The Federal Trade Commission has reached settlements with eight marketers it says charged homeowners up-front fees and falsely claimed they could get their mortgage loans modified or prevent foreclosure on their homes.

Shifty home improvement contractors across Pennsylvania are under the gun.
Attorney General Tom Corbett has launched consumer protection lawsuits against seven contractors accused of failing to start work, collecting excessive down-payments, not finishing projects, performing work in a shoddy manner, failing to pay refunds, not honoring warranties and other violations of the state's Home Improvement Consumer Protection Act.

Pinnacle Security Group, LLC, a Utah-based home security company charged with using deceptive door-to-door sales tactics to trick New York homeowners into signing contracts for unnecessary services, has agreed to a settlement with the State of New York.
Illinois sued the firm last October, charging similar violations.

Everyone wants to feel safe and secure in his own home, which can make a sales pitch for an alarm system a tempting offer. Homeowners should be on guard, however, against door-to-door traveling alarm sales agents who use deceptive pitches or questionable tactics and who may sell substandard but costly merchandise or service contracts.

The owner of Apply2Save, a bankrupt Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, mortgage modification company, that allegedly defrauded hundreds of consumers nationwide is prohibited from ever operating a similar business in Idaho, according to Attorney General Lawrence Wasden.

With the weak state of the economy, many people understandably would like to sell the condos they purchased when times were good. But the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) urges consumers to exercise caution when using any of the many timeshare resellers.
So far this year, two states have taken action against timeshare resellers. In Vermont, Attorney General William Sorrell reached a settlement with Timeshare Relief, Inc., in which the company agreed to pay $140,000 for violations of state consumer laws.

An Ohio-based window manufacturer has settled allegations over erroneous energy-savings claims.
In a settlement with the Washington State Attorney General’s Office, Great Lakes Window, Inc. agrees not to make false or unsubstantiated representations about the energy efficiency of their window products.

September 3, 2010
Nothing is more aggravating than finding you've been charged for something you never wanted or agreed to buy. The State of Illinois, responding to thousands of complaints, has sued a California firm placing unauthorized charges on consumers' phone bills, a practice known as "cramming."

"Despicable," "outrageous," causing "tragic" consequences for victims, are phrases and words a federal judge used in sentencing a suburban Chicago man to prison for swindling some 75 victims -- many of whom lost their retirement funds and life savings.

Telephone-based phishing, or vishing, scams are nothing new. They rank among the most popular socially-engineered schemes perpetrated by fraudsters.
What is new is the latest target: the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which is warning of a vishing scam that is duping consumers.

The Illinois Attorney General's Office has settled the lawsuit against a Las Vegas corporation over charges it scammed money from small business owners in a practice known as "cramming." Cramming describes charges added onto phone bills for services consumers are unaware of, did not order or did not want.

Specifically, the indictment alleges that Lankford and McDade would find elderly property owners who wanted to sell their property with no listing agent. Lankford and McDade would then induce the elderly property owner to sell their home to one of them and enter into a "straight note" contract for a portion of the purchase price, under which the defendant would make interest-only payments to the seller for five to 10 years, with the principal amount owed to the seller at the end of that period.

While problems plaguing the housing market get all the headlines, owners of timeshares also have their problems. The market for timeshares has declined, along with the market for homes and condos.

A jury in Houston has returned a $13.8 million verdict against a credit repair business and its owner, finding they defrauded indebted Texans and failed to register with authorities in violation of state law.

The crackdown on consultants promising desperate homeowners they can “rescue” them from impending foreclosure continues. The State of Florida has sued three South Florida companies allegedly charging upfront fees for their services.

A New York City postal worker has been found guilty of participating in a massive tax and mail-theft scheme involving Postal Service letter carriers and co-conspirators in the Dominican Republic. A U.S. District Court jury found Robert A. Warren guilty following a one-week trial.

The founder of a landbanking company that Guardian Money first featured three years ago, and which has left a £70m trail of debt, has reopened for business in Dubai, selling plots of land in Kent it calls Canary City to unsuspecting investors.

Three years ago, Graham Clements – the European managing director of the UK subsidiary of the Japanese packaging multinational Ishida – decided to get rid of his BlackBerry and passed it on to his IT department for recycling. At the start of this month, that BlackBerry was one of the top items on the agenda at the first board meeting that Clements had called since his return from holiday - because it, and the data on it, had come back to haunt him.

With a single, simple sentence, Bernie Madoff's shining reputation as a pillar of the Wall Street community collapsed. "It's all just one big lie," he told his family, admitting that his investment management business was corrupt, according to a complaint drawn up by the FBI.

From Hollywood to Tokyo, London and Jerusalem, furious victims are demanding answers. How could a 70-year-old man on the 17th floor of a Manhattan tower block fiddle the global financial community out of $50bn?

Taxpayers are being targeted by thousands of fraudulent emails claiming to come from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) as the self-assessment deadline draws closer.

Eight people were arrested today in connection with a suspected £40m mortgage fraud.

Nine people were being questioned yesterday by police investigating a multimillion pound buy-to-let mortgage fraud against one of Britain's best-known high street lenders. Detectives arrested the nine yesterday on suspicion of a £40m fraud against the Bradford and Bingley bank in a case which sources say is the tip of the iceberg in a mortgage market riddled with toxic debt.

Cremated ashes scattered in Malaysia's dense jungle may hold the secret of where more than £100m taken from savers in bust investment company Keydata ended up.