Better Business Bureau of Southern Arizona is warning consumers against giving out personal information to unknown callers. Scammers have recently been using the name of legitimate law firms to trick victims across the country into giving out bank information, credit card numbers and other private information.

Victims report receiving calls from individuals using a fake name and an untraceable phone number, who say they work with a law firm in the victim’s area.

The callers claim the firm is suing the victim on behalf of a payday loan provider. The caller goes on to say the victim defaulted on a loan and demands payment and other personal information. Victims may not remember taking out such a loan, but some cases have been linked to security breaches at financial institutions.

There are other variations of this scam. Callers pretend to be law enforcement or government officials (more…)

You may be owed money if you paid a Washington-based company that sold search-engine optimization, shopping cart integration, web design and hosting services.

The Washington Attorney General’s office has announced that small businesses nationwide are potentially eligible for refunds, as a result of a consumer protection settlement with a group of defendants who used multiple business names since 2005.

However, there is a glitch because the state doesn’t have a way to directly contact those consumers who are potentially eligible. The defendants claim to have lost the contact information for former customers.

You may be eligible for a refund if you bought services from any of these companies and can provide proof of payment:

• White Crane Technologies
• TNT Cart
• Strada Technologies
• Cybercom Technologies
• Wizy-Wiz eCommerce
• ABC eCommerce

Refunds are only available to those whose complaints concern issues prior to December 3, 2010. Businesses or individuals who have already submitted complaints to the Washington AG’s Office do not have to submit new documentation, unless requested. Refund requests will be accepted for one year – up until March 29, 2012. Payments will be mailed after that date.

The companies were operated by Jeremy Avey, Alexander Martin and Brent Stanphill. The defendants are accused of misrepresenting the quality of their services, neglecting to deliver services as promised, providing poor customer service, not honoring money-back guarantees and making unauthorized charges to consumers’ debit and credit accounts. The defendants were also accused of failing to register as commercial phone solicitors.

Avey, Martin and Stanphill can still do business — as long as they don’t break any laws.

Instructions for submitting a restitution request can be found here.

Information about the case and legal documents can be found online at here.

The Department of Justice recently announced that it filed a civil antitrust lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. It challenges rules that credit card companies such as American Express, MasterCard and Visa have instituted that prevent merchants from offering consumer discounts, rewards and information about card costs. The rules ultimately result in consumers paying for more of their purchases. and increase merchants’ costs of doing business.

Simultaneously, the Department of Justice announced that it has reached a proposed settlement with Visa and MasterCard that if approved, would require the two credit card companies to permit merchants to offer discounts, incentives and information to consumers to encourage less costly payment methods.

The proposed settlement, along with the department’s competitive impact statement, will be published in The Federal Register, as required by the Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act.