Have you looked at your home security system bill lately? Have you ever wondered exactly what kind of service you're receiving for your monthly fee? Me too!

I've had ADT for nearly four years, faithfully paying them $37 a month, every month. And when I first started with them, I got good service. In my city, the police do not respond to home alarms. Instead, ADT has a list of numbers to call when an alarm goes off.

If they do not reach me, they're supposed to dispatch the "guard service." If they do reach me, I have the option of having the guard respond or not. If the guard is dispatched to the house, the guard is supposed to survey the perimeter of the house to look for obvious signs of a break-in, like a broken window or door. If everything looks okay, the guard leaves with no further action. If there is evidence of a break-in, the guard calls the police. Everything used to go like clockwork, and I had no complaints.

Dining out in New York is often a heady experience -- especially when you get the check. You can't stop going back for more, however, because it's just too convenient, and fun, and part of the joy of living in a big city. But after reading about how some high-end eateries are coping with the economic downturn in the New York Times, I'm starting to get inclined to just stay home and cook my own over-priced food.

The Times talks to restaurant owners who are finding ways to stretch a buck, mostly by serving cheaper ingredients and smaller portions. At fancy places, that means smaller lobsters at some exorbitant price and hanger steak instead of strip steaks. Some places are offering early bird specials and bar specials. Some are considering no-show fees. Like airlines that keep tacking on fees for things that used to be free, that's probably going to be the last straw for casual diners. Freelance writer Carol Vinzant covered 10 restaurant tricks, for WalletPop back in May.

A new type of insurance scam, the STOLI, preying on the elderly, has begun to spread from the geriatric heartlands of Arizona and Florida. The Stranger-originated life insurance (STOLI) scam works this way -- The scammer offers an elderly person a lump sum if they will buy a life insurance policy, at the scammer's expense, naming the scammer as beneficiary. Unfortunately, for the scammed person, such deals are illegal.

Seniors are hurt in several ways by this scheme. They may lose the ability to buy additional insurance. The money they receive from this illegal transaction is taxable, putting them in the double-bind many criminals encounter; pay taxes, thereby exposing the scam, or not pay taxes, and face tax evasion. They could also end up being charged with theft or sued by the issuing insurance company.

This scam should not be confused with viaticals or life settlements, however, which are legal. Viaticals, which were created when the AIDS epidemic was killing so many young men, allow a person, usually very ill or elderly, to receive a lump sum from a third party immediately based on a pre-existing life insurance policy, in return for the insurance that is paid out upon death.

The primary difference between a viatical and a STOLI (also known as a Speculator-initiated life insurance (SPINLIFE), Stranger-originated (SOLI) or Investor-originated (IOLI)) is that the latter is taken out at the behest of investors, with their money, as a way of speculating on the life span of the person being scammed. The speculator will sometimes construct an elaborate trust structure in an attempt to shield what they do from scrutiny.

Essentially, when someone willingly takes part in a STOLI, he is allowing himself to become a chip on the actuarial gambling table, a kind of anti-future, if you will. This is an image that demeans the insurance industry and one they very much want to quash. Besides, do you really want a bunch of shady characters waiting for you to croak so they can cash in? What if they run out of patience?

Also read:

Life settlements can turn life insurance into cash

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the latest report from our government on corporate income taxes: About 2/3 of corporations pay no income tax. That report is somewhat misleading because certain corporations (like the one I own) don't pay income tax on earnings, but the owner personally reports that income and pays the taxes. Technically the corporation is not paying, but the owner is paying on its behalf.

I also argued at that time that corporations don't really pay taxes anyway. Consumers do. As taxes are raised, prices consumers pay for goods go up to cover them. So if we're looking to "stick it" to the corporations, we have to remember that we're the ones really paying for it. (And do we really need higher prices now?) My third argument against making corporations pay hefty income taxes is the effect it has on innovation and the creation and maintenance of a company. The more costs involved in doing business, the less attractive it is to start a company, and the more likely it is that the companies (and jobs) will go elsewhere.

One think tank suggests that corporate income taxes will be the next big "scandal" in business. (And don't news watchers love scandals?) There are many legitimate loopholes in the tax code, and companies pay big bucks to consultants and tax experts who help find them. But then there's the fine line that can be crossed... over into the illegal world of tax evasion.

The Identity Theft Resource Center has released its most recent figures on data breaches at businesses, and they're not pretty. 2008 isn't even close to being over, and the number of reported breaches has already surpassed the total for 2007, at 446.

A data breach is simply a situation at a business in which unauthorized outside people get access to computerized confidential information. What are they looking for? Usually credit card numbers and personal data that can be used to commit identity theft.

The 446 data breaches reported here are simply a tabulation of each report of a business experiencing a data breach. They say nothing about the number of records or people exposed in each breach, which can be in the millions. The larger the number of records compromised, the more likely you are to hear about it on the news.

The Federal Reserve gave consumer a few months to mull over this proposition: Should credit card companies be allowed to raise the rate on debt you already owe? Is it fair for them to constantly reshuffle your debt so you are always paying the highest possible interest rate and the most fees? Should banks keep secret the way to opt out of their overdraft protection plans, where they can charge a huge fee for a tiny overdraft? And can they send you an offer of one rate, then switch you to another?

Guess what? Consumers overwhelmingly hate all these current practices. They think credit card companies should be reigned in. Nearly 20,000 people wrote in on the three parts of the proposal: credit cards, overdrafts and truth in lending rules. Many call for stricter rules and use florid language like "usury."

Also guess what? Banks think the rules are a stupid idea. Bank of America is not just worried about itself, of course. BofA is concerned about the "broad impact on the economy both at the retail level and in highly complex securitization markets, slowing growth and limiting access to financing. To quote Bill Murray: "Dog and cats, living together!"

BusinessWeek's Jessica Silver-Greenberg says that it's the most significant credit card rule change in 20 years. Till now, she writes, regulators were content to simply force banks to clearly disclose their terms (which resulted in those pages of small-type that practically nobody reads). So now regulators and getting around to actually regulating. The comment period ended August 4, (though the comment form is still up).

Long ago I discovered the site RipoffReport.com. Search Google for many common company names, and you'll often get a Ripoff Report page high in the list of results. At first I thought that it was simply a site that offered consumers a voice and had gained traction because of that. It seems, however, that there's much more to the story.

Yes, consumers are allowed and encouraged to post their complaints on the site. Yet the most obvious problem is that there are complaints and reports that are clearly false. Damaging false reports obviously make the site less credible, although the owner of the site, Ed Magedson, is committed to not removing any posted compliants. (Unless companies pay him.)

An in-depth story in the Phoenix New Times last year gives some interesting insights about Magedson and the website. The short version is this: Magedson lets anything be posted on the site without any real limits or rules. Companies and individuals are (usually) allowed to post rebuttals if they like. If a company objects to something posted about it on the site, Magedson offers the opportunity to participate in his "corporate advocacy program."

A pair of high school kids did a DNA-barcode test on New York City sushi and found that one-quarter of the fish they tested was really a cheaper species than what the seller said. The kids, Kate Stoeckle and Louisa Strauss, got some help from Eugene Wong, a graduate student at the University of Guelph in Ontario, but these new quick DNA tests show both how easy testing is becoming -- and how prevalent fish fraud is.

The girls sampled 60 different kinds of sushi, then Wong ran them up against the growing library of DNA at the Fish-Barcode of Life. He could get a reading on 57 samples and found that 14 of them were mislabeled. And all the labeling errors went in the seller's favor, making the fish more expensive.

The most mislabeled fish was red snapper: seven of nine samples (77%) were really something else. Most egregiously, some of it was really the endangered Acadian redfish. Their results are no fluke. This spring the Chicago Sun-Times did a great investigation on Chicago sushi and found all 14 of its samples of red snapper were fake, mostly the cheaper tilapia. They say a congressional report found that 37% of fish and 80% of red snapper sold in America is mislabeled. That's consistent with a 2004 University of North Carolina study that found 75% of red snapper was fake.

You might think all the stories left to tell in this genre are about quaint family farms in the mid-West being overrun by giant corporations, but the latest salvo comes from industrial Los Angeles.

Two years ago, a community garden was razed to make room for a warehouse for the clothing retailer Forever 21, and now community activists are looking at the still-empty tract of land and they want their plants back.

The Los Angeles Times says the story is complicated by political ties -- the company made hefty donations to the mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, who had initially opposed the destruction of the garden, which is located in South Central. This being L.A., there are celebrities involved: Daryl Hannah, Joan Baez and Danny Glover are among those who protested the initial plans, and it was the subject of the short documentary South Central Farm: Oasis in a Concrete Desert.

We all do it. When we're planning a trip to an unfamiliar city or we're looking for a new hole-in-the-wall for a dinner date near home, we poke around online for reviews of local restaurants.

But on some sites, reviews are serving up a steaming plate of B.S.

WalletPop told you about the hugely popular Yelp, which has been accused of extorting restaurants and shops that got received bad reviews. For a price, says a San Francisco CBS affiliate, Yelp will move the badmouthing blurb lower down the page, potentially out of sight. One sofa store owner paid Yelp $350 a month to bury her embarrassing reviews.

Last year, one New York City hotel was awarded a five-star review by an effusive reader of TripAdvisor. Except the hotel hadn't even completed construction yet. Public relations flacks were suspected.

This sort of stuff happens all the time. TripAdvisor says it tries to weed out these obviously false postings. But some readers allege it swerves too far even in that. One travel expert about Hawaii accuses TripAdvisor of twice killing reviews that conflicted with its paid sponsors. For sites like these, integrity is everything. Many publications, though, don't have the resources to do the follow-ups necessary. Increasingly, the phonies are not apparent.

Have you seen the infomercials or the advertisements in newspapers and online for investment classes? They're going to teach you how to use your spare time and money to become financially free! You're going to learn how to turn your small savings into lifetime wealth!

These advertisements either want you to buy their expensive book/CD/system, or attend and outrageously priced seminar. A WalletPop reader wrote to us about Better Trades, a seminar she was considering attending for $3,995.

The marketing materials sound impressive. (They're supposed to, aren't they?) You'll learn how to make money trading stocks whether the market is up or down. You'll find the secrets of leveraging your money and buying stocks at a discount. You'll learn how to trade "risk free!"

The owner of an organic clothing store got the surprise of her life when she got a summons in a $20 million lawsuit against her last month. Early this year, Leslie Richards was contacted by Vision Media Television about a documentary they were supposedly producing. They wanted to include her and her clothing store in a segment on eco fashion.

It all sounded great until Vision Media asked for almost $26,000 to cover production fees and travel costs for filming. When Leslie balked, she was told she was getting quite a bargain for the amount of exposure they'd provide.

Leslie decided to do her homework on the company, and quickly posted information on her blog in a piece entitled "Scam Taking Advantage of Green Businesses." She detailed the name-dropping done in the sales pitch, and statements about being affiliated with "Public TV."

As the cost of college skyrockets, so do the number of scams trying to take advantage of families. With the average cost of a private four-year college topping more than $32,000, more families than ever are on the hunt for scholarships that can help relieve some of that financial burden. Con artists and unscrupulous businesses snare several hundred thousands of unsuspecting students and their families with fraudulent offers every year, to the tune of more than $100 million, according to FinAid.

You don't have to let it happen to you!

Here are a few key tips to get started safely.

I've written about the ATM scam before, but as the scam seems to be spreading, it bears repeating. Victims of the ATM scam can find their accounts drained dry before they even know their account information has been stolen.

The scam works this way: the crook places a cap, made to look like a part of the machine, over the card slot of the ATM . This cap reads the magnetically encoded info as the card passed through and into the ATM. A pinhole camera is placed so as to record the PIN as the victim keys it in. The victim gets his cash, card and receipt, as usual. After he leaves, the crook retrieves the cap and camera. Using a mag card writer, he creates a duplicate card and, with the PIN, begins to use the card as fast as possible.

This video does a great job of showing in detail how the scam works, and how to avoid it. The number 1 tip: ALWAYS SHIELD THE KEYPAD WHEN ENTERING YOUR PIN. Follow the same advice in stores, too; you don't want to temp a crook to snatch your purse or pick your pocket by revealing your PIN to them. If you think your PIN is compromised, change it.

Okay, I'll just admit it -- I'm a citizenship geek. Unlike more than half of my fellow Americans, I really, really get into the trappings of participatory democracy. I don't just love to vote; I actually save my "I Voted" stickers and keep pictures of my wife and me grinning broadly after casting our ballots. The last time around, we even took our daughter with us, which almost knocked my family over the Frank Capra/Mr. Smith Goes to Washington edge.

Despite my best efforts, I've never been given jury duty. Personally, I blame this on the fact that my last home was in a very rural area, where my lack of "kin" automatically discounted me from taking part in the judicial system. Seriously, I knew honest-to-goodness Hatfields and McCoys and I have a feeling that their lawyers were gaming the jury selection process.

At any rate, I'm hoping that New York City will be able to make better use of my Solomon-like decision-making skills and insane sense of patriotism. With that in mind, I was particularly disgusted by a recent jury duty scam that criminals were using to commit identity theft. Basically, the thief, claiming to represent the local court, calls the victim and claims that he or she has failed to show up for jury duty. After threatening arrest, the thief asks the victim for his or her social security number, birth date, and other key materials. Using this information, the thief then assumes the victims identity.

The FBI has already issued a warning about this scam, noting that the judicial system does not ask for confidential information over the phone. Unfortunately, there really isn't very much that you can do about this scam, apart from not falling for it. In the meantime, though, keep your eye out for that jury duty notice!

Bruce Watson is a freelance writer, blogger, and all-around cheapskate. While he's not a big fan of Saudi-style justice, he thinks jury scammers should probably have their ears cut off.