free stuff is good, your readers will definitely announce and tell their friends. Then, your traffic will increase too.

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