Hole-in-one Contest Winner Cheated Of Prize

Hole-in-one Contest Winner Cheated Of Prize, Troy Peissig won a charity tournament two years ago, but still hasn’t seen a dime of his $18,000 prize.Troy Peissig’s surprise at acing an $18,000 hole-in-one contest at a charity tournament has been replaced by bitter disappointment now that he hasn’t been paid a dime nearly two years after making the 170-yard shot.

Now state authorities are intervening, and issued an arrest warrant last week against the operator of an insurance company they say failed to pay up on a policy purchased by the Missoula tournament.

Peissig, a scratch golfer, said it is a case of “how a good situation can go bad quickly.”

The Montana commissioner of securities and insurance said Kevin Kolenda of hole-in-won.com has been unresponsive in the case and now faces felony charges. The agency said Kolenda also has failed to pay in other cases around the country, and continues to operate the scam without a license to sell insurance even though he has been sanctioned by regulators in Alabama, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Nevada, North Carolina, and Washington.

Montana commissioner Monica Lindeen’s office said it is highly uncommon to file felony charges — with an arrest warrant — against an insurance company. Usually disputes on unpaid claims are handled with fines or other administrative actions.

But the Montana regulators said they moved aggressively in order to stop Kolenda from selling the insurance all over the country, despite not holding a license to do so.

“We want to make sure these companies aren’t getting a gimme when it comes to paying these claims,” said Lindeen, who suggested people check first with regulators that sellers of such insurance are licensed and registered with state authorities.

Kolenda did not return a call Tuesday from The Associated Press seeking comment.

In a letter Kolenda sent to the tournament sponsor denying the claim, he claimed the hole was too short and violated the 165-yard minimum in the policy contract. Kolenda referenced the 130-yard length noted on the Missoula Country Club’s standard score card.

Major Advertiser, Users Defriend Facebook

Major Advertiser, Users Defriend Facebook, General Motors says it’s pulling its ads, just days before the company goes public.Facebook heads into its initial public offering on target to become a $100 billion company.

But while its supporters see it as the next Apple (AAPL) or Google (GOOG), not everyone “likes” the company: Some detractors wonder whether the social networking giant could instead ultimately be headed to the junkyard to join MySpace and Friendster.

General Motors (GM), for one, appears to no longer believe in the power of Facebook — the automaker plans to stop advertising on the site because it said its paid ads had “little impact on consumers’ car purchases,” according to The Wall Street Journal. GM, the country’s third-largest advertiser, had been spending about $10 million on Facebook ads, according to the Journal. The company will continue to reach out to customers through its Facebook pages, however.

A spokesperson for GM said, “We look at this with all media outlets. We look at the effectiveness.” The representative added that the auto maker moves “money around to various outlets.”

GM’s ad spending is only a drop in the bucket compared with Facebook’s $3.7 billion in revenue, but it comes at a bad time in advance of Friday’s planned IPO and would be a big blow if it influences other large advertisers to do the same. In addition, other negative news about Facebook’s business has come out recently. According to an AP-CNBC poll this week, 57 percent of Facebook users never click ads or other paid content. Facebook makes its money mostly from display advertising, and clicks are how advertisers decide whether the ad space is worth the money they pay.

Should Kids’ Photos Be Put On Facebook?

Should Kids’ Photos Be Put On Facebook?, One parent makes the unpopular decision to not document his child’s life online.GROWING UP, I NEVER had tan lines. Want proof? There’s a color snapshot on display in my parents’ home: a n***d 2-year-old is shown from behind, climbing up a bathroom counter. For as long as I can remember, a framed 3×5-inch print has sat next to the sink where it was taken. My dad doesn’t carry a copy in his wallet. My mom hasn’t distributed it to family or friends. Up until now, unless you were invited into my childhood home, you never would’ve known this cute little portrait even existed.

Proud parents have been perfecting this genre for decades. While the intimate moments themselves remain largely unchanged, how we choose to share them—much like the tools for capturing them—has evolved dramatically since my parents first became parents in late 1979.

Today, the default is, of course, Facebook. Although privacy settings allow us to control which circle(s) of friends has access to parts of our profiles, many people either don’t understand how to use them or prefer not to. Plus, like record labels and print publishers, parents are discovering that once content becomes digital, it can be easily copied and redistributed willy-nilly (hello, grandparents!). The result: photos of kids in compromising, colorful circumstances, and status updates recounting even more compromising, colorful circumstances, intended for a select few, are now spread out over the Web for everyone.

Just spend five minutes on the blog “STFU, Parents,” which collects submissions of Facebook status updates and photos just to mock them (“STFU” stands for “shut the f— up”) and you’ll start to rethink what you should and shouldn’t share about your children and parenting.

Facebook’s Instant IPO Millionaires

Facebook’s Instant IPO Millionaires, The newly wealthy will include artist David Choe, who has stock worth at least $200 million.When Facebook (FB) goes public later this week, the next generation of ultra-rich 20-something techies will have been created.

“You are looking at the potential of scores, if not hundreds of millionaires,” says Matthew Miller, editor for the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the wealthiest 20 people in the world. Miller’s estimate is on the conservative end of the spectrum. In February, when the company announced its IPO, many put the number of people to rake in at least seven-figures at a thousand or more.

Of course, along with the newly minted millionaires will be a handful of billionaires, including the just-turned 28-year-old Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. According to the head-hunter Spencer Stuart, Zuckerberg is half the age of the average S&P 500 CEO and has logged more time at the helm than the typical leader.

The exact amount of each individual’s net worth all depends upon where the stock initially prices and eventually trades. Shares of the social media giant are in such hot demand from investors that Facebook increased its target range to $34 to $38 a share from the earlier range of $28 to $35 a share in what has become the most anticipated initial public offering since Google in 2004.

Using a share price of $35, now on the lower end of the spectrum, Miller and his team estimate Zuckerberg will be worth a whopping $17.6 billion, which makes him the 35th richest person in the world on the Bloomberg Billionaire Index. That means Zuckerberg will be worth more than the GDP of some countries and will have amassed more wealth than Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, Dell Inc. founder Michel Dell, Virgin founder Richard Branson and even Donald Trump.

At #35 on the Bloomberg Index, Zuckerberg sits below Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page who are worth $18.5 and $18.7 billion, respectively. But if shares of Facebook pop well above $35, all bets are off.

Facebook IPO Price: Facebook IPO & Price

Facebook IPO Price: Facebook IPO & Price, Hoping to get in on Facebook’s hotly anticipated public stock offering? You’ll need Facebook friends at very high levels — or a lot of money.

Most people who like the idea of owning Facebook’s stock will have difficulty getting it at the offer price, currently expected at $28 to $35 a share. Unless you know the right people at Facebook, you’ll likely need to have a large, active account with one of the big banks or brokerage firms directly involved in the stock sale.

Otherwise, you can take your chances by buying shares after the initial public offering is completed, when Facebook begins trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker symbol “FB.” That’s likely to happen Friday.

Doing it that way typically means paying much more for the stock, however. And heavy demand skews the early stock price, leaving an investor vulnerable to the risk of a big drop.

Jerome Cleary isn’t deterred. One of a legion of Facebook fans, he has never wanted to own a stock as much as he wants to buy this one. Cleary, a standup comedian in Los Angeles, says he has already signed up for an account with a discount online brokerage so he’ll be ready.

“I know you should buy stock in what you know and like,” Cleary says. “I feel that because they have an incredible mass of wealth and such growing popularity, the stock really may pay off.”

Facebook Inc.’s IPO is expected to be the largest ever for an Internet company. It’s expected to raise as much as $11.8 billion for Facebook and its early investors — far more than the $1.67 billion raised in Google Inc.’s 2004 IPO.

Analysts say there’s so much interest in Facebook’s stock that some underwriters are closing their books as early as Tuesday. This means they won’t be taking any more orders from potential buyers. The IPO is expected to be completed late Thursday, with shares available for trading Friday. (Boston)

Horse Dies After Winning Race

Horse Dies After Winning Race, A champion horse died moments after winning a prestigious race in Nashville, US, RIA Novosti reported.

Arcadius died after winning the Iroquois Steeplechase. The eight-year-old had a heart attack and collapsed while his jockey Brian Crowley was celebrating with the animal and its owner Ed Swyer in the winner’s enclosure Saturday.

“The horse ran a beautiful race, pulled up very cleanly and, as he was cooling down after the race, he had a heart attack,” track veterinarian Monty McInturff told local newspaper The Tennessean.

“When I got to him on the scene, his heart was very irregular and he had a very weak blood pressure,” he said.

There was nothing that could be done for Arcadius, McInturff said. “He died very quickly, very peacefully.”

The jockey was too upset to speak after the horse died, the newspaper said.

By winning the race, Arcadius won the top prize of $90,000. (IANS)

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