Ticked off by the way a car salesperson treated you? Do you want to warn other consumers? Here's your chance. Maybe.

We wrote about car dealer complaint web sites awhile back (click here to see the earlier blog) and back then we had high hopes for MyDealerandMe.com. They had just started up and we thought now would be a good time to check back and see how things were going.

It looked like their intentions were to give consumers a place where they could complain or praise any car dealer they had experience with and that would help keep dealers honest and warn potential buyers of bad dealers to avoid. Well, maybe, maybe not.

The web site is not very intuitive and you have to guess where some things are. It is more than a little hard to find those reviews that consumers post. Don't give up though, you have to "locate your dealer" first and then go from there.

But even with a minor difficulty finding your way around, MyDealerandMe.com is still better than having nowhere to go at all. Maybe they'll improve things. For now, if you've got a gripe about a car dealer, post it. You've got nothing to lose. But if they get back to you in an attempt to "mediate" or help work out your complaint, be suspicious and be careful.

DealerRater.com is another dealer review site that is pushing its wares lately. Their web site is certainly easier to find the starting point where your dealer is and it's probably there somewhere. That's their problem, though: it looks like ALL car dealers are listed even though the vast majority have no comments posted about them at all.

So the index (which is really just a listed of possible pages where all the dealers are alphabetically listed) can easily be 50 pages long. Since there's no hint on where the "F" dealers begin and where the "M" dealers are on the list, you have to guess. You end up wandering through pages trying to find the listing for the dealer you want to comment on and, guess what, you probably will get bored and quit. That doesn't help anyone.

Both of these sites have a great idea and just need to polish it up. A consumer needs to be able to find their dealer's listing fast, no more than 2 clicks would be best. And if the dealer isn't on the list already, there needs to be a quick and easy way to add a dealer to the list. After all, car dealers come and go, some faster than others.

For now, these websites are worth at least taking a look at, but don't plunk down your hard earned money based on anything you see there. You just might be reading a review that was written by one of the salespeople who are working there.

Meantime, if you've been lied to by a car dealer, or ripped off by a salesperson, don't put up with it. Email us or call 1-888-331-6422 Toll Free for our free help.

Life is too short to always get caught short. We can help you fight back. Helping consumers fight back is what we do. Everyday.

It's getting scairy out there for homeowners ...

Foreclosures jumped up 47% from the number just a year ago, with a record 149,000 foreclosures filed in March 2007. That's one home out of every 775 nationwide according to RealtyTrac, the folks who count the numbers.

Winning top prize was was Nevada, which took first place for each of the last 3 months and was more than 4 times the national average. That state always was a gamble...

Roaring into second place, Colorado saw nearly triple the national average with almost 6,300 foreclosures filed in March. California had the largest number of new foreclosures with over 31,000.

Rounding out the nation's 10 highest foreclosure states in March were Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Florida, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Folks, this is not a list you want your state to be on. Foreclosures drive down real estate values (and sales prices) for all nearby homeowners.

The 5 states with the most foreclosure filings in March were California, Florida, Texas, Michigan and Ohio. Together these 5 states accounted for half of all the foreclosures in the entire US.

Stockton, California had more foreclosures than any other city in the country, 1 for every 128 homes ... a frightening number and enough to make you either move or buy up all the land and become a very, very big landlord.

Some folks blame bankruptcy law changes that made it harder for ordinary folks to keep their homes and reorganize their debt under Chapter 13. Others say the feeding frenzy of sub prime predatory lenders has finally come home to roost. Some of it is likely the result of mortgage fraud schemes too. Whatever the cause, it's a national problem that your congress person ought to do something about before the roof caves in.

Want tips on how to complain? You can also write your congressional representative and ask what he or she is doing to help your neighbor keep his home.

Why should you care? Because when they board up the doors and windows on your neighbor's house, the value of your's goes down. It really is just that simple.