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Bob Sullivan

Corporate sneakiness. Government waste. Technology run amok. Outright scams. The Red Tape Chronicles is MSNBC.com's effort to unmask these 21st Century headaches and offer real solutions that save you time and money.

Bob Sullivan covers Internet scams and consumer fraud for MSNBC.com. He is the winner of multiple journalism awards for his coverage of online crime and author of Gotcha Capitalism: How Hidden Fees Rip You Off Every Day and What You Can Do About It. and Your Evil Twin: Behind the Identity Theft Epidemic.

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How to be a Red Tape Raider

Posted: Saturday, January 24 2009 at 05:35 pm CT by Bob Sullivan

Here's a quick primer on how to insert your own success stories in the the Red Tape Raiders group at Newsvine, where you get a chance to be a consumer advocate by sharing your success stories or helping others.

INSTRUCTIONS ON POSTING AN ARTICLE

To contribute an article to the Red Tape Raiders, you'll have to join Newsvine and the Raiders group, but that only takes a moment. Just click "join" on the main page.

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When you click on the green "join group" button, you'll be prompted to create an account if you don't already have one. Follow the instructions you see.

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Then, write an article on your Newsvine page using the "write article" link.


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At Newsvine, everything you write will appear on your own page automatically. But you want your story to also appear on the Red Tape Raiders group. To do that, when you're finished writing, select the "Publish to:" option at the bottom and pick Red Tape Raiders.

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Finally, add a tag from the list below so your article appears in the right sub-section and it's easier to find.

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The tags are:
*bank-fees
*car-buying
*cell-phones
*credit-cards
*home-buying
*home-phones
*insurance
*Internet-access
*pay-TV
*student-loans

Please also include the Red Tape Raiders logo on your pieces, so it will be clear to others that you are a part of the project. You can grab the logo from the top of this page.

Here are a few other ground rules:
*This is not a place to whine. It's a place to share success stories and help each other. "Me too" thoughts should be include as comments on others' articles
*Information that is publicly available is fine to post -- such as customer service numbers -- but no violations of privacy will be tolerated
*Articles posted to the group should generally consist of first person accounts, not stories about others’ experiences
*While nearly everyone who posts here will be frustrated, keep the language professional. Remember, this group is not about being angry, it's about being effective.

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