Everyone either owns one, has played with one or wants one, the Apple iPhone is the biggest consumer product on the shelves today. The blend of technology and art that delivers one of the most perfect portable computers ever released. Both Apple and ATT have benefited from its strong sales and passionate adoption but there is another side to this story.

Like all strong consumer products there will be copies and look a-likes but as most of us in the iPod generation know, any MP3 player is not an iPod. The iPhone copies will have the same fate. The market anticipates competition and this is why Apple partnered with ATT to distribute the phone in its retail stores and this is why they gave ATT the exclusive USA network rights to the phone.

Apple creates the phone, ATT provides the service with a minimum of a two year commitment at about $45 per month. With ATT as the exclusive network provider Apple is able to take a piece of the monthly service as part of the deal. For every phone sold, ATT bills about $1200 for the service and Apple sells a phone for about $500. Seems like a both win deal. The market place has passionate consumers, and passionate consumers like to consume. But if it were that simple I would not be writing about it!

iPhone Unlocking

There is an underground movement that has gained critical velocity in the last few weeks, this is the drive to “unlock” the iPhone from its service provider and allow it to be used on ANY network. Yep, you heard me. Hack the phone to run on any providers GSM based network, this means that Sprint, Vodaphone, T-Mobile and prepaid users on other networks can all have the sexy iPhone without the two year contract with ATT. They can use their existing cell phone service with a brand new phone.

If you want to understand a little more about iPhone unlocking you can check these movies:

Or this one from one of the largest and most popular technology blog sites out there

Why should I care?

What difference does it make to me if ATT looses their exclusivity on the phone and the iPhone can work anywhere? Honestly there is no reason for you to care. I don’t really care about this little hack but the reason that you should care is because of how vendor relationships can fail.

Follow me on this, who stands to benefit from this? Apple or ATT. Initially this partnership was balanced, it was a good marriage with both sides supplying an exclusive piece. A real both win deal. Now Apple stands to make the greatest gains from this little software hack. Sure they will fix it with a code update, but the cat and mouse game has begun and the vendor / supplier relationship is forever tarnished. In the future another Telecom provider will be less eager to enter into an exclusivity deal with a vendor for a hot product. But remember Apple still wins by selling more phones.

Still, how does this apply to ME?

Most of you on this list are business owners or in upper management. Consider this: What perceived exclusivity do you have in your vendor relationships?

What rules are currently being respected that if broken could really damage your relationship with your customers or even your entire business process. Let me explain by example.

Crossing the line

This is where this all started from, I have a client that is in the “drop shipping and fulfillment” of Internet orders business. The specifics are not important but needless to say he has invested hundreds of thousands in his company and he makes a handsome living. His website displays products, his customers purchase the products and he blind drop ships from his vendor to the direct end user. Business was great until he received a catalog in the mail and email to his inbox from a new widget selling company that was selling the same products directly to consumers.

Farming the customer database

He discovered that the distributor was going retail. They had decided to deal directly with the end user and they had a database of thousands of customers that they were reaching out to, customers that they had shipped to on behalf of their clients. This
situation is still working itself out, but you can see just how quickly a partnership can turn sour.

In hindsight he could have saved himself the nightmare of having his customer database stolen if he had used a fulfillment house to mail the packages to his customers (Yes, he could have also used an honest distributor).

Look at your relationships

Are there vendor relationships that you have right now that could jeopardize your business if they fail? Now what can you do if anything to mitigate these risks? Where can you change the balance of your relationships? Sometimes just exposing a blind spot is enough to change the balance. Don’t find yourself in a one sided relationship with your suppliers or customers, when there is a shift in control, its time to look at your options.

Last week I wrote about a scam that could sucker you out of 50 bucks but this week I am going to talk about the greatest possible scam out there, Identity Theft. 457-55-5462 You may recognize this number as the Social security number of the Lifelock CEO Todd Davis. They are the innovative identity theft protection site that is ROCKING THE INDUSTRY. Their shtick is that they are so confident in their service that they are willing to publish the CEO’s SSN.

What’s the process? This is how it works, Lifelock ask the credit bureaus to set fraud alerts on your behalf. This is done through their automated systems and the alerts are set within an hour. These fraud alerts last for about 90 days, and then they proactively go in and update the system at about the 80th day and reset the process again.

I have been using the Equifax protection service for years and once I knew that there was an alternative out here that is not just a reporting engine but is actually proactive about my identity protection I just had to give it a try. Let me give you an example, if someone is down at Sears and is applying for credit with your social security number, one will block prior to approval and the other would notify you that a new account has been established.

FAST FACTS:

• Identity Theft is the fastest growing crime in America
• More than 27 million identities have been stolen
• More than 15 million identities will be stolen this year
• You are 25 times more likely to have your identity stolen than to have your car broken into.
• You are 40 times more like to have your identity stolen than your home broken into.
• It takes consumers an average of 177 hours and two years to restore their identities after it has been stolen.

One of my favorite features of the services is the removal from pre-approved credit card and junk mail lists and they keep updating these requests as they expire. Discarded mail or stolen mail is one of the most common ways that thieves hijack identities.

The Guarantee
If your Identity is misused while you are our client, we’ll spend up to $1,000,000 to make it right. I have been a client for a while, and I have yet to receive that dredged phone call that someone is trying to open up an account with my name, but I have done my due diligence and I feel comfortable that I am really protected.
If you don’t think this is a problem, take a look at these news articles just from August.

Texas Billionaire Identity Theft target
FTC Page on Identity Theft

Man gets 6 years for Identity Theft

Consider signing your parents up for this service even if you don’t need it. This article written today states that 20% of Identity Theft happens to Senior citizens.

I have been connected to the Internet for a very long time and I am always the super skeptic about any online offer and I always have my guard up for Internet scams but this one nearly got me. I was perhaps 10 seconds away from clicking submit before I chose to do some checking. It would have cost me about fifty dollars in actual damages but it a lesson that needs to be shared.

Here is the content of the email:

It is time to renew your domain name www.topsiterank.com

Your domain name www.topsiterank.com will expire within 90 days.

You may renew your domain automatically with Domain Renewal. Click on the link in this e-mail to renew the domain for another year. You should renew your domain as soon as possible in order for it to continue to be registered in your name.

Click here if you wish to renew your domain

http://www.domainrenewalonline.com/for.php?d=topsiterank.com

As soon as we have received your payment, you will receive a confirmation that your domain has been renewed.

It was a clean, simple email with an easy to follow link. The landing page looked great, it had the domain name and the renewal cost right up front I can see how people fall for this.

What is the implication?

Honestly this scam just costs you money and there is a slim possibility that they steal your credit card information and use it to buy a 60 inch plasma. If they do what they promise, this is pretty much a victimless crime. You just overpay for a service. They don’t modify your information with your registrar; they just pay your bill.

Say what?

For those of you who have not had to deal with paying for your .com name or renewing it once it has expired. You typically get a notification from your Registrar or your ISP to tell you that your domain is about to expire. You go online in the same way that I did and you pay for it…Pretty easy. The problem is that you don’t need the account number or verification to pay for a domain. So if you use this service, they charge you the $79.00 and pay out the $12-20 to renew your domain. They take a healthy markup for sending spam. No harm no foul, you get your registration paid and they act like the middleman handling the transaction.

So what was made me stop?

In this case it was experience, everything looked right but something did not feel right. I did not remember seeing this screen in years past and it was a little “too” easy. So I went online to the “whois” database to check who I registered the domain with.
You can see the results here.

http://www.who.is/whois-com/ip-address/topsiterank.com/.

You can see by the response that I registered with Enom, Inc and that their URL is http://www.enom.com and not
http://www.domainrenewalonline.com.

Keeping up to date

To check your own domain information go to http://www.who.is/. Make sure that your information is up to date and accurate. Is the fax number right? Is it pointing to your new physical address and is the name of the person on the record still working for your company? Get this information up to date ASAP, if you need some free help taking care of this let me know, I would be glad to help. Rather be safe than sorry. I had a client that her IT person switched the domain registration out from under her and then just started his own separate business selling the same product using her good name. We were able to get the domain back in a few short days but not without the expense of having to get notarized letters and certified documents of Incorporate.

Wild Wild West

The Internet really is the wild west and there are robbers ready to take advantage of you at every corner. The lesson is that if you are in doubt or have been sent an unsolicited notification from a vendor that you don’t recognize – even if the service seems valid. Ask someone who can help you before you spend the money or even lose your domain name. Next week I am going to write about protecting yourself from identity theft.