www.donateforacause.org - Transform an unwanted timeshare into a charitable contribution.

This time of year you should be outside enjoying yourself, so it is surprising to have a deal pop up on game machines. The Nintendo Wii -- a system that the experts didn’t think much of, and thought would just be yesterday’s technology -- has taken the market by storm. It has a unique design based on research into what would be fun to play. The Wii is way beyond a cult item; kids, adults, men, women and anyone who’s ever played with the system has been pretty much excited by it. The reason is that you engage in physical effort to play the game! If you play a bowling game with the Wii, you’re throwing your arm (and the game controller) as if you’re in a bowling alley. If you play tennis, you’re swinging the handheld console as if it’s a racket. So it actually gets you off your rear end and playing, which should make people happy about sedentary kids and adults. You actually have to get up and break a sweat to win the game.

Because of the Wii’s success, the other game machines are really now on the ropes. The Microsoft Xbox and the Sony PS3 have historically been over-priced, burdened with problems and just are not selling. Sony had been asking $600 for one of its PS3s, but now the company has cut the price so there’s a model available for $399. The PS3 also doubles as a hi-definition DVD player, which uses Blu-ray technology. So there’s a possibility for a twofer here, where you can get the game console with hi-definition DVD capabilities. But there’s one caveat: Clark advises against collecting movies to view on your PS3 before some format issues are settled between Blu-ray and its HD DVD competitor. Instead, just rent them from Blockbuster and Netflix who both carry Blu-ray DVDs. So the opportunity is there for you that you could get a deal on a PS3, and you know Clark likes that!

Sprint manages to be at the front of the cell phone industry pack for the world’s worst customer service. Sprint has fired 1,000 customers because they asked for too much customer service! What kind of company fires customers because they want to talk to customer service too often for billing problems and technical problems? The real problem is that Sprint runs a lousy business—they are the only major cell phone company losing customers. If you call customer service too often for their taste, Sprint lets you out of your contract! So if you’re unhappy with Sprint and don’t want to pay the cancellation charge just call a lot for help and you’ll get dropped! This is your way to get rid of Sprint: by making them want to get rid of you.

One more trick of the trade: If the four major cell phone companies -- Verizon, AT&T (formerly Cingular), Sprint and T-Mobile – send you some legal mumbo-jumbo and try to change your contract, and you are unhappy with them, you can deny the new terms of service and get out of it without having to pay a penalty. On a related note, Clark says the new iPhone is absolutely neat. That’s mostly because Apple demanded to be in charge of the cell phone’s abilities. Apple went to the various carriers and demanded control over the phone. AT&T was the only one that took them up on the offer. However, Clark doesn’t like the iPhone contract AT&T insists that you sign.

Did you know that if a criminal gets your credit card number, they can show their "generosity" by donating money to charity using your credit card? Why are criminals doing this? This is happening because the charities will let the criminal know if the card is verified and still active. More importantly, it's a great way for criminals to test if the card will be reported stolen, according to a story Clark read in Newsday. Criminals can then sell your verified card number for three times the value of an unverified card! If someone steals an unverified number, it's worth $6; if it is verified, it sells for $18. The Red Cross has reported 700 fraudulent donations using stolen cards last month alone! Therefore, if you see a small unauthorized charity donation on your bill, be alert. Clark says the solution to this problem is so easy. The credit card companies should do what is done in Europe by inserting a smart chip in the card which requires a secret code. So even if someone steals your card, if they don’t know your code the card can’t be used. The result in Europe is that credit card fraud is nowhere near the problem it is in the United States. So why are we still using '60s technology to print out credit cards here? It seems like the banks would rather deal with the fraud that occurs and then clean up the mess after the fact, rather than spend the money proactively to get things done right in the first place.

A new report from the American Bankers Association finds delinquencies are up for seven of the eight types of consumer loans tracked by the ABA. Consumers are feeling stretched at a time when the economy is considered to be healthy. There was also a recent stunner of a story in the New York Times that explained that foreclosures are up big time all around the country. Cities like New Orleans and Detroit have been hit hard because of Hurricane Katrina and the failure of the auto industry, respectively. But Clark’s hometown of Atlanta is also facing a crisis because of option payment loans where the loan balance actually rises over time. So instead of paying down your home debt, the balance keeps going up. It’s comparable to a homeowner paying like a renter. You don’t develop equity and you have to shell out big bucks for all the routine upkeep of a home.