Black buying power set to increase (Image: Thinkstock)

• Black Buying Power Expected to Reach $1.1 Trillion By 2015

A study spearheaded by Nielsen and the National Newspaper Publishers Association found that African Americans’ buying power is expected to reach $1.1 trillion in 3 years. The State of the African-American Consumer report broke the numbers down into several key categories, from mobile phone usage to trips to the grocery store.

Read more at Bed-Stuy Patch…

• Amazon’s Kindle Fire Less Than Half the Price of the Apple iPad

Seeking to stake a claim in the tablet computer market alongside Apple and Samsung, Amazon.com on Wednesday revealed plans to begin selling a color touch-screen tablet.

Named the Kindle Fire, the device has a 7-inch touch screen, weighs 14.6 ounces and is outfitted with a dual-core processor. But the most important feature may be the price. At $199 the Fire is less than half the price of the Apple iPad, which starts at $499. It is the first tablet from a major company to seriously undercut the iPad in price.

Read more at the New York Times…

• Authorities Capture BLA Fugitive George Wright

He had been on the run for four decades. He escaped from prison when Richard Nixon was in the White House, joined the Black Liberation Army in Detroit, hijacked a plane and (in)famously demanded that FBI agents deliver ransom money in bathing suits. And they did.

Now, after a manhunt spanning three continents that often appeared to run cold, the FBI has finally found George Wright.

Read more at CNN…

• Gospel Singer Jessy Dixon Dies at 73

Jessy Dixon, a gospel singer and songwriter whose career spanned more than fifty years, died Monday. He was 73.

Dixon wrote songs for several popular singers including Randy Crawford, Cher, Diana Ross, Natalie Cole and Amy Grant, opened for Paul Simon, and played keyboard with Earth Wind and Fire. But he was best known for his own gospel singing.

Read more at The Root…

• Rush Limbaugh Says Herman Cain More Black Than Obama

Fresh off his surprise victory in the Florida Republican Party’s “Presidency 5″ straw poll, Herman Cain took a media victory lap Monday.

But one Cain cheerleader offered his support in controversial form.

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show Monday that if the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO were to win the Republican nomination, and then go on to be elected president, “Herman Cain could be our first authentically black president.”

Read more at The Grio…

Obama proclaimed today Equal Pay Day and urged the end of wage discrimination. (Photo source: White House)

“In tough times people are likely to be looking for attractive solutions to their problems, whether it is money-making schemes or bogus claims to save them from foreclosure,” says Frank Dorman, a spokesman for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Here are some scams that experts have seen become more prevalent during the credit crisis:

Promise of debt relief: Consumers hampered by consumer debt may be particularly vulnerable to claims that a company can remove a bankruptcy, cut debt in half or erase negative information from a credit report. The only way you can improve your credit score is by exhibiting sound financial habits over time, such as eliminating debt and paying bills on time. If a company asks for money to improve your financial picture or tells you to stop paying your bills, walk away, the FTC warns. If you need professional help with your debt, contact a company approved by either the National Foundation for Credit Counseling or the Association of Independent Consumer Credit Counseling Agencies.

Employment: With the unemployment rate at 6.7% and expected to grow, scam artists are targeting those who are unemployed with promises of work-at-home schemes and various business opportunities. However, with most of these fraudulent opportunities, you’ll be asked to cough up some money to get started. They also may make ridiculous claims, such as offering you the opportunity to make hundreds of thousands of dollars working only 15 hours per week. Some of these offers may come over the Internet, but some may crop up as you’re going about a legitimate job search.

“You can find ads for scams at places like Monster.com where scam artists offer someone a job and rope them in,” says Paul Bresson, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Before agreeing to a business opportunity, check with the Better Business Bureau, your state attorney general, or a local consumer protection agency to see if there have been any complaints against the company, the FTC advises.  Also, ask for references from others who have benefited from the opportunity.

Foreclosure rescue and loan modification: The mortgage crisis has many Americans struggling to save their homes from foreclosure, giving scam artists plenty of potential victims to target. Some scam artists promise to save a home from foreclosure if the owner signs over his title to the con artist. Others contact homeowners with offers to refinance or modify their loans, only to trick the homeowner into signing paperwork that transfers ownership to the scam artist.

Yet another scam involves contacting a homeowner and offering to negotiate with the homeowner’s lender for a fee. While there are legitimate loan modification companies that can help you negotiate with your lender, be sure to utilize the services of counseling agencies approved by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). These agencies, a list of which can be found on HUD’s Website, will often help you negotiate for free. To lessen your chances of being scammed, don’t accept offers to help you save your home from financial experts who contact you out of the blue. Contact your lender or a housing counseling agency to discuss your options.

Phishing: Scams in which e-mails are purportedly sent from a bank asking you to click on a link and provide personal information such as a Social Security number are nothing new. But in today’s worrisome economic climate, with bank failures and mergers in the news, an e-mail that claims your bank has been taken over could sound more believable to some.

Phishing scams can also take place via phone. Some scam artists have even managed to spoof phone numbers, meaning a company’s legitimate phone number could appear on your caller ID system when it’s really a scam artist on the line, Bresson says. If a company contacts you for personal information, don’t provide it. Instead, delete the e-mail, look up the phone number in the phone book, and call the company yourself. Explain that you were contacted about providing information and ask if the solicitation was legitimate.

Promise of financial rewards: Even the most skeptical person may be vulnerable to an e-mail message promising easy money or a financial prize if he or she is in financial distress. For that reason, scams in which victims are asked to wire money for a fee or send a bank account number in order to claim a lottery prize may be particularly harmful today. The bottom line: Be wary of any quick fix solution or promise of easy monetary rewards. “If it looks too good to be true it probably is,” says Bresson.

More Web Resources:

If you think you’ve been scammed, you can contact the following organizations:

Fraud.org

Internet Crime Complaint Center

Consumer Fraud Reporting

Federal Trade Commission

A second senior law enforcement official confirmed that the FBI was looking for any evidence of a national scam, according to the Associated Press.

ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, admits that some workers turned in duplicate applications or provided fake information to pad their pay, but that the “vast majority” of its workers are conscientious. Workers caught submitting false information have been fired, ACORN officials say.

In the final presidential debate Wednesday, Sen. John McCain said that ACORN was on the verge of conducting “one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country.” Fox News echoes the same charges.

“We think that at the debate on Wednesday when Sen. Barack Obama was asked about it he continued to create a fog around the issue; not taking the opportunity to spell out his historic relationship with the ACORN organization,” says Rick Davis, McCain-Palin campaign manager.

McCain also sought to tie Sen. Barack Obama to ACORN, saying he gave $832,000 to an ACORN “front outfit organization.”

“We think that at the debate on Wednesday when Obama was asked about it he continued to create a fog around the issue; not taking the opportunity to spell out his historic relationship with the ACORN organization,” says Rick Davis, McCain-Palin campaign manager.

So far, this year ACORN has registered 1.3 million voters. Michael Slater, executive director of project vote, which funds ACORN and represents it in legal matters said that one percent of ACORN’s nationwide registration applications—some  13,000 forms—could contain fictitious names or addresses and as many as 25% may be duplicates, according to the Miami Herald.

“We appreciate Senator McCain’s effort to stir up the Republican base by attacking a community organization working to increase public participation in our democratic process,” says ACORN president Maude Hurd.  “However, these attacks reflect an increasingly panicked candidate.”