Business

As a result of the economic conditions, many individuals and families find themselves in need of credit counseling or credit repair help. However, before soliciting the help of any credit repair company, it is wise to check and make sure the company is legitimate. Below are a few things to look for when searching for credit counseling.

Review the Credit Counseling Company Fee Structure

Legitimate credit repair companies do not charge very much for their services. Many of them offer services for free while others charge a nominal monthly fee. If a credit repair company requires a hefty downpayment in order to review and repair credit, more than likely the company is not legitimate.

Detect Unfounded Credit Repair Claims

Unscrupulous credit repair companies make claims that they can completely repair credit, remove bankruptcies, increased the credit score without damage. The credit repair process naturally takes time. The better the payments over time the better the credit score. However, individuals who are desperate to repair credit sometimes allow their desperation to guide them to buy into such programs only to later regret the investment. If a company makes hard-to-believe claims, there is a good chance that the company is not a legitimate company

Contact Regulatory Agencies

There are several agencies to visit to check the legitimacy of a credit repair company. The National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC) is an accredited organization with member associates throughout the United States. NFCC members must be re-accredited every four years. In addition to credit card repair services they offer debt counseling services and more. Visit their website to locate member organizations

Check the Credit Counseling Company’s License

It’s important to confirm that the credit repair company has a valid license. To do this, visit the appropriate state’s Attorney General Office. The Office of the Attorney General keeps track of business licensing. If the licensing information is not accessible over the web, call the office; explain the situation and request additional information on local credit repair companies.

After checking the validity of the license, contact the local Better Business Bureau to see the complaint history. Having a complaint does not mean the company is not legitimate. Sometimes unfounded complaints are filed. However, do your homework to see how many complaints have been filed in the past year or so and see how they were resolved. If the credit counseling company appears to have several complaints all alleging the same thing, it’s time to look for another company.

Report Scam Credit Repair Companies

If after performing a due diligence on a credit counseling company only to find that the company is not legitimate and they are perpetrating a scam, contact the Federal Trade Commission and file a report. The FTC takes such reports seriously as they are doing all they can to crack down on unscrupulous companies that take advantage of people seeking financial help.…

To find the scrap gold price per pennyweight of gold jewelry or dental gold scrap one intends to sell to a pawn shop, jeweller, or other scrap gold buyer, and to determine the value of the scrap gold based on gold’s current spot price, follow these easy steps. The calculation method described here is for one piece or lot of scrap gold of the same karat measurement. Note that the abbreviation dwt stands for pennyweight in the instructions below.

Find Today’s Gold Price

Check the metal markets online or in the newspaper to find the current price of gold, which is measured in troy ounces. Depending on when you check, the gold price may be just a few hundred dollars or may be over $1,000 U.S.

Convert the Gold Price to DWT (Pennyweight) Units

A single troy ounce is equal to 20 dwt of gold. If today’s gold price is $1,000, then a pennyweight of gold equals 1/20 of $1,000, which is $50.

$50 is the scrap gold price per pennyweight – if the scrap were pure 24k gold bullion, that is. Scrap gold needs additional calculations, because it is not 100 percent pure gold, but made up of base metals, too.

Find How Much the Scrap Gold Weighs in Pennyweight

Sort the scrap gold jewelry and other gold into karat units. Pennyweight scales measure in dwt units. If a pennyweight scale is available, weigh all 10k gold together, 12k gold together, 14k gold together, and 18k gold together to find the pennyweight in dwt units. Or if there is the less common 9K gold or 22k gold scrap or other units, place those together, too. If a gram scale is all there is, weigh the scrap gold in grams and then convert grams to pennyweight – 1 gram equals .643 dwt.

As an example, say the scrap gold is 14k, and weighs exactly 1 pennyweight.

Factor in the Karat Purity to Get the Value of the Pennyweight of Gold

To get the purity of the scrap gold, divide the karat number by 24. With the example of 14k gold, divide 14 by 24 to get .583. This number is the percentage of the gold alloy that is pure gold. (As another example, if the gold were 9k, then one would calculate the gold purity as 9 divided by 24, or .375.)

Multiply the 1 pennyweight gold (14k) by .583. The answer is easy in this example – .583. The pretend sample of scrap gold is 58.3 percent pure gold.

Multiply .583 times the scrap gold price per pennyweight in the example, which is $50. The answer is $29.15.

Thus, $29.15 U.S. would be the actual scrap gold price for one pennyweight of 14k gold when the price of gold is $1,000 US per troy ounce (or $50 per pennyweight).

For people in Canada, the UK, Australia, and other countries, convert the dollars to the respective country’s currency.

Scrap Gold Price Per Pennyweight Reveals the Spot Price of Scrap Gold on the Open Market

Troy ounces, grams, and pennyweight are common measurement units for weighing gold. “Dwt price” refers to the price of gold when weighed in pennyweight units. The scrap gold price per pennyweight is based on the current price of gold, the percentage of gold in the alloy, and the weight of the gold.…

Eriksson to Manage at Manchester City in Takeover by Former Thai PM

After many months of negotiation look set to be the next English Premier League club to be taken over with foreign investment. Different bids had been proposed but with the group fronted by former Manchester City player, Ray Ransome, dropping out of the bidding, the way now looks clear for the bid by former Thai Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra. He has lodged a formal bid for City and it is expected that an announcement confirming the Thai takeover could be made within the next few days.

Shinawatra was involved in detailed negotiations for Liverpool Football Club just over a year ago but these failed to materialize with doubts about the source of his financial wealth. Similar doubts are again being expressed with the Thai authorities intending to investigate the source of the funds being used for this takeover bid. He has had £830 million of his assets frozen in Thailand as the authorities investigate possible corruption charges. The former Thai Prime Minister claims that this investment is using funds he had set aside for his family.

New Manager Required:

While negotiating to takeover the club further preparations for the new season have been taking place. With Manchester City sacking their manager, Stuart Pearce, at the end of the season, an immediate appointment will be the first priority of any new regime. With that in mind a number of high profile managers have come under consideration.

Initially, it was thought that the early departure of Sam Allardyce from Bolton Wanderers before the end of the season was indicative of his desire to take charge at the City of Manchester Stadium. However, he has now been installed at Newcastle United and City are thought to have considered Juande Ramos, the manager of Sevilla’s UEFA Cup winning team, Co Adriaanse the coach of AZ Alkmaar and Mark Hughes, the manager of Blackburn Rovers.

The former England coach, Sven Goran Eriksson, now appears to be the favourite to take up the position, once the takeover negotiations have been completed. Eriksson who relinquished the England post at the end of last summer’s World Cup in Germany when England lost on penalties to Portugal, has been receiving payment from the Football Association for the past year as part of his compensation package.

Eriksson’s Club Record:

Sven Goran Eriksson took over as England Coach in January 2001, having managed Lazio to the Italian League and Cup double in 2000. While he failed to achieve success with England in the finals of the World Cup or European Championships, Eriksson had a very successful coaching career in club football prior to his appointment with the national side.

He had League and Cup success in Sweden with IFK Gothenburg in his first appointment and also took them to UEFA Cup victory in 1982. He then went to Portugal with Benfica who also achieved League and Cup success during his two season in charge.

He then had his first experience in Italian football with AS Roma who won the Italian Cup during his three years there. Two seasons at AC Fiorentina brought no silverware but a return to Benfica was rewarded with a further League Championship. Returning to Italy he won the Italian Cup with Sampdoria and then had a very successful period at Lazio including domestic and European success.

The views of English fans on Eriksson are rather dulled by his time as England coach but Manchester City are getting a coach who has achieved considerable success in club football, winning fourteen trophies in three different countries, and …

As your business grows in size and success, you’ll inevitably realise that your old website simply doesn’t cut it anymore. But this should come as no surprise, as a website should be considered an ever evolving tool that you use to promote your business online, as well as conduct business online. But how, exactly, should your website change as your business increases in size? Continue reading to learn more so your website always does the best job at increasing conversions and profits.

You May Need Better Hosting

One of the first ways that you’ll need to upgrade your website is by upgrading your web hosting plan. This is especially true if you purchase a plan that gave you only a small amount of storage and bandwidth initially. Now that your business has grown, you’ll likely need to add more content to your website, and that will require additional bandwidth and storage to ensure it will always run smoothly. Thankfully, getting more storage and bandwidth doesn’t have to break the bank, as there are plenty of cheap hosting options available that provide great quality at an affordable price. And it is also a good idea to choose a host that offers multiple packages, so you can stick with the same provider while upgrading your package whenever necessary to suit your needs.

Reinvent Your Branding

As your business grows, you’ll also want to reinvent your branding, and when you do, you’ll need to revamp your website in order to reflect that new branding. Always make it a point to keep your branding consistent and professional throughout every page on your website. The idea is to make your website, as well as your online presence overall, a reflection of your company, and branding will help you achieve that if you do it right.

Add a Blog If You Don’t Have One

If you don’t already have a blog associated with your site, you should consider adding one once your business grows and has proven itself. After all, you want to let customers know that you’re an expert in your field and you have a lot of experience that differentiates your company from so many others out there. One of the best ways to do that is by setting up a blog through a platform like WordPress and then posting evergreen content on a consistent basis with SEO in mind. If you need help, you can hire professional freelance writers to get the job done.

Build Your Email List

Finally, make sure you have an area of your website where customers can sign up for your email list. And to make sure you’re able to easily design and send out your emails to your list, you should invest in the right email service provider that will help you grow your customer base while making it simple for people to sign up.

As your business grows, you’ll want to let everyone know about how far you’ve come, and one of the best and easiest ways to do that is by scaling your website to reflect your success.…

Personal injuries can happen to your employees in all sorts
of ways. Accidents can either result
from a catastrophic incident, like a
workplace accident, or can be the result of repeated harmful actions, like
a worker stooping over to pick something up without bending your knees.

In the latter case, there is often one distinct time that
the employee remembers bending over, like to pick up a pen that fell off her
desk, that she may think caused this injury.
But the real cause was her repeated improper movements that damaged
joints and vertebrae over the years.

Here are some tips to remember for not only avoiding
personal injuries in your business, but also for dealing with the consequences
of them once they have occurred.

1.  Watch your Weight

There are many bad consequences associated with you or your
employees being
overweight. There is the added
strain on the heart that can result in circulation problems, high blood
pressure and stroke. Body chemistry
imbalances that can lead to diabetes.
Gall bladder diseases and gallstones, which often go together with rapid
weight gain. But another harmful effect
of obesity that isn’t as high on the list as others is the danger from
Osteoarthritis.

Being overweight puts additional stress on your joints,
because they are bending and stretching under unnatural strain. This condition, called Osteoarthritis, will
cause the protective cartilage on the ends of your bones, which cushion and
lubricate their movement, to wear down over time.

But the effects of Osteoarthritis can be reversed if an
employee loses the access weight that is the prime cause of it – if that weight
loss occurs before too much cartilage is destroyed. The process can actually reverse itself and
the body will replace cartilage if there is still enough to promote the
re-growth of this important tissue.

2.  Look Where You’re Going

It may seem like a simple suggestion but because of, mostly,
our smartphones, you and your employees don’t pay much attention to where you’re
all going these days. Multi-tasking
while walking down the street is so commonplace that you don’t even much
notice that you’re doing it. Then a
simple little trip over a sidewalk crack can lead to terrible circumstances for
an employee and your business.

But if the employee doesn’t feel immediate ill effects from
the trip, he or she will probably carry on with nary a thought about what just
happened.

The next morning this worker wakes up with a swollen and
painful knee. But it still bends pretty
well, so he or she bears the pain and comes into work anyway. After all, the little trip suffered yesterday
certainly isn’t worth make a big deal out of, is it?

But a personal injury doesn’t have to be catastrophic to
merit arbitration under the law. Steven
Schwartzapfel, a lawyer experienced in personal injury cases at fightingforyou.com
explains, “Your injury doesn’t have to be catastrophic in order to cause
you real hardship. Even moderate injuries can disrupt your life and carry
considerable costs.”

That employee should have made an appointment with an
orthopedist and got that painful knee checked as soon as possible. If there’s damage it needs to fixed – before
the condition gets worse, and more expensive for the company’s insurance.

3.  Be Careful with Social Media

If you’ve been injured in some way and are filing a personal
injury claim, you’ve got to be careful about what you post on social
media. It doesn’t matter if it’s
Instagram, Twitter or Facebook – be aware that anything that you post becomes
permanently available.

And it doesn’t matter if you delete …