The office of Colorado Attorney General John Suthers has filed a lawsuit against Real Talk Network, and its corporate officers, David Allen Burke and Erik Sale, on suspicion that they engaged in false and deceptive trade practices and violated Colorado's consumer credit laws.

A Vancouver, British Columbia, man has been sentenced to nine years in federal prison for running a fraudulent lottery scheme that targeted dozens of elderly Americans who lost at least $600,000.

July 28, 2010
Consumers, along with state and local consumer agencies were hit hard by the ailing economy last year.

A federal grand jury has -- in action prosecutors say is a first in the country -- indicted two people for their roles in a fraudulent credit history scheme that allegedly duped mortgage companies out of nearly $3 million.

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.

Some 2,000 desperate homeowners who paid a lawyer thousands of dollars to file "frivolous and phony" lawsuits that didn't reduce a penny of mortgage debt for a single client are getting some relief.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has charged the chairman of the U.S. Fallen Heroes Foundation with diverting the organization's charitable funds for his personal use.
Evan Walter Coleman, who also uses the name Walter E. Coleman, founded the U.S. Fallen Heroes Foundation in March 2010, ostensibly to construct a national memorial in Kennedale, Texas, for Iraq, Afghanistan and Gulf War veterans. Coleman abruptly resigned as the charity's chairman just one day before he was required to respond to a subpoena from the AG's office.

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.

Lee Bentley Farkas, the former chairman of a private mortgage lending company, Taylor, Bean & Whitaker (TBW), was convicted Tuesday for his role in a more than $2.9 billion fraud scheme that contributed to the failures of Colonial Bank, one of the 25 largest banks in the United States in 2009, and TBW, one of the largest privately held mortgage lending companies in the United States in 2009.

A New York man was arrested yesterday on charges of operating a $12 million Ponzi scheme from 2007 to 2010.

So far this year, the City watchdog has banned 12 mortgage brokers and one mortgage "introducer" across the UK for involvement in submitting false mortgage applications. Only this week, it "struck off" Sadia Nasir and fined her £129,000. Oddly, many of these hail from one small corner of east London.

The net seems to be tightening on dodgy mortgage brokers - but what about dodgy borrowers? What are the lies people tell to get mortgages? What happens if they get caught? Does anyone get caught?

Mortgage brokers will be targeted in a crackdown on mortgage fraud, the City regulator announced today.

The chief City regulator yesterday banned its 18th mortgage broker and issued its second big fine as part of a crackdown on home loans fraud. The Financial Services Authority announced disciplinary action against Omotayo Fawole.

An investigation has been launched into how a computer holding personal details of high street bank customers was sold on eBay for £35.

Information including the bank account numbers, phone numbers, mothers' maiden names and signatures of 1 million customers of American Express, NatWest and the Royal Bank of Scotland were reportedly found on the computer.

November 20 2007: Two computer discs holding personal information on 25 million people including 7.25 million families receiving child benefit are lost. The discs were sent via unrecorded internal mail. The information is unencrypted, prompting fears it could be used for fraud.

The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Tuesday November 11 2008

The failure of America's financial supervisor, the Securities and Exchange Commission, to spot the Bernie Madoff scandal is another blow to the embattled regulator after a year of criticism. Time and again US regulators have been accused of being asleep at the wheel.

The recession is driving increasing numbers of British workers to crime, according to new research, with fraud by company managers, employees and customers up threefold in the past year.

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.

The government is to tackle Britain's £14bn-a-year fraud industry with a new strategy to reduce the estimated £200-a-head annual cost of scams, swindles and dodgy deals. The launch of the scheme comes as figures reveal phone, internet and mail-order card fraud has doubled over the past four years.

The government is to tackle Britain's £14bn-a-year fraud industry in a bid to reduce the estimated £200-a-head annual cost of scams. The move comes as figures reveal that phone, internet and mail-order card fraud has doubled over the past four years.

In European high-stakes poker circles he goes by the name of "The Don", among Mayfair property magnates he calls himself Achilleas Kallakis, and when diplomatic affairs are the topic of the day he likes to be addressed as "His Excellency, ambassador of the Republic of San Marino to the Sultanate of Brunei".