Kimkins Controversy - Kimkins Scam

Making Money When You are Dead

You can’t take it with you. You can, however, keep raking it in long after you are dead and gone. Most of us have heard about the revenue that has been continuously generated by Elvis Presley’s estate. It has had its ups and downs, but some recent marketing strategies have kept him at the top of the list. I imagine that John Lennon appeals to a less consumeristic group of people and that the bulk of revenue is from sales of his creative output rather than snow globes and velvet paintings.

Here is a recently published list of the top earning dead celebrities from Forbes…

• Elvis Presley
• John Lennon
• Charles Schulz
• George Harrison
• Albert Einstein
• Andy Warhol
• Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel)

• Tupac Shakur
• Marilyn Monroe
• Steve McQueen
• James Brown
• Bob Marley
• James Dean

Santa Didn’t Bring You a Car?

You have stopped peeking around corners and peering up the chimney and you are now resigning yourself to checking out your options with regard to car loans. Carfinance.Netcars.co.uk has a list of many car finance providers. I do not know if they check it twice. They are the leading car loan broker in the United Kingdom and their site has great tools for assessing the various car credit options at your disposal. They do not specialize in bad credit loans, they have access to finance products for every situation.

You should consider their guaranteed car finance if you have had recent difficulties in obtaining financing. They have loans with interest rates ranging from 6.9% to 36.9% depending on your specific situation. I can’t remember the last time I paid less than 6.9% on any kind of financial product.

I paid cash for the car that I presently own. It does not have a “Don’t Laugh, It’s PAID FOR!” bumper sticker on it…there wasn’t enough money left over. Before that, I had some really awful lease terms on a new Hyundai. Carfinance.Netcars.co.uk has reviews of dealer financing on their site. Makers like Kia and Mazda have quite a competition going to see who can entice entry level buyers with the lowest payments. You have to know the details to decide who to go with.

DentalPlans.com

Anybody with any amount of knowledge of internet marketing and search engine optimization, would guess that DentalPlans.com is a well established provider of discount dental plans. They have, in fact, been a going concern since 1999. They provide individuals, families and groups with the best value in dental plans.

The DentalPlans.com landing page has an application where you simply type in your Zip code and press go. That triggers the site to come back to you with national and regional plans from 30 or more providers for you to compare. When you click on any plan in the list, you get a very detail description of the plan and the provider. This includes a chart showing the fees and discounts for a comprehensive list of dental procedures. Here is an example of a typical discount an Adult Teeth Cleaning costs about $75 members of a dental discount plan save $35 and end up paying $40. These are average amounts taken from broad surveys. They seem about right from my experience.

I have three teenagers with present and future orthodontic needs. I did not know that discount dental plans are completely different from traditional dental insurance. Compared to traditional dental insurance, discount dental plans are more affordable, more easy-to-use and more hassle free.

Outside the Box School Fundraising

Parents and teachers, are you looking for simple elementary school fundraisers? SchoolPop.com has a fresh approach to school fundraising. The site is set up so your supporters can go through to shop at many of their favorite online stores and have a portion of their spending go towards the school of their choosing. This is actually a very apt topic for a diet related site given the fact that the stereotypical school fundraiser used to be selling chocolate bars. Rather than buying empty calories to support the local school, you can pay for a day at a spa or a smaller set of clothes and have a portion of the money go to the school fundraiser. If you are planning a hotel stay anytime soon, you should check in to SchoolPop.com first, I noticed that the partners who were donating the biggest percentages were national hotel chains. Marriott gives 9% of your spending to the school of your choice.

Are you Ready for a Smaller Home ?

I really hope that the tragic economy in the US and elsewhere will put an end the the ridiculous McMansion trend that is such a horrible waste of resources. Maybe a return to modest size dwellings can also be accompanied by an end to the often reported epidemic of obesity. Small homes that use the latest technologies can mean lower energy bills in addition to a lower mortgage payment. They might actually improve family relationships as well. Do you have a spouse or a parent or a child living with you that you have yet to see or speak to today?

I am not certain about what the ideal space for a family is, but we used to live in 900 square feet and we were happy (most of the time).

Will Kimkins Endure?

I really do expect Kimkins.com to go away at some point, but I am not certain that it will. I know enough about the internet to know that the site metrics have a value in and of themselves. The lifetime subscription business model could come to an end and the site could remain in some form to generate advertising revenue.

Even though some advice that was dispensed by Kimkins.com runs counter to current medical standards for a safe and healthy diet, low carb eating is still a popular and viable option. I think one advantage that Heidi has is her keen understanding of her core demographic. It is actually almost scary how well she can speak to the conventions and insecurities of middle class house wives. Maybe she should become a political strategist. She would have to have a minder of some sort to look after the loose ends

The Magic Chicken Disappears

There is a GoDaddy Oops page where the Magic Chicken Diet is supposed to be. I do not know what this means. It could be a coincidence that the low carb community that was so critical and vocal about the Kimkins fraud took notice of this site right before it disappeared. It could be that the webmaster read the constructive criticism over at Slamboards and the site is down while they make positive changes. Going with a standard PayPal checkout would inspire more consumer confidence and give some measure of consumer protection. It could also be that the site owner was simply hoping for a low profile, short term money grab and that they are disappearing now that they are being criticized. If this is the case, it is one way in which they are NOT AT ALL like Kimkins.

Bad Credit Loans

Sites like BadCreditOffer.com offer consumers a way of comparing bad credit loans from multiple lenders. I am not in the market for a loan and I hope that I don’t have bad credit, but while I was looking around their site and I saw something that I should use. They offer a 30 day free trial service for checking your own credit report. If you are worried about identity theft, a review of your credit report is one of the first things that you should do. BadCreditOffer.com actually has links to trials from three competing services and one of them allows you to dispute inaccuracies on all 3 major reports.

Speaking of identity theft, please remember to be very cautious about how and where you use your credit card this holiday season. Don’t carelessly place credit card information in the garbage.

Jared Fogle Today

Jared Fogle weighed over 400 lbs when he was a high school student and was at one point warned that his extreme obesity put him at great risk. The warning about not living past 35 was a wake up call.

He profited from his successful weight loss in a unique and famous way. His actual plan was simple. It involved moderate intake of nutritious and satisfying food coupled with regular exercise. The unique part was that he ate food almost exclusively from a specific restaurant chain. His story was published locally and then republished as a part of a ‘Crazy Diets that Work’ article in a popular men’s magazine. At that point the local representatives of Subway took notice. An interesting part of this story is the reluctance by the chain’s lawyers to run with the campaign. They were concerned that there would be liability issues with promoting some sort of informal medical claim. When the nation people said no, the local advertising arm in Chicago went ahead with a TV ad in their region. It aired on the first day of 2000 and included this disclaimer:

“[The Subway diet], combined with a lot of walking, worked for Jared. We’re not saying this is for everyone. You should check with your doctor before starting any diet program. But it worked for Jared.”

The campaign went viral and Subway enjoyed two years of double digit market growth. I believe that aside from writing or co-writing a book or two, Jared has kept a pretty low profile aside from some funny cameo appearances on movies and TV.

Caution With Credit Cards

If you are a regular reader of this blog, I know one place where you aren’t likely to make a $60 credit card payment. Did you know that consumers are generally becoming more reluctant to pay for purchases with credit cards? The perception that they are likely to incur a high interest payment is a big contributor to this reluctance. Even with 0% balance transfer credit cards and other types of 0% credit cards, people are justifiably worried that they will not be able to make timely payments and therefore be liable for retroactive interest.

With Christmas fast approaching there will be a lot of emotional consumerism. Please use good judgment when expressing your love for on another. Most marital squabbles are about money. Being practical at this time of year might seem unromantic but fighting about the January bill is even less romantic.