Christmas is always a time for trying to pick out the popular toys that the kids will love.

Unfortunately, it isn’t just parents, aunts and uncles … and grandparents etc. that are trying that prediction. A charitable word would be ‘entrepeneurs’ whereas a less charitable name would be a ‘shark’.

Yet again, the sharks are out in force to exploit the massive popularity of the 2009 hit Go Go Hamster range of toys and accessories.

I spotted these toys in July and saw that they were due to come in to the UK from August. Since then, they have been flying off the shelves. However, the biggest question must be “who is buying them?”.

I suspect that we are a little early for toy sales to have reached their Christmas peak, yet we have some retailers saying that it will be weeks before they have new stock. At the same time, we see the toys being sold via eBay and Amazon MarketPlace for anything up to three times the price for some accessories. In my opinion, the toys are mostly being bought to raise a quick buck.

Whilst I applaud people who manage to make money in a recessionary environment, this annual pattern of trading popular toys for excessive profit sits very uncomfortably with me as it feels like exploitation rather than ordinary commercial activity.

It appears that there is little that can be done to stop people offering their wares at a profit as there is absolutely nohing illegal in it; however, I can only encourage parents who are looking for the Go Go Pet Hamster toys to buy well in advance from reputable stores at a fair price. If everyone did that, then there would be no market for products at inflated cost as the importers would arrange to keep backfilling their shelves with enough properly priced product to satisfy demand.

Nearly three months ago I posted concerns about calls I received concerning investment in US Petroleum Holdings. The calls were very theatrical and raised alarm bells with me.

I am amazed that considering the varied nature of the posts that I make here, Google Analytics tells me that 50% of my visitors find their way here searching for more information about US Petroleum Holdings than any other topic featured here, exceeding even my primary hobby of my Food with Passion website by a factor of two.

IF I HAVE HELPED YOU avoid making an investment that you might regret, I would be delighted if you would stop to make a comment – by making a comment, you will help to raise search engine profile for my articles and help prevent someone else from making an ill-informed choice. So….. if I confirmed your unease and you decided not to invest, please don’t just walk away from here …. leave details of your experience and help someone else make up their mind based upon your own experience.

For the last couple of months, I have been using an excellent affiliate software tool called Affilistore. The developer has charitably opted to make it available for free download and use supported by a separate relationship with an SEO company.

Unfortunately, the internet is full of parasites and the software has now become available for unauthorised sale on many sites with the product advertised as Affilistore Plus.

The Affilistore Plus resellers blatantly lie about them having developed the program entirely on their own and even claim that they set up the demo sites that are owned and maintained by the Affilistore developer.

Affilistore software is not open source and therefore cannot be sold in a Plus or any other way. This is nothing more than Piracy. See Steve Balfour’s (author) own comments about the legality of Affilistore Plus.

Don’t buy Affilistore Plus and be ripped off. Instead pick up your software for free direct from Affilistore

If you abhor Piracy in this way, please try to create a link to this post to help bring it to the top of Google when anyone searches for information about Affilistore Plus and help alert people to the piracy, find the software for free and help shut these parasites down.

This post URL is : http://www.davidcameronsdiary.co.uk/2008/02/affilistore-plus-dont-be-ripped-off-by.html

A couple of days ago, I picked up my phone and got a mysterious call:

Me: Hello, this is David Cameron
Caller (in American accent): Hi David, this is Daniel Clarke calling from Regency. Have you heard the news?
Me: I haven’t a clue what you are talking about
Caller hangs up

I thought then that he had reached the wrong David Cameron….I have had messages in the past destined for the other David Cameron…you know the famous one.

Anyway a couple of hours later he called back again and at one point called me Daniel whilst trying to promote oil stocks suggesting that the outcomes of the latest OPEC meeting would cause oil to RISE $150 a barrel within the next month.

I knew this to be garbage…..he called someone who works for an oil company.

I will not bore you with all the details, but the office there did try to put on a great theatrical show in the background with thumping of desks and people calling out just like you would have seen in Wall Street (the movie).

I told him that he was wasting mine and his time and that he should go or I would hang up as he had done first call. He wouldn’t listen and I hung up on him.

He had the audacity to call me straight back again and try to solicit an “ïnvestment” because I was passing up a great opportunity. A quick root around the internet revealed that Regency has spun a few lines in their time and taken more than a few people for several thousand pounds.

Do a search for boilerroom Regency scam and you will see what I mean. e.g. http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?p=459387

DO NOT INVEST with these people or anyone else that cold calls you. The risks are too great….do your own research.

I don’t know where these people are actually based…clearly there are a lot of compaies in the world trading under a “Regency” brand. I make no inference about any other company trading under that name…..hopefully if this rotten scammer calls you now, you will remember them and refuse to have anything to do with them when they try and sell you oil stock.