BCInsights Volume 6, Issue 9

LITTLETON, Colo., August 31, 2006 - Business Controls, Inc. launched the new Referral and Affinity Partner Program, giving organizations an opportunity to reap the benefits of Business Controls's expanding market share. Business Controls plans to deepen business relationships while broadening adoption of its software and services using one of the strongest marketing tools available - word of mouth.

Business Controls, Inc., is an incident reporting and corporate investigations firm. The addition of a referral and affinity program demonstrates Business Controls's commitment to penetrating a marketplace that stands to benefit greatly from the productivity and financial gains Business Controls can offer.

"A comprehensive incident reporting system such as MySafeWorkPlace® prevents issues and improves efficiencies, saving businesses hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. This program will allow our company to grow in new markets that urgently need our software and services in order to compete in their marketplace. At the same time, we have the opportunity to give to our Referral and Affinity Partners in way that they can appreciate - cash." said Steve Foster, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Business Controls, Inc.

The Referral & Affinity Partner Program is designed to broaden and accelerate the adoption of incident reporting and corporate investigation services across enterprises, government, and education. Under the Referral program, a partner provides a lead referral introduction and contact information to Business Controls, allowing the sales team to contact the lead and demonstrate the capacity of the Business Controls' software and services. Referral Partners are compensated when a referral results in a sale to Business Controls. Affinity Partners are primarily Associations. Any member of a Business Controls' Affinity Partner will be afforded a special member price, which is a significant discount for all Business Controls' products and services purchased. Referral and Affinity partners also receive opportunities to participate in collaborative marketing projects.

The Referral & Affinity Partner Program is available now. Potential partners can learn more by calling 866-904-3308. 

As we approach the five year anniversary of September 11th and with the discovery in recent weeks of a plot in the UK to detonate liquid bombs on board as many as ten planes destined to the US, fear of another terrorist attack remains real for many Americans. For domestic and international travelers alike anxiety, tension and fear may be nearing an all time high.

In response to the foiled London terrorist plot, and other similar terrorist threats to international aviation security, the Secretary of Homeland Security has elevated the Homeland Security Advisory System Threat Condition to High, or Orange, for all commercial flights from the United Kingdom to the United States, and to High, or Orange, for all other international flights and all domestic commercial aviation. Additionally, transportation officials have tightened security at airports around the world. Domestically, more than 31,000 Security Officers at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have received specialized training to detect the presence of improvised explosive devices, commonly known as IED's, or explosives in baggage. The use of specialized canine teams trained in the detection of explosives and explosive residues as well as explosive detection systems such as the "puffer" have also increased.

Undoubtedly, if you have traveled in the past four weeks you have felt the effects of longer ticketing lines, security check point lines, and random gate inspections and bag searches. Furthermore, you have surely experienced the restrictions related to carry-on luggage items. When news first broke about the foiling of the terror plot in London, all liquids were banned from being taken onto planes via carry-on luggage.

Over the last two weeks, however, TSA has refined some of the bans originally implemented. Some of the prohibited carry-on items include liquids, gels, lotions and other items of similar consistency. However, small doses of liquid prescription medications and baby formula are permitted along with up to 5 oz. of liquid or gel for low blood sugar treatment and up to 4 oz. of essential non-prescription liquid medications. While these items are permitted past the screening checkpoint and on board, travelers need to be aware that these items will still be subject to physical inspection.

It is recommend that all travelers check the TSA website prior to traveling to read about any new prohibited carry-on items and if you are in doubt about a particular item, just pack it with your checked baggage. For additional information about items that are permitted and prohibited as carry on items, visit: http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/assistant/index.shtm.

In need of background checks? If you surf the Internet for providers, you will literally get hundreds of vendors who proclaim that their firm provides thorough, cost-effective background checks. But many of these firms do little more than Internet record searches. You may see firms charging as little as $10 for a background check - such a low price should be a major red flag. In many cases, a thorough background check can cost $200-$400. Furthermore, due diligence reports can easily exceed $1000.

You can avoid purchasing a substandard background check by getting to know a potential vendor's practices. Ask if they look at court records, and ask for their method for obtaining such records. In many cases it is impossible to conduct a thorough background check without having someone physically at the courthouse obtaining certain records. Good ways to flush out any suspect organization are to make sure that they have a physical address (not just a P.O. Box) and to send an email to the company to ensure that they have a real and active account. If complaints or reports have been filed against companies, you may be able to read them at the Better Business Bureau's website or at www.ripoffreport.com.

As the coastal regions brace for this year's hurricane season, the goodwill of charities and the donations from contributors who want to help will surely arise. Unfortunately, and much like we reported last year when Hurricane Katrina made landfall, the situation represents an irresistible temptation to fraudsters who hope to cash in on part of the relief efforts.

By the time Hurricane Ernesto hit the Mid-Atlantic region, at least 21 web site names had been registered that were somehow related to Hurricane Ernesto. While some of them may be legitimate, most of them are likely to be attempts at fraud. Here are some tips that you can follow through the entire hurricane season:

• Donate to recognized charities you have given to before. Watch out for charities that have sprung up overnight. They may be well-meaning, but lack the infrastructure to provide assistance. And be wary of charities with names that sound like familiar, or nationally known organizations. Some phony charities use names that sound or look like those of respected, legitimate organizations.

• Give directly to the charity, not the solicitors for the charity. That's because solicitors take a portion of the proceeds to cover their costs, which leaves less for victim assistance.

• Do not give out personal or financial information - this includes your Social Security number or credit card and bank account numbers - to anyone who solicits a contribution from you. Scam artists use this information to commit fraud against you.

• Check out any charities before you donate. Contact the Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance at www.give.org.

• Don't give or send cash. For security and tax record purposes, contribute by check or credit card. Write the official name of the charity on your check. You can contribute safely online through national charities like www.redcross.org/donate.

• Ask for identification if you're approached in person. Many states require paid fund-raisers to identify themselves as such and to name the charity for which they're soliciting.

Obtained in part from the Federal Trade Commission (http://www.ftc.gov/).

For those of us that do business internationally, it can sometimes be challenging to communicate with our clients or vendors abroad if we're not sure what time it is. Those of us who have regular international conference calls probably have the relevant time zones memorized, but if someone in Japan (for example) urgently wants to speak, and you're not sure whether you have to stay up late or get up early to make the call, here is a site that will tell you the exact current time, to the second, or any city or country, with daylight savings accounted for: http://www.timeanddate.com. Check it out.

Google, continuing in its attempt to index and organize the globe's information, has assisted Hewlett-Packard (HP) in fixing the bugs in Tesseract, a more than 20 year-old Optical Character Recognition (OCR) program that HP had shelved in 1995. HP made Tesseract open source (free for all - click here to download) about two months ago, after Google had successfully completed its nearly two-year debugging project.

Ramifications? Tesseract was deemed to be one of the most prolific OCR programs prior to HP shelving it, and prior to HP deciding to get out of the OCR business. Google's move is consistent with its goal of indexing every bit of documentation that the world has to offer, to include information that is only in a paper document. By digitizing (and allowing users to search) information that was previously only available by physically reading a document, Google should only widen its lead as the most robust search engine available.