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In November, the unemployment rate hit a 14-year high of 6.7 percent. For people who prey on unemployed workers, the high jobless rate is an opportunity to scam vulnerable job seekers out of their money and personal data. Scam artists know that when times get rough and bills are due, even the most sophisticated job hunters can fall prey to their employment schemes. That's why all job seekers should educate themselves about job scams. Many involve either work-from-home projects or online jobs. The ads are enticing: "Earn $200 a day just by clicking a mouse." "Make $50 to $250 an...

Melamine Found in Chocolate Products From China South Korea's food watchdog has detected quantities of melamine, an industrial chemical, in chocolate products from foodstuff giants Nestle SA, Mars Inc. and South Korea's Lotte that were manufactured in China, Yonhap News reported Saturday. The Korea Food and Drug Administration (KFDA) said 2.38 parts per million (ppm) and 1.78 ppm of the toxic substance was discovered in samples of M&M's Milk and Peanut Snickers Fun Size products, respectively, from Mars Korea. A Kit Kat bar from Nestle Korea was also found to contain 2.89 ppm of melamine, the agency said. The...

Excerpt - Responding to a wave of consumer complaints, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said it will bar telemarketers from making prerecorded sales calls unless a consumer explicitly agrees to receive such calls. The FTC also will require all recorded sales calls to provide an opt-out feature to allow consumers to place themselves on the caller's do-not-call list immediately. ~ snip ~

Politics: With gasoline and oil prices going down, what's a crusading lawmaker to do? Change gears and go after the next capitalist monster.The latest dragon to be slain is the one that makes life-enhancing and lifesaving drugs. Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Charles Schumer of New York, Democrats both, asked the Government Accountability Office last week to investigate price hikes in the pharmaceutical industry. This follows Klobuchar's request in April that the Federal Trade Commission open a probe of Ovation Pharmaceuticals, a company that raised prices on four medications in 2006 by up to 3,436%, USA Today reports. Express...

Consumer Protection or Legal Extortion? Daily Article by S.M. Oliva   |   Posted on 7/10/2008 On April Fool's Day of this year, New Mexico resident Mark Hershiser received a letter from Erika Wodinsky, a San Francisco attorney, demanding Hershiser turn over all revenue from Native Essence Herb Company, a small business co-owned by Hershiser and his wife Marianne. The letter was not a joke or a mistake. It was a premeditated act of extortion by Ms. Wodinsky. She had never met or spoken with Hershiser; her staff discovered Native Essence through its modest website.Internet scams and predators are...

This is from Bob Casey Jr. (Senate, D-PA) letter to the head of the FTC, as posted on his own website (http://casey.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/?id=03D35646-FA50-4BE0-B8D7-D1B377D5F2AF)..."For example, the section of the FTC report on gas prices post-Hurricane Katrina found that, even with local and regional market differences taken into account, eight of the 30 oil refiners audited increased their prices at least five cents more than the national average. These same firms also reported increased profits, which logically means that the increased prices were not necessary to cover bottom line costs. " That's right, he is worrying about five cents per gallon in 2006...

Antitrust experts call the agency's effort a long shot. By Lori Hawkins AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Thursday, October 25, 2007 The Federal Trade Commission is making a last-ditch effort to unwind Whole Foods Market's purchase of its biggest rival, even though the deal is done. Despite losing a battle in a federal district court to block the deal in August, the FTC has not given up the fight. On Monday, the agency responded to a Whole Foods motion to formally dismiss the case with another filing. It said the appeal is still relevant and asked an appeals court in Washington to set...

In the New York Times, Gary Cross, a professor of history at Pennsylvania State University, pens a confusing op-ed on the dangers of, not only outsourcing toy manufacturing, but allowing "licensed toys" (Dora, Barbie, etc...) from being introduced to kids. "Young people" just haven't developed the critical judgment necessary to, gulp, deal with "consumerism." Like any good nannyist, Cross uses a scare (the recent Mattel recall, in this case) to kick things off. We quickly jump to commercials. ….In the early 1970s, child advocates like Action for Children's Television recognized that television ads for toys had a magical power over...

The cherished dinner hour void of telemarketers could vanish next year for millions of people when phone numbers begin dropping off the national Do Not Call list. The Federal Trade Commission, which oversees the list, says there is a simple fix. But some lawmakers think it is a hassle to expect people to re-register their phone numbers every five years. Numbers placed on the registry, begun in June 2003, are valid for five years. For the millions of people who signed onto the list in its early days, their numbers will automatically drop off beginning next June if they do...

Three men who ran a now-defunct telemarketing company were charged Friday in an alleged $75 million scam to defraud customers and potential clients into paying for Internet-related services without their consent. GoInternet.net Inc. president and chief executive officer Tyrone Barr, vice president Neal Saferstein and chief information officer Billy Light were charged in a 26-count federal indictment for allegedly scamming customers from March 2001 to April 2004. GoInternet telemarketers would dupe potential customers into receiving an information packet, which was designed to look like junk mail so that it would be thrown away, authorities said. Investigators said that receiving the...

New Study Shows Broadcast TV Family Hour Fare Filthier Than Ever Fox is the worst broadcast network overall LOS ANGELES, September 6, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A new Parents Television Council study of Family Hour programming conclusively shows that children watching television during the first hour of prime time are assaulted by violence, profanity or sexual content once every 3.5 minutes of non-commercial airtime. During the 2006-2007 study period, almost 90% of the 208 television shows reviewed contained objectionable content. The PTC found that Fox is the worst broadcast network overall, noting its 20.78 instances of violent, profane and sexual content...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal antitrust regulators have cleared Cerberus Capital Management's $7 billion purchase of Chrysler, two people close to the deal said Tuesday. The Federal Trade Commission made its decision before the end of a standard 30-day review, according to two people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. Early termination of an FTC review typically signifies there will be no conditions placed on the deal.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The Federal Trade Commission has opened an antitrust investigation into Google Inc.'s proposed $3.1 billion purchase of ad-management technology company DoubleClick Inc. The review of the deal was widely expected after Mountain View-based Google announced plans last month to acquire DoubleClick, a company that helps its customers place and track online advertising. New York-based DoubleClick helps its customers place and track online advertising, including search ads, which Google -- more than its nearest search competitors Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. -- has turned into an extremely lucrative business. DoubleClick had been the target of a fierce...

The financial services industry, hoping to befuddle the new Congress, has been busily laying down a smokescreen claiming that identity theft is on the wane. But the Federal Trade Commission's latest compilation of consumer complaints and a survey by the National Crime Prevention Council should do much to clear the air. The FTC's complaint list was dominated by -- guess what? -- identity theft and fraud issues for the seventh year in a row. Identity theft complaints to the FTC totaled nearly 250,000, a whopping 36 percent of the total number of complaints the agency received in 2006. Credit card...

Macquarie to buy newspaper chain; critics fear it's to silence Trans-Texas Corridor opponents. One of the foreign firms leasing the Indiana Toll Road is drawing suspicion from some Texans after announcing plans to acquire a chain of small newspapers there. Australia-based Macquarie Media Group last week said it will pay $80 million for American Consolidated Media, which publishes 40 community newspapers and shopping publications serving nine communities in Texas and Oklahoma. Macquarie's sister company, Macquarie Infrastructure Group, last year joined with the Spanish conglomerate Cintra to lease the Indiana Toll Road for the next 75 years. Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels...

With all the recent news stories of debt collectors landing in prison or being taken out of business for illegal and strong arm tactics, I thought i'd share with my fellow Freepers a great resource to help if you ever have to deal with a scumbag debt collector. http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs27-debtcoll.htm This link has resources to use if dealing with collection agencies/collectors, your rights, links to the FTC, sample letters and more. I hope this is helpful to some Freepers who've been hounded rightly or wrongly by this pretty much unregulated billion dollar a year industry.

US firms accuse Qualcomm of unfair practices in South Korea SEOUL, July 3, 2006 (AFP) - Two US technology firms have filed a complaint with South Korea's antitrust watchdog accusing US mobile phone chip developer Qualcomm of abusing its market dominance, officials have said. The Fair Trade Commission (FTC), a state organization watching for fair trade, said the complaint was lodged by Texas Instruments and Broadcom. "Qualcomm was accused of selling its handset chips bundled with other chip products by using its market dominance," an FTC official said. Qualcomm has monopoly market status in South Korea as the sole supplier...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Trade Commission, responsible for protecting Americans from fraud and identity theft, reported on Thursday the theft of two of its own computers with personal information about 110 people. The incident was the latest in a series of recent thefts and data breaches involving government computers. The Veterans Affairs Department said last month an external hard drive containing information on 26.5 million veterans was stolen. The Energy Department discovered personal information about 1,500 employees and contractors was compromised in a cyberattack, and the Agriculture Department said a hacker may have obtained data about 26,000 of its...

In the film-noir movie "Key Largo," a scheming Edward G. Robinson brags about manipulating an election by continually "counting votes" -- until he reached the proper "outcome." "Yeah," says Robinson's character, "how many of those guys in office owe everything to me? I made 'em. Yeah, I made 'em, just like a tailor makes a suit of clothes. . . . Get my boys to bring the voters out, and then count the votes over and over again 'til they added up right and he was elected." This brings us to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) head Deborah Platt Majoras, ordered...

What's up with Chuck Schumer and oil prices? As part of last summer's energy bill, Congress asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate claims that oil companies were price-gouging. Then, when gas prices soared in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Sen. Charles Schumer and then-Sen. Jon Corzine wrote to nudge the FTC on the issue: "We fear that some of the fluctuation and inconsistencies in gas prices are a result of price-gouging at the pump. Price-gouging must not be tolerated, and we must do more to make sure that oil companies and gas-station owners are operating . . . within...