The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide

Watch out for phony offers for work-at-home jobs targeting college students

Students at colleges and universities are being targeted by a work-at-home employment scam through emails that appear to be sent from a college or university. The scammers obtain personal information from the student while posing as a college or university representative. They convince students to cash counterfeit checks and send them the money.

“Students who fall victim to this scam could face serious repercussions to their financial stability and credit record,” said Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody. “I am urging all students currently enrolled at Florida colleges and universities to take extra precaution when receiving online job offers.”

The scheme involves scammers sending online job advertisements offering college students an administrative position, tricking the student into believing the email is from a college or university representative by using an email address ending in “.edu.” As part of the scheme, the student receives counterfeit checks in the mail, or by email, and is instructed to deposit the checks into a personal checking account. The scammers then direct the student to withdraw the money and make a payment necessary for the job. Often, after the student sends the money, the checks are confirmed to be fraudulent by the bank.

Baby boomers figuring out how to cope during these difficult times

It’s so upsetting that coronavirus cases are spiking in about 20 states in the USA. I’ve been staying home since early March, and am prepared to stay home more because I’m in the high-risk group.

But many people, including President Trump, aren’t wearing face masks. Trump even organized a huge rally Saturday in Tulsa, Oklahoma. What is he thinking? Eight of his staff members who worked on the event tested positive for coronavirus. Two of them attended the event. We’ll just have to wait and see how many Trump supporters will get covid-19 and how many will be superspreaders.

I am going to go out this weekend to my nieces memorial service, which is in Bellingham, Washington, a couple of hours from my home. Before I go, I’ll need to cut my hair. I was going to hire an online stylist, but my daughter said since my hairdo is so simple, I might be able to do it myself. I checked out a couple of YouTube videos, so it looks doable. I’ll report later on how it goes.

Make sure a scammer isn't getting employment benefits in your name

In Washington state where I live, scammers have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars in employment benefits. The state, in a hurry to get payments to people needing funds during the pandemic, didn't have adequate safeguards in place to stop crooks. Now, the process has been slowed down to do more checking.

How are scammers doing this? They're filing claims for unemployment benefits, using the names and personal information of people who haven't filed claims. People learn about the fraud when they get a notice from their state unemployment benefits office or their employer about their supposed application for benefits.

If this happens to you, it means someone is misusing your personal information, including your Social Security number and birth date, said Seena Gressin, attorney for the Federal Trade Commission's Division of Consumer and Business Education. Gressin said to act fast using these steps to help protect your finances and credit:

Baby boomers thinking about venturing out, but should they?

Photo: Lawrence Purce

It’s so upsetting to see millions of people out protesting in the streets of America in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. Should people be protesting the murder of George Floyd by a police officer? Yes, it’s needed. Should they be protesting in the middle of the pandemic? No.

In Washington state as of June 12, 2020, the 14-day average of covid-19 deaths was seven.

Seven people a day are dying, yet the state is opening up. The public policy is that it’s O.K. for seven people to die a day of covid-19.

In the United States on Sunday, 317 people died.

In this state, people age 65 and older are considered to be in the high-risk category, as are people with underlying health conditions. About half of baby boomers are in this age category. However, baby boomers are going out to dinner, getting their hair cut, and planning vacations.

Don’t be one of those who die. Stay home if you’re in the high-risk group. Health officials are predicting a second wave of covid-19.

Department of Education’s latest idea for student loan relief is deeply flawed, consumer groups say

A Trump administration rule that denies loan relief to many students cheated by their schools is deeply flawed and should be overturned, Public Citizen and the Project on Predatory Student Lending told a court Tuesday. The groups represent student borrowers in a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Department of Education’s new “partial relief” rule.

The rule details how the department will decide whether and how much relief to give borrowers who have demonstrated that they were cheated by the schools they attended. Under the rule, most borrowers whose claims are approved receive only partial or no relief on their student-loan debt.

The lead plaintiff, Sammia Pratt, attended a Corinthian-owned Everest school in Florida for accounting, based on the false promise that she’d be able to transfer credits to the University of Central Florida.

Baby boomers try to keep going in these trying times

Photo: Fibonacci Blue

We’re living the life of the coronavirus pandemic. We’re staying home and picking up groceries or having them delivered. Then, George Floyd is murdered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, when a police officer pressed his knee on his neck for 9 minutes.

Despite stay-at-home orders, thousands of people burst out of their homes to protest in cities throughout the nation, some not wearing face masks. Then, the riots and looting begin.

It’s upsetting in so many ways. Another black person killed by police, needlessly. Local officials slow to take the right action. Black and brown people continuing to face police brutality and lack of job opportunities, housing, health care, and more.

I hope, at last, elected officials, working with citizens, can bring about reforms in policing and to correct the disparities that have been ravaging black communities for decades. Every citizen needs to figure out what he or she can do to move public policy on these issues forward. See this listing of anti-racism groups you can join and anti-racism resources.

For this week’s Best of Boomer Blogs, boomer bloggers are writing about:

Baby boomers share stories of staying at home during these coronavirus pandemic times

Mother’s Day was different this year. Instead of celebrating with my daughter and her family in Spain like I often do, I was at home in the Seattle area following Washington state’s Stay Home, Stay Healthy order.

I enjoyed a video call with my daughters and pizza and chocolate cake. I got the idea for the pizza and cake from my birthday request made earlier in May. It was so good, I repeated it for Mother’s Day.

While staying home gets tiring at times, it’s giving me a lot of time to work on my book “Follow the Money: My Life as a Financial Journalist.”

Meanwhile, boomer bloggers are writing about how they’re doing during the pandemic:

Mother’s Day facts and figures for 2020: Best and worst states for working moms

Source: WalletHub

Women make up nearly half of the U.S. workforce, and nearly 70 percent of moms with children under age 18 were working in 2019. In 2020, those numbers are decreasing, as data show that during the coronavirus pandemic, unemployment is rising faster for women than for men.

Working moms face an uphill battle in the workplace, as their average hourly wage is only 85 percent of what men make, and only 6 percent of S&P 500 companies’ chief executives are female.

Progress appears to be taking place at different rates across the nation. Parental leave policies and other legal support systems vary by state, and the quality of infrastructure — from cost-effective day care to public schools — differs.

To find the best and worst states for working moms, WalletHub, a personal finance website, compared states on 17 key metrics. Among the items compared were child care, professional opportunities, and work-life balance.

Some of the findings are:

Education Department and Betsy DeVos are being sued by student borrower groups for seizing student borrowers’ paychecks during covid-19 pandemic

In a class action lawsuit filed against the U.S. Department of Education and Secretary Betsy DeVos, student borrower groups are asking the department to stop garnishing student borrowers’ wages.

Illegal garnishments

The CARES Act prohibits the department from garnishing wages of student borrowers through September 30, 2020. The lawsuit was filed last week on behalf of distressed borrowers whose paychecks continue to be seized in violation of federal law.

“With the President at her side, Secretary DeVos promised in March that she had stopped federal wage garnishments altogether, which is what the CARES Act requires,” said Alex Elson, senior counsel at Student Defense. “The truth is, she keeps on taking wages from the paychecks of Americans struggling to make ends meet. We sued to make her stop.”

Don’t give businesses immunity from liability for exposing workers or consumers to covid-19, consumer groups say

No business should be given immunity from potential liability for exposing workers or customers to covid-19, Public Citizen and 117 other groups said Wednesday in a letter to leaders in Congress.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, has called for businesses to be immune from liability if their workers and customers get sick because a business failed to take reasonable steps to protect people. Such a proposal, if enacted, would undermine consumer and worker protections, reward negligent conduct, and show unwarranted disrespect for state law, the groups said.

“[W]e strongly oppose any legislation that would establish nationwide immunity for businesses that operate in an unreasonably unsafe manner, causing returning workers and consumers to risk COVID-19 infection,” the groups wrote. “Removing legal accountability for businesses not only would jeopardize the health and safety of workers, it would also jeopardize everyone who enters those workplaces. This would be extremely damaging to the nation’s economic recovery.”