Buyer Beware

Daily Finance

In early 2010, Nish Bhalla sat down at his computer with one objective: steal a huge amount of money from a bank.

It wasn't a typical heist. Bhalla is the chief executive of Security Compass, a company that tests security systems at banks, retailers, energy companies and other organizations with sensitive data. His clients -- including the bank branch in the United States that he targeted in his 2010 attack -- pay him to break into their systems.

It can be easier than most people think. The alleged thieves who made headlines last week for their $45 million bank heist used a similar type of attack that "created" money out of nowhere.

Bhalla talked CNNMoney through his caper. Here, in four easy steps, is how he made himself into a millionaire.

These days, it seems talent isn't enough. Celebrities have to get their name and image out there as well, hawking so many products with their faces on them that it can be utterly nauseating. Toys, clothes, fragrances, jewelry, food, drinks, accessories and more: the list goes on ad infinitum.

But some things celebrities lend their name and image to are downright dangerous, particularly when they get in bed with the credit and debit card companies largely responsible for so much debt around the world.

More and more the public is able to apply for credit and debit cards with their favourite celebrities face on them, but the fees and interest charges are often so high that only the rich and famous who endorse these cards can afford them.

​Ahead, we'll show you whose promoting what cards and pull back the curtain on what the card companies are charging you to have them.

By Megan Durisin

In the day and age of online swap meets and the ubiquity of reseller sites like Craigslist, eBay, and Etsy, there's hardly anything you can't get secondhand anymore. But should you?

For some items, saving a few bucks by buying them secondhand isn't worth the potential safety or health risks involved.

We've put together a list of 17 products that you should always buy new.

Any first time car buyer is guaranteed to be intimidated by the terms and lingo used by most salesmen on the lot. Problem is, if you miss what's being said, you may miss great opportunities to save big money. This is why we've prepared a gallery of all the lingo you need to know to gain the upper-hand when buying a car. Some of these terms aren't even supposed to be public knowledge, but members of sites like CarCostCanada.com will get a piece of that secret information and most definitely gain an advantage during the negotiation process.

Click on a a photo to find out how.

The good news for Canada's four playoff-bound NHL teams is they are guaranteed to have a second-round presence. That's because the Ottawa Senators will face the Montreal Canadiens in the opening round, a matchup that came as a result of Ottawa's 3-2 victory over Boston on Sunday night in the league's final game of the regular season.

No matter how many times we're told that get-healthy-quick schemes don't work, Americans' obsession with them remains as robust as ever.

Too bad most of these fads aren't worth their weight in salt -- or your hard-earned dollars. We've put together a list of some of worst so-called health trends that still persist today.

By Diane Bullock
Minyanville


Remember that old maxim, "The customer is always right"? Me neither. Maybe I was born too late, but I don't ever recall an era in my lifetime that wasn't guided by the "buyer beware" principle. If there ever was a golden age of shopper deference, it certainly didn't survive the now-great epoch of Time Warner Cable (NYSE:TWC) et al. Here are a few tricks to help you pull out of this thing with your dollars and dignity intact.

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The mid-eighties were a time of gargantuan mega-crossovers in comics. The first was DC Comics' Crisis on Infinite Earths.

At the time, the DC Universe was made up of parallel earths as a way of explaining why Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the rest of their iconic heroes never aged, despite dating back to the 30s and the 40s. The reason was the heroes you were reading about were the Silver Age versions of Superman, Batman and the rest who all lived on Earth One, while those Golden Age heroes from the 30s and 40s all had aged and were living out their lives on Earth Two.

Every year, the Justice League on Earth One would team up with the Justice Society of Earth Two in annual crossover events called Crisis on Earth One or Crisis on Earth Two, etc. nineteen eighty-five's Crisis on Infinite Earths was the first time all of the heroes from all of the parallel earths appeared together in one, 12 issue, mega-crossover event. The series was hugely successful and served to merge all of these parrallel earths into one single earth, which is how they would stay until 2006's Infinite Crisis.

It was thought that the planned Crisis on Infinite Earths inspired Marvel Comics' own mega-crossover -- Secret Wars, and Crisis may have played a role, but Secret Wars came out first and it was actually toymaker Mattel that set Marvel's beloved crossover story in motion.

By Matt Brownell
Daily Finance

A store in Australia is apparently taking an extreme approach to eliminating showrooming, alerting would-be customers that they'll be charged $5 if they come in to browse but don't buy anything.

Reddit user BarrettFox posted a snapshot of a sign warning shoppers that the store would impose a $5 fee for people who are "just looking." The fee, the sign explains, will be deducted from the final purchase price, ensuring that people who actually buy something won't be charged. It notes that it's pursuing this strategy because of "a high volume of people who use this store as a reference and then purchase goods elsewhere."