Bogus

Skechers has agreed to pay $40 million to consumers who purchased its  rocker-bottom shoes under the mistaken belief that the shoes would help give them Kim Kardashian's booty or Joe Montana's stamina. So how do you get your piece of the payout if you purchased the shoes months, if not years ago, and don't have a receipt? No problem. This refund relies largely on the honor system. Anyone who purchased the company's line of Shape-Up shoes -- or its Resistance Runners, Tone-ups or Toners -- is entitled to a partial refund whether they have proof of purchase or not, officials said Thursday.

When the casket that was supposed to hold the earthly remains of Jim Davis was finally lowered into the ground, the only thing missing was the late Mr. Davis. The coffin had been weighed down to simulate the approximate heft of a corpse. And Jim Davis was not inside the box. Federal prosecutors said the phony funeral was among the inventive tricks that Jean Crump - a onetime Long Beach mortician - used to loot insurance companies out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. On Tuesday, she was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison.

Bogus funeral case: An article in Thursday's Section A on the arrest of two women accused of staging phony funerals to collect insurance money misspelled defendant Faye Shilling's surname as Schilling.

SACRAMENTO - Alarmed that pranksters have called 911 to report false emergencies at the homes of celebrities including Justin Bieber and Tom Cruise, two Southern California legislators have proposed laws to get tougher with anyone engaged in "swatting. " A bill announced Wednesday by state Sen. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) would allow longer sentences for and greater restitution from those convicted of making false reports to the police. Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca asked for the measure.

A former San Diego police officer pleaded not guilty Monday to a felony charge of perjury after he allegedly lied in court about his arrest of a drug suspect. John Doulette, a police officer for two years until his termination, is charged with lying on the witness stand about his procedures leading to the arrest of a man on suspicion of possessing cocaine. Because of Doulette's allegedly false testimony last year, the charges against Paul D. Bogus were dismissed. The state attorney general's office entered the case in March and filed the perjury charge against Doulette.

AT SKY BLUE FC Time: 1 p.m. PDT. On the air: None. Where: TD Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater, N.J. Records: Sol 1-0-0, Sky Blue 0-0-0. Record vs. Sky Blue: Debut season. Update: Having won the inaugural Women's Professional Soccer game by defeating the Washington Freedom, 2-0, in Carson on Sunday, the Sol in midweek further strengthened its attack. Coach Abner Rogers added former Arizona State striker Liz Bogus to his roster as a developmental player. Bogus, 25, scored 31 goals and assisted on 18 others in her four years at Arizona State, where she was a teammate of Sol midfielder/defender Manya Makoski.

Shame on CBS for its uncritical airing of "The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark" (Feb. 20), a bit of crank biblical apologetics that should have been identified as such. The program was laced with bogus science and misrepresentations of the most flagrant kind and should have been identified as such. "Noah's Ark" took advantage of the general public's ignorance and perpetuated it. Louis A. Mok, Los Angeles

I noticed in Allan Malamud's column that USC was proudly proclaiming that 71% of all their student-athletes and 75% of the football players were now graduating. That is an amazing accomplishment. I just have to wonder, however, how many of those graduates took that automatic A class that required neither attendance nor test taking. By the way, whatever happened to that NCAA and Pac-10 investigation into that bogus class? GREG HUYSMAN Fullerton Editor's note: The Pac-10 investigation continues.

A San Fernando Valley doctor and evangelical minister who federal prosecutors said used bogus herbal medications to offer false hope to dozens of people suffering from diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's was found guilty Tuesday of nearly a dozen federal charges. Twenty-eight victims or family members of victims who died while taking the products testified against Christine Daniel, 57, who was found guilty Tuesday on four counts of mail and wire fraud, six counts of tax evasion related to income tax filings as well as one count of witness tampering.

There's a star on the stage of the Great Western Forum. Immaculately dressed as always, 6-foot-1, tanned, not a hair out of place, he is a veteran of such very public appearances. In seminar after seminar, convention after convention, he has captivated thousands of people around the world with his charisma, sincerity and enthusiasm. But this appearance, on Feb. 19, 2000, is something special for Mark Reynolds Hughes.

Big, round numbers always get people's attention. Numbers such as $1 billion, which has been bandied about as the economic loss per day nationally from the eight-day strike that shut down most of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. That figure makes it sound as if several hundred port workers, members of Local 63 Office Clerical Unit of the Longshoremen's union, jeopardized the entire economy of Southern California, if not the entire nation. The corollary is How dare they? So let's put that figure in some context.

WASHINGTON - No one wants to take the blame for the housing bust in this political season, but scammers and rip-off artists in the hundreds are working overtime to siphon dollars out of the wreckage of the crash and its still-vulnerable victims. You've probably heard about the loan-modification predators who promise financially ailing homeowners that they'll prevent or forestall foreclosures - but are really after thousands of dollars in fees, for which they do nothing. Now the second-largest source of mortgage money in the country - Freddie Mac - is warning about a troubling wave of post-crash fraud: scammers who illegally rent out foreclosed and for-sale homes to unsuspecting consumers.

WASHINGTON -- It didn't take long for the Republican establishment to back away from Todd Akin, the Missouri congressman and Senate candidate who declared in an interview on Sunday that the female body can somehow prevent pregnancy after a “legitimate rape.” Akin himself eventually walked back the comment, saying that he had misspoken in “off-the-cuff remarks,” and that, “to be clear, all of us understand that rape can result in...

Here is a roundup of alleged cons, frauds and schemes to watch out for. Alcoholism treatment — A federal judge has ordered the marketers of a phony alcoholism cure to pay more than $700,000 in penalties. The Federal Trade Commission and the Florida attorney general's office had accused Alcoholism Cure Corp., also known as ACF, of marketing ineffective supplements to treat alcoholism and threatening to expose customers' alcoholism if they asked for a refund. The fine will be used to repay victims, the FTC said.

This post has been corrected. Please see note at bottom for details . WASHINGTON - Doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers from around the nation - 107 in all - were  charged Wednesday in what federal officials in Washington called a “nationwide takedown” against medical professionals they said fraudulently billed Medicare out of nearly half a billion dollars in bogus claims. The sweep of arrests in seven major cities, where some $455 million was allegedly fraudulently billed, marked the highest amount of false claims in a single raid in the history of the federal strike force.

WASHINGTON - Doctors, nurses and social workers from across the country, 107 in all, were charged in what federal officials in Washington called a "nationwide takedown" of medical professionals accused of fraudulently billing Medicare out of nearly half a billion dollars. The amount of bogus Medicare claims, totaling about $452 million, was the highest in a single raid in the history of a federal strike force combating rising fraud in the medical industry, according to the Justice Department.

Howard Cohen has received dozens of calls from "Rachel" at "card member services. " At first he thought they must be from his credit card issuer. Now he knows better. "It's a scam," Cohen, 67, of Fontana told me. "All they want is to get you into some new credit card with a higher interest rate - or worse. " The "worse" in this case is possibly having your identity stolen and bogus charges run up on your plastic. The Web is dripping with complaints from consumers nationwide about the "Rachel" calls.

Debt. Banks have it, big time, as a result of bad investments, but they're getting a helping hand from the federal government. If you have overwhelming debt -- also from bad investments, or maybe a job loss, a medical crisis or just plain overspending -- you're probably on your own. Credit counseling groups claim they want to help you -- it's hard to turn on the television or radio these days without hearing their advertisements. Some promise to make your debts disappear, almost like magic.

As if there wasn't enough to worry about on the healthcare front, now comes yet another report of counterfeit prescription drugs being found. The Food and Drug Administration is warning doctors and hospitals that, for the second time this year, it's come across a batch of bogus Avastin, a drug used to treat cancers of the colon, lung, kidney and brain. This obviously has enormous ramifications for patients. At best, they could take a medicine that has no effect. At worst, they could experience even more medical trouble.

Here's your walk-like-an-Egyptian Wednesday roundup of consumer news from around the Web: --How do you sell merchandise for a green movie? With green businesses, of course . The Lorax, perhaps the most famous anti-industrial crusader from children's literature, is getting just such treatment. Universal Pictures will begin promoting "Dr. Seuss' The Lorax" this month. The animated movie is about a creature who "speaks for the trees" and fights rampant industrialism. The studio's nearly 70 launch partners -- including the Environmental Protection Agency and Whole Foods Market -- are seeking to latch on to the Lorax's nature-friendly message.