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Joe Weppler / April 3, 2020

Coronavirus Scams Targeting You and Your Business

“If you are a small business that has been affected by the coronavirus, press “1” to ensure your Google listing is correctly displaying. Otherwise, customers may not find you online during this time.”

If you’ve received this call or something similar in the past few weeks, you’re just one of the millions of businesses across the U.S. and Canada that have been targeted by robocall scams designed to exploit people’s COVID-19 concerns.

In fact, both the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the U.S. Secret Service have issued warnings that scammers are imitating companies, government agencies and healthcare providers in unprecedented numbers — and cybersecurity experts say that the attacks are just getting started.

Here are some scams you should be looking out for in order to keep you and your business safe:

Robocalls:

According to the FTC, any robocall trying to sell you something is illegal unless a company has your written permission to call you that way — excluding some calls such as candidates running for office or charities asking for donations. And if someone is already breaking the law by robocalling you, there’s a good chance it’s also a scam.

These calls are running the gamut from offering fake COVID-19 testing kits and free sanitation supplies to fake government financial support. The only correct response to these robocalls is to hang up — do not press any numbers, even if directed to in order to remove you from the call list. By pressing a number, you confirm to the scammers that your number is active and you open yourself up for more scam calls in the future.

Note: There are no anti-robocall laws in Canada, but they are subject to CRTC regulations. Regulations include a clear message identifying on whose behalf the call is made, a mailing address, and a number at which a representative can be reached.

Business Email Scams:

Uncertain economic conditions lead to confusion, panic, and irregular transactions. Scammers are taking advantage of the confusion to double down on business email scams. An example from the FTC is the CEO scam — wherein an employee gets an email from their boss directing them to do something — wire money, transfer funds, send sensitive information. Except the email is actually coming from a scammer that has spoofed the boss’s email. The issue is made even more difficult with the massive influx of professionals working from home. A puzzled employee can’t just knock on the bosses door to confirm the request.

The best way to combat these scams is to make sure staff has a central contact that they can reach out to in order to verify any requests they may receive — irregular or not.

Fake Cures and Public Health Scams:

Teas, essential oils and colloidal silver all have something in common — none of them are a cure for COVID-19. The FTC and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have jointly issued warning letters to seven separate sellers of unapproved products claiming they can prevent or treat the coronavirus. The companies that have received these letters have no evidence to back up their claims, which is required by law in order to advertise their products. The FDA states that there are no approved vaccines or drugs available to treat or prevent the virus.

Furthermore, scammers are sending messages claiming to be from public health offices and officials aiming to steal confidential information or installing malware on your computer. They are asking for Social Security numbers and Tax IDs. They are sending “infographics” that are actually keyloggers in disguise.

Remember not to download any attachments or click links in any unsolicited emails.

Fake Charities:

During difficult times, incredible charities and non-profits often step up to the plate and provide crucial assistance that keeps our most vulnerable safe. Unfortunately, for every legitimate charity working for those in need, a fake one pops up looking to take your money.

They use websites that look legitimate, with real emails, signature blocks and phone support lines. They even use names similar to real charities in order to trick you. And during times of need, such as pandemics and natural disasters, they are even more active.

Before you give money to a charity, make sure you’re doing the proper research to ensure your donations are going to the right place. Websites like CharityWatch and SmartGiving seek to give you information on avoiding scams and point out the red flags. For example, most real charities will accept credit cards or checks, because they’re safe and easy. Any charity that will only accept wire transfer or cash should be immediately suspect.

Joe Weppler / March 27, 2020

Tips to Increase Online Sales for Brick-and-Mortar Retailers

According to Digital Commerce 360’s analysis of U.S. Department of Commerce data, the percentage of total retail sales made online compared to in-store rose from 6.4% in 2010 to 16.0% in 2019. With businesses being forced to close their doors to the public during the current COVID-19 pandemic, there’s no doubt online sales will continue to trend upward.

While the younger generations were already living exceedingly online lifestyles, the steps consumers must take to keep themselves and their loved ones healthy is forcing people of all ages and outlooks to rethink how they live — and how they buy.

For retailers and many other business owners, now is the time to re-imagine how your business can maintain a stream of revenue to survive this changing dynamic — if you haven’t already. Investment in your online strategies is a major piece of the puzzle. Here are some tips for retailers on how to grow online sales while their brick-and-mortar stores remain closed: 

Minimize Required Steps 

If you’ve spent time researching online purchasing, you’ve probably heard the term “the checkout cart is where sales go to die.” Every extra click, every redirection, and every new page that a customer has to maneuver through up until the point they click “Confirm Purchase” is another opportunity for them to change their mind.

The easier you make it for a potential customer to navigate from “I want this item,” to “I’ve purchased this item,” the better. Remove the hurdles, make the checkout process as simple and streamlined as possible, and you’ll get more impulse buys and fewer checkout carts abandoned.

Focus On Clear Calls-to-Action  

Speaking of carts — the “Add to Cart” button on your product page is about as direct as you can get with a Call-to-Action — but you shouldn’t stop there. Contact pages and live chat portals, “learn more” dropdowns and email newsletter opt-ins — these are all examples of softer Call-to-Action buttons that will increase engagement on your website and lead to more sales over time.

While your process should be as streamlined as possible, you also need to provide your customers with plenty of opportunities to interact with and learn more about you and your products. The more positive contact they have, the more likely they are to buy.

Implement Cart Recommendations

Cross-selling is important. It leads to higher customer satisfaction and increased exposure to your products. When selling online, cross-selling can become even easier with the use of in-cart recommendations. When a customer adds something to their cart, make sure they also see related and suggested items. This can be as simple as side dishes for a restaurant taking online orders, offering item bundles, or even suggesting larger sizes of products.

By suggesting great related items for your customers, you not only increase your sales but you may even remind them or clue them into other necessities that they hadn’t even considered when purchasing the product in the first place.

Don’t Let One Sale Be the End

If you’re selling a product online, there is most likely some sort of contact information being shared from your customer to you — usually an email address at the very least. While you need to pay close attention to the anti-spam laws that apply to you, simple order confirmations don’t need to be the end of the conversation.

Sending out coupons, product suggestions and newsletters to happy customers can be an excellent way to bring them back to you for future sales. While you need to be tactful, if you play your cards right, the customer will be very appreciative of your outreach. And a happy customer is one that will buy from you again and again.

 Don’t Give Up Hope

According to Harvard Business Review, a Chinese cosmetics company called Lin Qingxuan was forced to close 40% of its brick-and-mortar locations during the crisis, including all of its locations in Wuhan, the city at the epicenter of the Coronavirus outbreak. Despite these closures, Lin Qingxuan redeployed its 100+ beauty advisors affected by the store closures into online markets, using digital tools such as WeChat to engage customers.

As a result, its sales in Wuhan achieved 200% growth compared to the prior year’s.

This isn’t to claim you’re going to double your sales simply by offering your products online. But Lin Qingxuan is an excellent example of the power of online sales and the benefits of being agile and flexible when it comes to how you do business.

Joe Weppler / March 20, 2020

Enabling Your Employees to Work From Home

Last fall, a study conducted by Owl Labs projected that nearly half the U.S. workforce would be working remotely for at least a portion of their week by 2025. The rise of remote work across the world compared to even five years ago has been climbing a pretty smooth slope.  But with the rapid spread of the Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) shutting down work facilities, transit and childcare, that slope has turned into a spike.

With lock-downs and self-imposed quarantine rapidly becoming the standard response to try to limit the spread of the virus, remote work is becoming the new normal. Here are some tips for employers on how to make sure your employees are setup and prepared so they can do their work just as effectively at home as they do from the office:

Clearly Communicate Accountability Guidelines:

Trust in your workforce is paramount, but the key to developing an appropriate and effective remote work policy that ensures productivity and efficiency is in the planning.

Clearly communicate your remote work policies, have employees sign-off on these policies, and be vigilant in setting and maintaining your expectations. Also make it clear when, where and how employees are expected to track their work. Accountability is key on both sides of the arrangement.

Use Communication and Collaboration Tools:

Cloud-based and mobile-friendly technologies are the norm for remote workers. While remote-working has several benefits, a lack of the right equipment and tools can lead to inefficiency, isolation and a collapse in communication. Here are some great tools for everything from project management to workforce communication:

SharePoint: SharePoint is a web-based collaborative platform that is directly integrated with Microsoft Office. Its primary use is as a highly configurable document management and storage system. If you have multiple employees accessing the same files or spreadsheets that need to be updated from multiple sources — SharePoint is a great solution.

Google Drive: Team members can view and edit presentations, spreadsheets, documents and work forms all from the same platform with Google Drive. It also offers limited free storage, making it a cheaper solution for smaller teams.

Microsoft Teams: Microsoft Teams is a communication and collaboration platform that combines workplace chat, video meetings, file storage and app integration all into one place. It ties in with your Outlook email and calendar and also works with SharePoint storage. Teams is an excellent communication tool if your team is already using other Microsoft Office programs.

Slack: Slack is a program used all over the world to increase productivity and communication. It integrates with hundreds of different apps, and it enables you to archive and index emails, messages and other information to make them easily searchable. Instant messaging, voice and video calls, and screen sharing making Slack another great option for a collaboration-focused communication tool.

Think About Phones:

If you already provide your employees with mobile phones, they can likely use those for calls for the time being. But if you don’t provide employees with their own phones, you need to put a plan in place so your staff isn’t racking up massive long distance and data fees. Whether that’s simple research into adequate long distance plans and reimbursement, a VoIP solution or directly purchasing mobile phones from your telecom vendor, you need to weigh your options.  Also — do some research into the steps your vendors are taking to reduce the impact of this pandemic on your workers. Many vendors are waiving long distance and data fees to support their customers. Take advantage of these while you can to help keep your costs as low as possible.

Another thing to keep in mind: with the influx of people working from home, cell phone networks are going to begin being flooded and connection will deteriorate. Do you have an adequate line of communication open with your vendor if problems arise and your staff can’t make the calls they need to? You need to find out now before the issue arises.

Be Wary of Bad Internet:

Are your employees sending files, spreadsheets and info back and forth? Are you using a communications platform like Slack or Microsoft Teams that requires a stable internet connection? Do you need to make video or conference calls to clients or customers?

Even in today’s hyper-connected world, plenty of people struggle with poor, patchy and slow internet connections at home. Adding an entire work setup to an already struggling home connection can be a recipe for disaster.

Setting up Wi-Fi signal boosters, limiting bandwidth-hogging apps, swapping to a new DNS server and troubleshooting your hardware are all things you and your employees need to consider if their connection at home isn’t as stable as it needs to be to remain efficient.

Keep Lines of Communication Open:

These are trying times for everyone — from the business owner to the brand new employee. The most important thing you can do as an employer is to keep lines of communication open. Make sure employees have a clear path forward to getting the information and instruction they need — whether from you, your managers, or their co-workers. Encourage questions, collaborate on brainstorming, be understanding of the unique needs and situations of your employees, and above all, be safe!

Joe Weppler / January 31, 2020

The case for prepaid cards

According to a 2017 survey by the FDIC, 25 percent of U.S. households are unbanked or underbanked. That means a quarter of U.S. households either don’t have a bank account, or have an account but still use financial services outside the bank to make ends meet.

Of that 25 percent, more than half said they didn’t have enough money to keep in an account. Thirty percent said they simply don’t trust banks, and a further nine percent reported that banks are not in a convenient enough location to warrant using based on where they lived.

For these unbanked individuals, basic tasks like paying bills and cashing checks can be both difficult and expensive.

Enter the prepaid card, affording happy customers the ability to pay bills online, direct deposit their checks, and pay for plastic-only services and amenities — all without the needs for a bank account.

Prepaid cards allow you to load money onto them in advance in order to make purchases or transactions. Of course, that means you can only spend as much as the amount you loaded onto it — there is no line of credit involved. So what are some of the pros and cons of using a prepaid card over a traditional credit card or even cash?

The Bank Alternative

As mentioned before, prepaid cards offer the ease of card-based purchases without the need for a bank account. They come with routing and account numbers so you can even have your paycheck deposited directly to your card. Things like shopping online, renting a car or booking a hotel room can be difficult without a traditional credit card. Thankfully, a prepaid card can fill that void, even if you don’t have a bank account.

Perks of Plastic

Generally speaking, it’s not a good idea to charge something to your credit card you’re unable to pay off in full. That’s because credit card charges accrue interest, and anything you can’t pay off in full is going to end up being even more expensive in the long run. Of course, sometimes it can’t be avoided — which is why lines of credit exist in the first place.

Borrowing money can get anyone in trouble. By using a prepaid card, you’re never borrowing. And if you’re not borrowing, then you’re not owing, and you’re not spending beyond your means. Plus, you don’t need a credit check to get a prepaid card, so you can still use plastic even if you have a poor or nonexistent credit history.

Flexibility

Since you can’t get into debt using a prepaid card, the approval process is easy. Prepaid cards offered by the major carriers like American Express, Visa and MasterCard often carry liability protection to help keep your money safe. Plus, the funds in these cards are almost always held by a bank or credit union, which means they benefit from federal deposit insurance.

Most prepaid cards will allow you to access money from ATMs as you need it, preventing you from having to carry around physical cash on your person. That’s not to mention the fees associated with prepaid cards are often less than what you’d pay using a check-cashing service.

Fees and Cons

While you aren’t charged interest for your purchases on a prepaid card, the biggest downside of using prepaid cards are the associated fees. Depending on the card you choose, you could be charged when you:

  • Make a transaction
  • Reload your balance
  • Stop using the card over a certain period of time
  • Withdraw cash from an ATM
  • Attempt a purchase when you have an insufficient balance

Some cards even charge monthly fees. Often, these fees are predicated on how many transactions you make per month, and some carriers will waive these fees if you opt for direct-deposit on to your prepaid card.

Prepaid cards also do not report your payment history to credit bureaus, which means using a prepaid card will not help you improve your credit. They tend to have fewer billing protections than credit cards, and depending on the one you choose, can be more expensive than opening a checking account and using a debit card. You also miss out on the nice perks and awards associated with using a credit card responsibly.

In Conclusion

There are several benefits to using prepaid cards if traditional credit cards are simply not an option for you or you don’t put faith in the banks, but you’re still looking for the ease of access plastic provides.

If you plan on giving prepaid cards a shot, do your research first on the fees associated to make sure you’re getting the card that works best for you. Read the small print before using it so you’re not spending more on fees than you need to be. Also, consider confirming that the places you frequent actually accept your card of choice before swapping.

Prepaid cards can help you avoid debt, spend within your means, and manage your income. If you struggle with credit, prepaid may just be the solution to your problems.

Joe Weppler / January 17, 2020

Rogers rolling out Canada’s first 5G network

In a move that Rogers President and CEO Joe Natale called “the biggest technological evolution since the launch of wireless in Canada,” Rogers has announced that it is starting to roll out Canada’s first 5G network in downtown Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal to be ready for the release of 5G devices this year. The network is planned to expand to more than 20 additional markets by the end of 2020.

The Rogers 5G network has initially begun using 2.5 GHz spectrum in the downtown areas of these four major cities, but will expand to use 600 MHz 5G spectrum later in the year. This upgrade should lead to more consistent and high-quality connectivity in both dense, urban areas and across long distances.

So what does 5G mean for the average Canadian in these cities? According to the experts, 5G will transform how businesses and industries communicate, with massively increased speed and capacity, much more efficient use of the spectrum, an improved battery life and overall lower latency. It will also support a large increase in the number of connected devices, ensuring that you don’t lose connection due to overload in major urban areas.

While Canada still has a long way to go in terms of making 5G viable for all consumers, this rollout is a good start. Bell has also stated that it is ready to launch “early 5G service” this year as eligible hardware becomes available.

For more information on what 5G can do you for, check out “What does 5G mean for you and your business?”