We've all encountered them. At some time in our Internet lives, we've each landed in a safe, or even familiar, website, when suddenly a blaring warning message has appeared. We were then informed that our computer was being assaulted by any number of nasty viruses, spy ware programs, or Trojan uglies of some sort. Those who fell for the gambit then spent $39.95, or more, to download a "scareware" program which, they were told, would uncover all those predatory computer parasites, and then scrub the user's hard drive clean of all the dastardly little attackers. There's just one problem; The warnings were a hoax - and so were the useless downloads which were often purchased to fix them.

The good news is that the FTC has won an injunction to end the peddling of those useless black hole downloads. What's more, a federal court has frozen the assets of a group of businesses which are said to have been flourishing in the scareware trade. You might recognize some of the names from your Internet travels. They include: "WinFixer," "WinAntivirus," "WinAntispyware," "AntivirusXP" and "XP Antivirus 2008", among others.

The temporary court order is an intended precursor to a permanent ban against scareware, flimflam artists.
So, there's good news in the blogosphere, knowing that bogus hard drive cleaners have been shelved at last. However, we must all remember to always take adequate precautions to protect our precious computers: install, and keep updated, one of the many good quality protective software packages available for protection against computer viruses, would be hackers, and spyware.

I cannot overstress this; It's an Internet jungle out there.

Wachovia Bank may be on the hook for their role in a massive fraud. Suntasia Marketing Inc. was shut down by the Federal Trade Commission in July. They say it was a scheme that used telemarketers to offer "free" memberships to discount buying groups and travel clubs. The problem was that victims gave the telemarketers their banking information, and the scam artists took money out of their bank accounts without authorization.

And here's where it gets really interesting. Promoters of the fraud scheme used bank accounts at Wachovia to commit their frauds and steal millions from the victims. Now Wachovia is being sued for playing an active role in the fraud by providing their banking services. Wachovia even invited the scam artists to bank with them!

The authorities say Wachovia knew that the fraudulent telemarketers were committing crimes, but that they didn't do anything about it because they were profiting from the business. Ultimately, the fraudsters stole about $400 million, and Wachovia essentially "helped" them do it because the bank charged Suntasia a large fee each time a victim disputed a fraudulent transaction.

It will be interesting to see how this case plays out because I wonder what the courts will decide about companies playing a side role in a fraud they're aware of. Technically, I don't think Wachovia committed a fraud. But it seems that they allowed known fraudsters to use their systems and services to carry out the fraud. That doesn't seem right.

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.

Over 69,000 Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) complaints were lodged with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2006, according to a report released by the agency. These complaints related to the practices of third party debt collectors, and totaled almost 20% of all the complaints received by the FTC in 2006.

Is 69,000 a huge number? It depends upon how you look at it. The complaints were up from the previous year, which says something. However, debt collectors make millions of contacts with consumers each year, so the complaints are really a very small percentage based upon the total debt collection activity. The FTC does say, however, that they recognize that there are situations and complaints that go unreported to them.

The most common complaint the FTC receives about credit practices is that the debt collector is trying to collect more than the consumer owes or is trying to collect a debt that the consumer doesn't owe at all. If you're being handled in this way by a collection agency or other debt collector, by all means assert your rights against them and stand up for yourself.

Of course, if you've accrued legitimate interest and fees on the account, you probably don't have grounds to object. But if you believe the debt collector is trying to get you to pay something you really do not owe, take action. And that action probably should include complaining to the FTC. One way to make abusive debt collection practices stop is to report the behavior. Hopefully the FTC will take action on your behalf, and if the consequences are severe enough, collection agencies will be forced to follow the law.

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.