Targeting scams that prey on people vulnerable because of the down economy, federal and state officials announced today a laundry list of legal actions including a lawsuit against a collection of get rich quick schemes that lured "hundreds of thousands" of victims who paid out about $300 million.

The companies allegedly jointly operating the schemes, including John Beck's Amazing Profits and Mentoring of America, marketed them heavily through television infomercials. They sold guides to their supposed systems of quick paths to wealth for $39.95 and charged an additional $39.95 a month after that.

Preying on the widely held dream that someday the lottery will pay all the bills and fuel a hundred fantasies, a new collection of frauds have set up shop in a place better known for vacations than scam. Their goal is to take -- not give -- money.

The Federal Trade Commission and U.S. immigration officials are working with the Jamaican Constabulary Force to bust up telemarketing rings bent on taking cash from duped Americans.

In Tokyo, it's called "Operation Flower."

I, too, have observed the phenomenon: Pretty flowers deter crime. And in Suginami City, a district of Tokyo, there's pretty amazing data to back up the theories.

After a shameful year of break-ins in 2002 -- 1,710 in an area with a population of about 528,000 -- someone recognized that streets with more flowers had less crime.

The city began a campaign, encouraging volunteers to plant flower seeds in front of their houses, and tending them. The results stunned: Down 80% by 2008, to 390 total break-ins.

The theory is that with residents spending more time outside planting, weeding and watering their flowers, there are more people to keep an eye out for suspicious activity, deterring criminals.

I suspect it's a little bit of that, but more of this: With people outside tending to flowers, potential criminals put a face on the property. Instead of seeing the residence for its potential dollar value, the home is seen as that place with the nice woman who waves while she weeds.

And another thing: Well-tended gardens are lovely and demonstrate the care someone has taken over the home. When you respect your property, others will respect it, too.

Since we have fixed up our front yard, installing a friendly fence and lots of fruit, vegetable and herb plants, our property crime has gone to zero; and we lost a few bikes and a jogging stroller to criminals before the transformation.

The more people on the street who tend their gardens, the less crime we all have. Beauty and care begets respect; even from the criminal element.

A group of Florida men who made false promises that they could fix consumers' credit agreed to a $21 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission that was reduced to $5,000 apiece because they said they couldn't afford the larger sum, the FTC announced.

The FTC said it would reimpose the higher number, which spokesman said accounts for the gross revenue of the business, if the three defendants fail to pay the $5,000 or they lied about their financial conditions.

Ace Group, Inc., also known as American Credit Experts, Inc., The Ace Group, Inc., The Ace Group, and ACE; and Legal Credit Repair Center, Inc. were the subject of a federal lawsuit filed late last year by the FTC. Also cited were principals Michael Singer, Gerald Roth and Melvin Kessler.

The FTC said they told consumers they could get negative entries on their credit reports removed and charged $60 upfront and then another $60 a month thereafter. Dispute letters sent by the company didn't achieve the promised result, the FTC said.

The men agreed to stop collecting money from people who had signed up for their services and to protect their customers' identities as they dispose of the personal and financial information that had been collected. Two separate judgments were filed in the case: One that covered Singer and Roth and the other on Kessler, who filed for protection under federal bankruptcy laws.

The FTC warns consumers that using such services isn't the solution to credit problems. The commission offers advice on its web site on what consumers with credit problems can do to help their situations. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has some additional information on avoid debt elimination scams.

Grandparents from coast to coast are getting shaken down and being conned into believing their grandchildren are being held in a Canadian jail and need cash to make bail. As unlikely as this scam might seem, it just keeps coming back -- something that happens when people pay up.

The Attorney General's office in Idaho issued an alert warning that people in that state have been targeted. About a dozen complaints were filed before the alert was issued, the office said.

This isn't just an Idaho thing. Grandparents across the nation have reported getting this call -- with some admitting they forked over the cash.

Phonebusters, a consortium of Canadian law enforcement authorities who monitor such scams, first noticed the increase in complaints about this one in the fall. As time has passed, more and more state and local authorities have been hearing the stories of elders being taken. The problem just keeps growing.

Remember the KFC grilled chicken giveaway (promoted by Oprah) that went awry? Well two consumers can't get it off their mind; after several disappointing trips to KFC, wasted gas, printer ink and postage they decided to sue KFC.

The lawsuit was filed in LA where the two consumers hope to get full restitution of monies spent in their attempt to get their free grilled chicken meals. The complaint alleges that KFC's free grilled chicken promotion made use of false advertising as well as a bait and switch attempt to take money from customers.

My family knows about cashier's check scams and other crafty international methods of loosing the elderly and other emotionally fragile types from their money. Over the past few months, both my husband's great uncle and his sister's ailing landlord have been the subject of a series of shysters and hopeful perpetrators of fraud; and despite a great deal of effort on my husband's part, no law enforcement officials, banks or wire services helped in the least. Fortunately, my husband has talked them out of sending money in each case.

The Brooklyn, N.Y., district attorney announced the Monday arrest of 49-year-old Thomas Parkin for dressing as his dead mother to collect Social Security benefits, according to a New York Daily News story.

Parkin was charged with forgery, grand larceny, conspiracy, criminal impersonation and perjury. Sound shocking? Wait until you hear the rest.

Thomas' mother, Irene Prusik, left her Brooklyn home for him to inherit. When she passed away in 2003, Thomas took out a $200,000 mortgage. He later found out, perhaps due to the recession, that he could not afford it and stopped making mortgage payments.

The home eventually went into foreclosure and was bought in 2003. To avoid eviction, Parkin decided to take on the identity of his dead mother to afford the apartment and pay for his real estate venture.

The reincarnated "Ms. Prusik" was complete with sunglasses, nail polish, wig, and old fashioned clothing. The scam continued for six years as the government offices supplied Parkin with his requested funds. He created a fake ID and even hired a nephew to assist him, or her, at the bank.

Here's bank video of the pair:

His name is Sanford Wallace, and his alleged spamming might possibly make him the most disliked man on the Internet. Facebook has a civil lawsuit pending against him, which has been stalled by his filing for bankruptcy. Myspace has already been granted a $230 million judgment against him for slinging pornography and gambling links onto its site. At last however, Sanford Wallace may have to face the music by doing hard time.

PC World has reported that the courts have determined that Wallace has set himself up for criminal prosecution. The article states in part: "Judge Jeremy Fogel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California referred Sanford Wallace to the U.S. Attorney General's Office for criminal proceedings for allegedly violating an injunction that prohibited him from accessing Facebook."

Business owners nationwide, primarily of Asian descent, are being targeted by extortionists who threaten them by telephone after gleaning personal information about them from the Internet, the FBI said today.

A warning was issued today on IC3.gov, a site operated by the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center.

The FBI said the threats appear to be coming from foreign countries. The business owners are led to believe that the extortionist knows personal information about them.

The FBI is not aware of any resulting violence.

It was not immediately clear how many people have reported the threats or whether any money has been paid out. Officials with the Los Angeles-based Asian Business Association said they were not aware of the threats.

The FBI is hoping that anyone who has been approached with this scheme would contact law enforcement and file a complaint on ic3.gov.

This morning, as I went about my merry business on my computer, I had an e-mail come in from an old college friend through Facebook.

I guess I should have known. I think of myself as pretty savvy, never opening strange attachments, avoiding clicking on links that look suspicious and so on. But since this came from a friend through Facebook, I let down my guard. I read the e-mail, rolled my eyes, but clicked on the link, anyway.

Seconds later, my computer security software told me that my PC had been attacked -- but the virus that tried to leech onto my hard drive had been stopped.

I e-mailed my friend and confirmed that he hadn't sent me the e-mail, and he said that his work computer was apparently infected by some sort of virus.

Consumer Reports WebWatch, a well-known watchdog site that detailed web-based scams and schemes and worked to educate consumers about online perils, is being shut down by its parent, Consumers Union, Walletpop,com has learned.

WebWatch started eight years ago, and in its early years it was a grant-fueled project backed by The Pew Charitable Trusts, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the Open Society Institute. But that grant ended a few years ago and the non-profit advocacy group Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports, had been shouldering the costs since.

"We've decided we're not able to continue it," Consumers Union Vice President Ken Weine said. "It was a dollars and cents issue."

United First Financial claims that it can help you pay off your mortgage in less time with the amount of money -- saving you tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest. The secret? It's all in a $3,500 spreadsheet program that you can buy through the company's distributors.

WalletPOP's resident forensic accountant Tracy Coenen has written about the software on her blog, arguing that it's completely useless.

An apparently very naive news team got bamboozled into running a puff piece on the company -- complete with an interview with a strip club/casino valet who swears by the software. Oh, well in that case. . . You can watch the whole video but to give you an idea of how incredibly idiotic the financial reporter who covered this is, I'm starting the video midway through so you can see their brilliant explanation of how it works.

Well there ya go: I thought it was a pile of garbage too, but did you see that? He dunked the sponge in the red water! Now I'm convinced!

Federal and Canadian authorities have shut down, at least temporarily, three Montreal-based operations that were allegedly scamming U.S. businesses, non-profits and charities.

The Federal Trade Commission filed lawsuits against the three telemarketers and won temporary orders halting the operations.

Federal officials said the outfits were selling listings in "worthless business directories," often pretending to be from the local yellow page directory. To hide their true location, the FTC said the three used addresses scattered around the U.S. -- from Jersey City, N.J. to Phoenix.

The companies used names including National Yellow Pages Online and Reed Publishing. They solicited payments of $400 or more -- often strong-arming the businesses and charities, the FTC said.

In its complaint, the FTC said the operations misled the businesses by claiming to have done business with them previously and had agreed to do business again as well as trying to collect on debts that weren't really owed.

The FTC worked with the Canadian Competition Bureau and the multi-agency Project COLT.

California is stepping up its crackdown on foreclosure scams that prey on people about to lose their homes.

Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. announced that foreclosure consultants must register with his office by July 1 and post a $100,000 bond in order to do business in California. Failure to do so could result in jail time or fines.

"California is awash with con artists who prey on vulnerable families facing foreclosure," Brown said in a statement. "By forcing foreclosure consultants to submit detailed information to my office and post a $100,000 bond, this registry will help bring long-overdue transparency to this shadowy world."