Consumer Fraud

The founder of a now-defunct credit counseling firm accused of cheating thousands of debtors is hiding assets even though he agreed to contribute millions of dollars to help repay the debtors, a court-appointed receiver told a federal judge Tuesday.

albany, n.y. -- The social networking website Facebook has been warned that it could face a consumer fraud charge for failing to live up to claims that youngsters there were safer from sexual predators than at most sites and that it promptly responded to concerns, a spokesman for New York Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday. "We expect an immediate correction eliminating the dangers exposed by our investigation," spokesman Jeffrey Lerner said.

Orange County authorities Friday were looking for dozens of people who may have been scammed by a man accused of posing as a contractor and taking homeowners' money before abandoning the jobs. Palavi Tonga, 28, was arrested Wednesday by Anaheim police and booked on three counts of grand theft, said Sgt. Rick Martinez. According to police, Tonga sought out three Anaheim homeowners, falsely telling them he was a licensed contractor and offering them low-cost repairs.

It's time for the top 10 scams of 2007. From cruel foreclosure frauds to Nigerian puppies -- in other words, from the tragic to near comical -- this was a banner year for consumer scams. Much like many other years. The Internet continued to provide a worldwide platform for fraudsters. New scams popped up and some old-fashioned schemes came back. So, without further ado, here's a countdown of infamous notables for the year. Hold your applause, and your wallet. 10.

More than a thousand customers didn't receive items they had ordered from a company that does business through Amazon.com Inc., forcing the massive online retailer to offer refunds. Amazon.com spokeswoman Patty Smith said Monday that the outside seller, which is listed as "Mygreatchoice," received outstanding customer ratings when it first began selling on Amazon.com in July. But Amazon.com noticed a big decline in customer satisfaction starting in late November. Seattle-based Amazon.

The founder of the credit counseling firm AmeriDebt agreed Monday to pay $35 million to settle suits filed by regulators and former customers over $172 million in allegedly hidden fees the company collected from financially strapped debtors. The money that Andris Pukke pays would go to a fund that would help reimburse the roughly 300,000 customers the Federal Trade Commission claimed that AmeriDebt Inc. deceived.

U.S. authorities said Wednesday that they had filed a lawsuit against five online companies, including one in California, alleging they had illegally sold confidential phone records. The Federal Trade Commission said it was asking a court to bar the sale of the phone records and force the companies to give up the money they made with their operations. "Trafficking in consumers' confidential telephone records is outrageous," FTC consumer protection chief Lydia Parnes said in a statement.

More than 2.8 million people in the U.S. paid to obtain credit cards, claim sweepstakes winnings and get in on lucrative investments that turned out to be too good to be true, officials said Tuesday as they announced hundreds of arrests in an international investigation. Authorities in five countries have arrested 565 people in fraud schemes that netted more than $1 billion.