Online criminals are having a harder and harder time tricking Web sites into shipping items purchased with stolen credit cards.  So the bad guys are getting consumers to do their dirty work. By routing stolen packages through innocent consumers in inventive ways, criminals have sometimes been able to gain the upper hand in the cat and mouse game against fraud fighters inside electronic commerce firms.

Here's a warning any consumer, online or offline, should hear:  If you get an unexpected package delivered to your house, be very careful. If you agree to return the package, you might unwittingly be helping a criminal.

The scam is almost impossible for consumers to spot.  So here are some tips on what to look for.

It's called a "call-tag scam," after the name of the shipping returns method exploited by the criminals. Retailers  can initiate and pay for shipping returns by calling their delivery firm and issuing a "call tag" for merchandise. It's a hassle-free return method for consumers, because a delivery truck driver simply shows up, rings the doorbell, and takes back the merchandise.

But apparently it's become a hassle-free method for theft, too. Criminals had luck with it during the holiday season, fraud experts say. Six of the top 100 e-commerce sites report they've been victims of it recently, according Julie Ferguson, co-chair of the Merchant Risk Council -- a consortium of firms that put their heads together in an effort to fight online fraud. The group includes most of the nation's large online retailers, including Expedia.com, Costco, Best Buy, and Barnes & Noble.

What going on?
Criminals using a stolen credit card order merchandise from an online retailer, such as an office supply store. But the criminals don't have it shipped it to their own address, which could alert the Web site's fraud fighting software.  Instead, the merchandise is shipped to an innocent consumer -- sometimes the rightful holder of the stolen credit card.

Now, the criminals switch hats.  They call the consumer, posing as the online merchant, and they have a good story ready. They tell the consumer the item was shipped by accident, and that a delivery truck driver will soon come by to pick up the package.

Behind the scenes, the criminal has stolen a corporate account at a major shipping company and issued a call tag. When the doorbell rings, the consumer simply has to hand the package to the legitimate shipping company driver -- and has now unwittingly helped a criminal.  The package is actually not returned, but instead delivered to a new address of the criminal's choosing, probably a pre-arranged, safe "drop, " such as an empty house near the thief.

The shipping company that's sent to the consumer's home to pick up the package is different from the company used to make the initial delivery, to avoid alarming the shipper's scam-fighting software. For example, if a laptop computer was ordered and shipped via FedEx, the criminal would issue a call tag for pickup by UPS. The process is called "skipping" carriers.

Works like a charm
The scam often works like a charm, Ferguson said, because consumers generally want to be helpful.

"(The criminal) calls and says, 'Hi, we're really sorry ... please set it out on the doorstep,' most people would do that and wouldn't think twice about it," she said.

That's why the council has decided to issue a warning to its members, and to alert consumers. If the criminal can successfully order merchandise using a consumer's credit card, ship it to that consumer, and get that consumer to "return" the item this way -- the scam is nearly impossible to stop.

About two years ago, so-called re-shipping scams spiked in popularity.  Criminals began posting help wanted advertisements in all the major online job boards, offering work-at-home positions with shipping companies.  While the jobs come with a variety of titles and descriptions, they all boil down to this: consumers are asked to receive packages and forward them to different addresses, generally overseas.  Despite repeated warnings from officials, the scam thrives today.

Criminals have also turned to online dating sites for the same purpose. After an initial seduction, theives posing as suitors ask their would-be lovers to forward packages and money to them.

But the call-tag scam takes this triangulation to a new level, since it involves very little action by the consumer.  And the pool of victims is not limited to online daters and job seekers.

"Really, anyone can be a victim," Ferguson said.

Called 'very rare'
UPS spokesman Steve Holmes said the call-tag scam is "very rare," but when it happens, high-tech equipment is usually targeted.  Holmes said re-shipping scams were still far more common than call-tag scams. Generally, UPS reimburses merchants impacted by the call tag scam.

Richard Gibbs, a spokesman for DHL, said his firm had seen evidence of the scam, and that it was actively investigating ways to combat it.

A FedEx spokesman said the company would not comment on call tag scams. 

Ferguson said some shippers might not even detect the crime, because the call-tag shipments can appear to be normal business.

Consumers who receive unexpected packages should take extra steps before returning them, Ferguson said.  If they receive a phone call from an operator who claims to be from a retail store, the consumer should ask for a name and phone number, hang up, look up the retailer on the Internet, and call the store's general number. Then, ask for customer service or fraud prevention and relay the information to the operator there.   If it's a scam, it'll become obvious in no time.

Added Feb. 28, 11 a.m. ET: At the suggestion of several commenters, I've added a bit more to the scam's explanation above. The critical addition explains that the item is "returned" to an address of the criminal's choosing, rather than to the retailer. Since the second shipper knows nothing of the first, there's no way for either to detect something unusual is going on. 

Jackson He is a New York resident who liked the convenience of E-ZPass -- until New York state started removing an extra $1 from his account every month.

The fee was news to He, who just recently noticed it at the bottom of a list of itemized toll booth visits in his transaction statement. But actually, New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority began slipping the $1 fee onto his bills in July. 

"The charge is small enough that most people may not realize," He said.

E-ZPass, the congestion-buster, the electronic wonder, the discount toll booth collector, always seemed like a great deal. Today, for Jackson and millions of other New York users, it's not quite as good a deal.  And in the future, the real price of E-ZPass for drivers all around the country could be quite a bit more.

Before I can be accused of making a mountain out of $1, let's be clear -– this is not a $1 fee. It's a $12 annual membership tax, which drivers must pay for the right to pay tolls. The issue is starting to boil over in New York, and earlier this month, state Sen. Michael Balboni, R-Nassau County, introduced legislation that would roll back the fee.

But to me this $1 fee is a sign of things to come.

With E-ZPass, as with so many situations involving consumer privacy and disclosure, consumers do not face a fair choice -- not when the rules of the game can be changed. When you sign up for an E-ZPass, you do not know what you are giving away. When you agree to let a government contractor track your every move on highways across the Northeast, you do not know what possible consequence that could hold for you some day. Perhaps you believe you've received an agreement from your government that indicates the data collected will not be misused. Agreements, as you should know by now, can be changed.

What will next year's fee be?
Just ask Jackson He. When he signed up for E-ZPass, it cost him $1 a month less than it does now.  And what choice do New York drivers have? There is no alternative electronic toll booth collection system to join. He and all other New Yorkers are captive consumers; that guarantees that the E-ZPass deal will only get worse as time goes on. 

Today, the fee is $1.  What will it be next year?  That's one of the arguments put forward by Robert Sinclair, spokesman for AAA in New York. The association has roundly criticized both the Metropolitan Transit Authority and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for adding the $1 fee.

"We're being nickel and dimed to death," he said.  Not long ago, New Yorkers were forced to pay a $1 surcharge on insurance policies to create a fund for fighting motor vehicle theft and insurance fraud.  "Now it's a $5 surcharge."  The rules were changed.

For those not in the Northeast's toll road zone, here's a bit of background.  Toll booths create significant, frustrating bottlenecks all across the Northeast. E-ZPass users buy a small electronic device that broadcasts a radio signal and stick it on their windshields.  Then, instead of digging through pockets for change, E-ZPass users just drive through toll booths -- sometimes at highway speeds -- and a computer automatically deducts the toll fee from their accounts. 

Resistance is futile
E-ZPass has spread like wildfire, and it's now in 11 states.  Like supermarket loyalty cards, the economic penalty for non-users is so high it is now almost impossible to avoid signing up with E-ZPass. The discounts are sizable. Drivers across New York's Tappan Zee bridge pay $4; E-ZPass users can pay only $2. Meanwhile, E-ZPass cuts their commute times significantly.  And, the number of human-attended booths on roadways like the New Jersey Turnpike keeps dropping, making E-ZPass almost impossible to resist.  What could be more coercive for non E-ZPass users on long lines than to watch wistfully as others fly through the electronic toll booths and speed on. Only a fool would resist E-ZPass.

But who is the greater fool?  Recently, officials in Massachusetts said they would no longer replace E-ZPass devices that broke. Consumers now have to pay about $25 for new ones. Since battery life on the devices is 5-7 years, that's another fee all drivers will eventually have to pay for the right to pay tolls.  Of course, the discounts offered through E-ZPass far outweigh the New York $1 fee, or the Massachusetts replacement fee. But for how long?

In an eloquently written note titled "Evils of E-ZPass and an Alternate Solution," blogger DonXML describes another problem with E-ZPass fees, discounts, and rules -- they obscure the true price of a toll. Drivers on the New Jersey Turnpike know they're paid $6.45 in cash to cross the state.  It says so on their ticket.  But E-ZPass drivers?  The rate they pay is based on a formula, including discounts, penalties for driving at peak times, and who knows what else some day. Confusion always benefits the people who make the rules. Ultimately, price confusion will not be good for drivers in the northeast.

It's never a fair deal when one party can change the terms after an agreement has been signed, and the other party can't really get out of the deal. But the same cavalier changing-the-rule-in-the-middle-of-the-game attitudes should hint at much graver concerns.  What about E-ZPass privacy promises?

Will the privacy rules be changed?
No doubt, you've heard stories about law enforcement agencies obtaining toll collection data to assist in investigations. In one reported case, 30 New York police detectives were reassigned after E-ZPass records suggested they were making false overtime claims. While there are obstacles that stand in the way of E-ZPass records at law enforcement officials, there are state legislative proposals designed to make the records even easier for investigators to scour.

It is hardly a long leap to imagine E-ZPass records could figure in divorce cases, private lawsuits, even other kinds of employee monitoring. In fact, it's likely we can't today imagine the potential privacy pitfalls of the data E-ZPass systems collect and store.

Of course, there are plenty of promises that the records will not be used in such frivolous ways, will not turn into some sort of de facto tracking too.

But then, the rules can change.  When Jackson He signed up for E-ZPass, there was no monthly fee. 

Given the kinds of topics covered here, The Red Tape Chronicles could easily have alternate names.  Like these: "Fine Print Chronicles," "Small Print Chronicles" or "Asterisk Chronicles."

There are just so many stories about consumers getting screwed because they didn't read the small print. And every time I do one of these stories, like last week's story about the problems with "90 days same as cash" deals at electronics stores, a debate rages among those who take the time to leave comments on the blog. 

Whose fault is it when consumers don't read or misunderstand fine print? After all, aren't we all personally responsible for what we sign?  It's a fair question.  So recently I've set about investigating the world of fine print. 

My reporting began on Highway 522 in a Seattle suburb.  I spotted a billboard with the words "Free Internet Bill Pay" in enormous, 20-foot letters. 

Actually, I left something out.  It really read, "Free Internet Bill Pay*"

I don't know how fast you read, but perhaps you missed that asterisk as your eyes flew by that paragraph. I can tell you that at 50 miles per hour, a lot of people miss the asterisk when they fly by on Highway 522. But being sensitized to asterisks now, I spotted it.  And I decided to investigate. I hit the brakes hard, made a legal U-turn, and circled back to have a look at the billboard again.

I passed the board, did another U-turn, and pulled over to the shoulder for a closer look.   From the highway, I could see there was a blurb of text at the bottom of the sign.  But even at a standstill, it was far too small to read from my vantage point. 

Fortunately, I have a pickup truck, so I was able to drive across the highway, yet again, and ramble over near the foot of the sign stanchion at the side of the road for a closer look. 

But even that didn't work. Now, because of my close-in angle, the platform under the billboard that supports the lights blocked off the bottom third of the sign.  I could still read "Free Internet Bill Pay*" well enough.  But I couldn't possibly see what the asterisk indicated.

Again, I felt glad to have a pickup truck, and I refused to be deterred.  I dropped the lift-gate, climbed into the bed, then up onto the roof of my cab. With that improved angle,  I was able to see the important terms and conditions of this bank's offer.

"*See banker for details."

Now I am a big believer in personal responsibility.  The answer is, yes, we are all responsible for what we sign.  In fact, as you can see, I do think people should be responsible for going to some lengths to find the devil in the details when they are making purchases or signing contracts. 

But cheating is cheating.  Misleading is misleading. Obfuscating is obfuscating. None of that philosophical personal responsibility talk should be used as a rationalization to allow companies to do things they know will mislead many people. Consumers should never have to climb on the roof of a truck to read the fine print.  It's time to draw the line somewhere.  It's time to call a spade a spade. 

There's fine print, and there's minuscule print
So, here's a spade.  The other day I saw an offer from Comcast for cable, Internet and phone service.  Get all three for less than $85 a month, the mailed postcard read on the front.  On the back, the deals were split out with more detail -- $30 for cable, $30 for telephone, $25 for Internet.  In a font size that was about one-eighth the size, the company included the phrase "month for 3 months" next to each price. OK, that would tip most people off that that the price is just a tease, and it will go up after an initial period.

The question is, what's the real price?  What happens after three months? Finding that was much harder than climbing onto the roof of my truck.

The Comcast postcard is 5 inches tall and 11 inches wide.  Below the price listing I just mentioned, running all the way across the bottom half-inch of the card, is what could only be described as minuscule print.  Fine print implies it can be read.  Minuscule print, on the other hand, could easily be mistaken for dirt smudges. Only with the aid of modern technology could this typeface be printed on the card. 

I have better than average eyesight; I could not read it.  The font size couldn't be larger than 2 points; and that might be generous. But that's not the only reason it's unreadable.

The words run across the entire 11-inch card.  At that font size, that means there were 63 words on a single line of text, an impossible amount to follow.  For comparison purposes, I picked up the nearest book and counted a line of text. It had 12 words on it.  Reading across a line of text is something designers call "tracking." Poor designs make tracking very hard, and readers tend to give up when they have to track too far.  I can tell you that I still have not read this Comcast paragraph of text because I physically cannot track that long.  It was hard enough just counting the words on a single line.  That alone gave me a pretty good headache.

The quest continues
So, to find out the true price of the service, I had to randomly hunt around this sea of text.  I did find some important information using this method, like this: "Additional monthly charge of $10 will apply for customers who do not qualify for multi-product discount."  And this: "Equipment (including cable modem) is required and unless specifically included in offer, must be rented at Comcast's standard rates or purchased at retail."

Then, after a bit more looking, I spotted the information I needed.  Kind of.

"AFTER PROMOTIONAL PERIOD REGULAR MONTHLY RATES APPLY."

And that was it.  What those monthly rates are -- I have no idea. They are not on the card. 

I will give Comcast this; that monthly rate notice is in all caps.  One can only imagine that someone inside the firm's promotion department had a moment of conscience about the 2-point font thing. But not enough to actually say on the postcard the ONLY INFORMATION THAT ACTUALLY MATTERS TO CONSUMERS.  That being, how much Comcast's services really cost.

I will continue to investigate this question of whose fault it is when consumers don't read the fine print.  In fact, I will go purchase a magnifying glass for that very purpose.  But early results seem to indicate that it's not always consumers' fault when they don't understand all the conditions of the contracts they sign.  They'd also suggest corporations are stretching the boundaries of fairness very far, and they have little fear of censure.

I'd invite those who think otherwise to look around at the offers they receive in the mail, or to slow down and look at a few billboards on the way home from work tonight.

In the meantime, if you have a few of your own egregious examples of fine print or asterisk details, feel free to post them here.

It certainly sounds like an offer that's too good to pass up: "18 Months Same as Cash." It's free money. It's an interest-free loan. And that plasma TV sure would look good in the living room. How can you go wrong? 

Here's how: What if that $1,500 same-as-cash loan ended up costing you an extra $472?

That's the prospect that recently faced Steve Monteith, who bought a very flat, very slick LCD TV 18 months ago from Best Buy. He didn't need the loan, but figured he shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.  So he took the same-as-cash deal. But because of a hidden fee he didn't understand, he could face nearly $500 in additional costs. 

If you bought yourself a huge television to watch the Super Bowl, or got the family a new computer at Christmas, and you took one of these unbeatable deals, you better read on,  Monteith's story should send you scurrying for your receipt.

"What's a debt cancellation fee?," Monteith thought as he looked at his installment bills every month.   On his statement was a line that looked something like this:
"Debt Cancellation - $5.34"
But he didn't think about it much, and kept paying off his television balance in 18 even payments.  That is, until he made what he thought was his last payment last month. 

Next came a statement which said he owed the firm $168 in unpaid debt cancellation fees. 

"I never signed up for anything like that," Monteith said. He had no idea what debt cancellation could be. "I figured it was the interest I would be paying if I didn't pay in full, or something like that."

The catch with "same as cash"
There's quite a gotcha in Monteith's "Same as cash," agreement, and in most such agreements. If he misses a payment, even by one day, even when the loan is down to a few dollars, he gets ambushed with high interest charges.  And not just a high rate on his outstanding balance. He would have to pay interest retroactive from day one.  So Monteith might have had to pay $304 in accrued interest along with the charge for this debt cancellation phantom fee.

Here's the explanation for this part of the story.  Same As Cash deals aren't really free loans. They are more like a suspended sentence.  The interest really does rack up, and usually at a very high rate, like 21 percent. But it's suspended, while the consumer lives in "good behavior" under the terms of this credit probation. But one slip-up, and all that interest is immediately due. 

That's the game you're playing if you opt for a "same-as-cash" purchase. Obviously, many consumers make a mistake at some point during the 18 months, and suddenly that good deal on a free loan is now a very bad, very expensive loan.  But, very responsible consumers can still win the game.

Credit insurance by any other name
What happened to Monteith is that he was signed up for something called debt cancellation, which is very similar to credit insurance -- once commonly offered by credit card issuers. Consumers pay a few dollars a month, based on an outstanding balance of the loan, and if they die or are incapacitated, the loan is forgiven.

But debt cancellation is a relatively new development, slightly different but much preferred by retailers. Debt cancellation doesn't involve a third-party insurance company, so the retailer and its credit partner keep all the revenue.  Also, it's been deemed a non-insurance product by federal regulators. That's important, because many state insurance regulators now limit the price of credit insurance, and mandate clear disclosures.  Debt cancellation, on the other hand, is hardly regulated at all.

Perhaps that's why Monteith doesn't recall signing up for debt cancellation.  It might have been on a form he signed, but he doesn't remember. It might have simply been offered by the store clerk verbally, but he doesn't recall the conversation. Or it might have been added on without his knowledge. 

But what Monteith knows for sure is he didn't want it. And what consumer advocates know for sure is it's always a bad deal.  Debt cancellation really insures the store, not the consumer, who is generally dead at the rare times the policy is invoked.  The store gets paid, even when the consumer is no longer in a position to care. As with credit insurance, consumers should always decline the product, says consumer advocate Birny Birnbaum, from the Center for Economic Justice.

"This does nothing for consumers," says Birnbaum, who is the former chief economist of the Texas Department of Insurance. "It's 99 percent profit for the companies. Just say no, no, no, no."

Is there something you're not telling me?
But Monteith said he never even had the chance to say no.  The amount just landed on his bill.

Best Buy passed calls about Monteith's situation along to HSBC Retail Services, which handles the company's retail credit programs.  HSBC spokeswoman Anita Black said Monteith must have signed up for the service, because enrollment in the firm's debt cancellation program requires consumers to sign an extra box on credit applications indicating they want the service. She did concede that consumers could accidentally sign the box while filling out the rest of the application, but said the firm has dealt with the problem by telling store sales representatives to be more clear with consumers. 

"We are trying to make sure there's better training systems at the point of sale," she said. Applicants also receive confirmation that they've signed up for the service through the mail, Black said.

However it got on his bill, Monteith never wanted it there.  And for him, it all ads up to a big caution for same-as-cash deals.

"It appears to be a free loan.  But I guess this is their way of saying it's not really free," he said.

After receiving MSNBC.com's inquires into the situation, Black said HSBC decided to forgive Monteith's $168 in unpaid debt cancellation fees.

It's not clear how common Monteith's situation is.  Bob Hunter, the insurance specialist at the Consumer Federation of America, said he's received a few similar complaints, but not many.  It's offered by retailers in many industries, particularly electronics and furniture stores.  There's a smattering of complaints on consumer-oriented Web sites like RipOffReport.com.

In some cases, consumers who get same as cash deals claim they have been told they "have to have" some kind of insurance to get the deal – a tactic sometimes used by auto dealers to trick consumers into extended warrantees. Of course, debt cancellation is not obligatory.

How can you protect yourself from this situation Monteith is in? Read everything, and don't trust the sales rep to tell you everything you need to know. But Hunter suggests consumers go one step farther:

"You have to ask something like, 'Is there something you're going to bill me for that you haven't told me about?"   Is there anything I'm not aware of?"

It's a bit like asking the fox if he will guard the chickens well.  But as long as you remember you're dealing with a fox that might not tell you what he's not telling you, it's a good question to ask. 

If you are alone this Valentine's Day, feel free to go ahead and blame online dating services.

It seems everybody else is.

After years of skyrocketing 70 percent or 80 percent growth, online dating revenues have leveled off, according to a recent study. Subscriber numbers are actually falling slightly.  And there's a growing rap sheet for the services.  A lawsuit claims dating services create fake women to keep subscribers paying; Nigerian con artists have used dating sites to bilk women out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

Even The New York Times best-seller "Freakonomics" took some nasty swipes at online love.  The book cited a study by two economists and a pyschologist that found troubling statistics concerning online dating and dishonesty.  For example, how could 4 percent of online daters be earning $200,000 a year, when less than 1 percent of the Internet population does?  And while we're at it, how could 70 percent of women have above-average looks?  Then there's this: 57 percent of men studied who posted a profile -- more than half -- never received a single e-mail. Talk about Red Tape!

It seems the honeymoon is over between Internet users and online dating.  But is this just a typical bump in the road, or is the love affair with online love really over?

Consider this: Trish McDermott, a co-founder of industry leader Match.com, has left the company, saying online dating doesn't work. Her four-part critique echoes the bad things you've already heard about online dating.

1. It's full of liars. You'll have no trouble meeting married men who look nothing like their pictures and really don't like holding hands while walking on the beach.
2. It's a rude place. People don't show up for dates, they mislead others, they don't respond with polite no-thank-yous
3. It fosters out-of-line expectations. Marketers would have you think love is as easy as "Insert a quarter, get a partner."  Six months and $300 later, on a lonely Valentine's Day, you might feel cheated.
4. It's isolating. Online dates can be a bit secretive, and online relationships can happen in a bubble.

Before we go on, it's important to note that McDermott has a keen interest in dissing online dating. She has a new Web site, Engage.com, which she claims solves all these problems.

And yet, her observations ring true. 

Women duped out of $623,000
Your friends often know best, so dating in a bubble often fails -- or leads to something even worse than a bad evening.  After falling for a scam herself, Barb Sluppick started a Yahoo support group for online daters who have been duped by scammers. She now has well over 1,000 members. At last count, 120 people have said they lost $623,000 to Nigerian scammers putting up fake ads, posing as eligible bachelors.

Online dating services have also long been full of fake ads that hawk porn sites or Russian bride services. That's not to mention the fake ads posted by those married men.

And there are those accusations that dating sites themselves have posted fake ads.  Those claims, made in a highly-publicized lawsuit, have yet to be substantiated.  But as McDermott points out, the lawsuit resonated with people –- including many MSNBC.com readers –- because it tapped into a general dissatisfaction with the services.  There is a sense, she said, that something is not quite right.

All of these problems no doubt led to a finding by Jupiter Research last year that only 28 percent of online daters said they were satisfied with their service.  That's a remarkable dissatisfaction rate, McDermott says.

"I don't know of any business that could get away with that," she said.

Dr. Phil to the rescue
Well, it looks like the sites aren't getting away with it.  After years of raging growth, consumers have put on the brakes.  The percentage of Internet users who pay for online dating has dipped slightly from 6 percent to 5 percent in 2005, according to Jupiter.  The conversion rate of browsers-to-paid-subscribers fell last year for the first time since Jupiter charted such things.

The services have responded with obvious over-the-top marketing plans designed to stave off the inevitable for a few more quarters.  Match has hired Dr. Phil. eHarmony is expanding into new markets and is now giving out marriage advice. Yahoo is offering a pricier "Premier" service with its main benefit seeming to be the ability to connect with other members who have also paid extra to achieve premier status.

If this column has begun to sound like an obituary, then it's time for Mark Twain to have his say. Word of the demise of online dating is definitely premature.

For one, online dating is still far and away the No. 1 paid content category online.  And while days of explosive growth are waning, revenue still grew at many sites in single-digits in 2005 and sits at around $500 million for the industry.  That's still a respectable business. 

Meanwhile, Match.com, the only site that publicly reports its results, says its rolls of paid subscribers are still rising, up more than 20 percent this year. With 1.2 million paying members, and new services in the offing, Match.com spokewoman Kristin Kelly says talk of an online love bust is bull. 

It's still No. 1, and it's no worse than blind dating
Now, there is still that troubling customer satisfaction number. But the author of the Jupiter study, Nate Elliot, is far less troubled by it than you might think. Consider, for example, what percentage of people would say they were satisfied with their experience blind dating?  Or going to bars on weekends?  One in four starts to sound pretty good in that light. 

And despite these somewhat rocky times, Yahoo and Match.com have managed to raise their prices in recent months, Yahoo by 25 percent in some cases.  Higher prices are rarely a sign of a desperate business. 

Rather, it's a sign that single people often can't resist trying anything they can to find love.  Even if it doesn't work very well.  Even if they end up rejected, scammed, ignored and out a few hundred bucks.  Even those who are dissatisfied with online dating often come back.  And they go to bars, and they go on blind dates, and they get set up by parents and do about 100 things they said they'd never do again after it didn't work out the last time.

Once again, the Web, it seems, imitates real life.

The advice for safely finding love online is well-worn: Meet in a public place, involve your friends early on, and never, ever wire money to Nigeria. 

There's an interesting new wrinkle in the coming wave of online dating sites that should make things a bit safer. McDermott's Engage.com and Match.com's new site Chemistry.com, which launches in April, are among those that will allow feedback from daters, a bit akin to eBay.com feedback. Community regulation should rein in the cheaters.  If your picture is a lie, people will find out and warn your future dates.  A side benefit will be the kind of character-building, brutally honest assessments of dates who didn't like you and why.  Don't worry, Chemistry.com won't let people rip you heartlessly. You'll get a digest of dater feedback after you meet five people in person.

Still, online dating will be full of frustration and misrepresentation. So if you are looking for love online, it's critical to remember that on the Internet, many, many things are not what they seem. Since Cupid's arrow rarely brings with it a healthy dose of skepticism, it's best to bring along an extra supply when looking for love online. 

One final note: More than a few readers have intentionally re-titled this blog the Red Shoe Chronicles in their correspondence. Despite the spirit of this holiday, I will keep the current moniker, thank you. Good luck finding love wherever you look for it today.

If your child's Social Security number had a secret life, would you know?  Probably not.  The only way to really know is to dig through the data, and you can't. But the Utah state attorney general's office can.  And the agency's recent findings are alarming. 

By merging a list of kids receiving child welfare with a list of adults paying taxes, Utah officials discovered more than 1,800 kids' numbers were being misused.  Among the more bizarre findings: A 5-year-old Ogden girl who supposedly traveled for 80 miles to work at her job at a steak restaurant in Provo and an 8-year-old who seemed to work as a prep cook at two upscale restaurants.  All the victims were 13 years old or younger.  In many cases, the children's Social Security numbers had been pilfered by a thief who needed the proper identification to work. 

The study offers just a glimpse at the breadth of the child ID theft problem. Since welfare kids represent only 1 percent of the state's population, the actual number of Utah kids with such double lives is probably far higher.

And there are other indications that child ID theft is on the rise.  Two weeks ago, the Federal Trade Commission released a study indicating reports of child ID theft doubled in the last two years.

"It's going like wildfire," said Rich Hamp, assistant attorney general in Utah, which helped run the Utah investigation.  "And there's really no way (for parents) to find out about it."

Children are an easy target for would-be identity thieves.  Most don't discover they've been hit for years, until they turn 16 or 17 and try to buy their first car or get their first credit card. 

Perhaps that's one explanation for a sharp rise in reports of child ID theft to the Federal Trade Commission.   In 2003, 6,512 ID theft reports were filed on behalf of victims under 18 years old. Last year, the number was 11,601.

That may mean criminals are targeting kids more, or it may just mean that the first crop of children who were victims of the crime in the late 1990s -- when the crime came in vogue -- are only now discovering it. Or it could be both.

Hundreds of thousands of victims?
Linda Foley, who heads the Identity Theft Resource Center, said part of the increase can be attributed to general awareness of the problem, as parents are now able to spot warning signs.  But she also believes child ID theft is on the rise.

"Our call volume has increased dramatically," she said.  "It's large enough to cause me a lot of concern."

Whatever the reason, according to the FTC, about 1 in 20 identity theft victims in 2005 was a child. Javelin Research, which studies identity theft, recently concluded from a telephone survey that there were about 9 million ID theft victims last year. Its research suggests about 220,000 of those victims were children.

And the situation may be even worse than that. Earlier this week, NBC News and MSNBC.com reported on a particularly insidious form of ID theft called SSN-only ID theft.  Criminals use a victim's SSN but a different name. As a result, none of the accounts that are opened shows up on a credit report. In fact, there's no way to find out about such a crime.

Many of the impostors in SSN-only ID theft are illegal immigrants using someone else's number in order to provide the necessary documentation for employment.  Children are a particularly good target for this kind of ID theft –- as evidenced by the Utah study.

'Operation Protect the Children' 
That's why the Utah state attorney general's office last year turned to high-tech crime-fighting tactics and launched "Operation Protect the Children."  By working with the state welfare department and the Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General, Utah officials have begun to peel away the mask covering child ID theft.  But if 1,800 victims can be found by looking only at children who are signed up for welfare, one has to wonder what the actual number of victims really is.

"I have no reason to believe the impostors specifically target children on welfare," Hamp said.

Foley said today's children are at a much higher risk of this kind of crime than kids one generation ago. Until the 1980s, many children didn't even have a Social Security number. But changes in IRS policies during the mid-'80s essentially required kids to be issued numbers -- they are now required for parents to take the child tax deduction.  Now, hospitals often fill out the paperwork for parents the day the child is born.

"The group of children that would have been first affected by this are now reaching the age where they are noticing it, 18-20 years old," Foley said. "I'm starting to hear from them now."

Stay off marketing lists; don't get credit reports
Foley says there's little parents can do to protect their children ahead of time. But keeping kids off marketing lists is a good start. Think carefully before unnecessarily enrolling children in clubs or bonus programs like airline mileage plans, she said.  Also, take your child's Social Security card out of your wallet or purse and store it in a safe place -- there's no need to carry it around.

But spotting child ID theft is a little like reading tea leaves, she said.  Foley's best advice: "Listen and watch."  Parents need to spot warning signs, such as an unexpected call from a debt collector or an unexpected bill mailed to the child. 

Pre-approved credit card applications are not necessarily a sign of ID theft, she added, because kids can get on financial companies' marketing lists when they get a bank account.

One thing Foley doesn't advocate is obtaining your child's credit report.  Kids often don't have one, and by making repeated requests for one, credit bureaus may artificially create a report for a child.  That can do more harm then good.  Unless there is a specific reason to suspect ID theft, Foley recommends waiting until the child is 15 or 16, or about one year before the kid will need a clean record to obtain credit.  That leaves enough time to clear up any problems.

When parents steal
But there is another complexity surrounding child ID theft that doesn't complicate other types of cases, Foley said. Despite Utah's findings involving illegal immigrants, she believes most child ID theft cases involve family members.

"In two-thirds of the cases, the thieves are parents or guardians," Foley said.  Often, the kids are foster children or children of divorce.

In one case Foley described, a 16-year-old named Jesse discovered his ID theft when he took his first job.  When he first filed his taxes, he found out his wages were being garnished by the state government for unpaid child support. Jesse's biological father, long since divorced from Jesse's mom, had stolen the boy's identity.  Dad hadn't been paying his court-mandated contributions to the former family.  So thanks to the ID theft, Jesse was in effect being forced to pay his own child support.

The basic details of the case were confirmed by Detective Darren Robbins of the Fontana, Calif. police department, where the case was initially filed.

A check of the boy's credit report by his stepfather revealed much more financial abuse: The credit bureaus believed Jesse had purchased his first car at age 11.  He also had at least five credit cards and a total amount of credit exceeding $100,000 –- all listed under Jesse's Social Security number. 

Such heartbreak cases require delicate handling, Foley said. But it's important for parents to deal with credit reports pockmarked by parents as soon as possible, to clean up the reports before trouble arises when the child comes of age and tries to obtain a college loan or a first car.  And in cases of divorce or abuse, it's important that parents listen extra carefully.

"I had one 8-year-old who told his mother, 'Daddy buys things with a card with my name on it,'" Foley said. "Mom didn't believe him.... It took the kid three years to finally prove it to the mother. He snuck a bill out of the house with his name on it."

The ID Theft Resource Center has a detailed page of information about child ID theft and how to deal with it  -- including special instructions on how to ask for a child's credit report –- at its Web site.

For years, Margaret Harrison believed she had an impostor.  There were signs her Social Security number was living a double life.  Four years ago, an unemployment office in West Virginia almost denied her claim, saying she already had a job at a horse farm in Chelan, Wash.  Three years ago, a teller at Bank of America looked up her account number by her Social Security number and then asked, "Is your name Pablo?"

And yet, her credit report was squeaky clean.  When she ordered her report, nothing was amiss -- and Pablo remained a mystery.

Harrison spent years trying to find out more about him. She called the credit bureaus and asked for more information. She got none. She called Bank of America's fraud department.  Same answer. She purchased credit monitoring. Month after month, there was no indication anything was wrong. She even added her picture to her credit card and debit card for extra security. 

And yet, her impostor was nowhere to be found –- at least until last week, when Harrison says she ended up face to face with Pablo in her San Diego home. Bank of America had sent Pablo right to her. Harrison's ATM card had expired and the bank automatically mailed a replacement card to her home.  But where Harrison's security photo was supposed to be -- there was a man's picture.  

Harrison says the bank later told her that, yes, her new ATM card had been accidentally printed with Pablo's picture on it. 

"When I saw this guy on my card, I freaked out," Harrison said. "Now that I have this picture on my card, someone's got to be held liable for this. He can't just keep using my Social.  It's not OK."

Pablo apparently holds several Bank of America accounts.  And yet, Harrison still is not entitled to know what those accounts are.  Telling her would violate Pablo's privacy, the bank told her.

  Betty Reiss, a spokeswoman for Bank of America, said the company was investigating the situation. She declined to provide additional details or answer additional questions, citing customer privacy.

Harrison provided an image of her ATM card to MSNBC.com -- she blurred the account numbers, and MSNBC.com blurred the man's face. 

Her tale may be bizarre, but it may not be as rare as it sounds. Experts say this kind of identity theft, sometimes called SSN-only ID theft, is a growing concern.  But it's hard to say how common it is because for consumers like Harrison, it's nearly undetectable.

Several people, one number
Last week, after catching her breath, Harrison reached for the phone.  With her 10-month-old baby in her arms, Harrison then spent four hours on the phone with Bank of America officials. Many told her the story wasn't plausible, that her SSN couldn't be living this secret life.  Eventually, she found someone who explained to her, effectively, that these things happen and recommended she call the California state attorney general's office. That office referred her to the California Department of Privacy Protection.

"But, I told (the bank), you knew about this years ago," she said. "You know it's wrong. You just don't do anything about it.… isn't that kind of like aiding and abetting a crime? You know you have multiple people under the same Social."

Harrison has since filed a police report in San Diego and registered a complaint with the California privacy office, which is part of the Department of Consumer Protection.

"This really is a doozy," said Joanne McNabb, director of the privacy office. She is now working with credit bureau Equifax to resolve the case.  But in other tangled cases like Harrison's, disentangling is a challenge. "We do get a steady stream of these kinds of cases.  They are very frustrating to people."

Can't be spotted in credit reports
SSN-only ID theft -- also called synthetic ID fraud -- is often undetectable because of the way credit bureaus store data and release it to consumers.  Free credit reports ordered by consumers don't reveal all credit history entries connected to a Social Security number. Only entries that precisely match a consumer's name, Social Security number and other personal information appear on such reports. Accounts opened using the consumer's number but a different name are often omitted, according to the bureaus.  That means SSN-only theft, like Harrison's, can be almost impossible to detect. 

It's also impossible to say how common such theft is; the only agencies that would know –- the credit bureaus and the Social Security Administration -- aren't talking. But an investigation by MSNBC.com last year revealed that millions of workers pay taxes using the wrong Social Security number every year, hinting that the problem may be much wider than generally believed.

For Harrison, the frustration began in 2002. Soon after she married her husband, Courtney, a Coast Guard officer, the couple was restationed in West Virginia. Given the meager job market there, she eventually filed for unemployment insurance. That was the first time she heard about Pablo.

"Are you working on a horse farm in Chelan, Wash.?" she recalls the unemployment officer asking her.  Unemployment agencies would be among the few that would detect SSN-only fraud, as they are charged with preventing someone from collecting unemployment checks while working. They do that by seeing if wages are reported and taxes collected under an SSN.

She checked with the credit bureaus and the Internal Revenue Service and found no sign of Pablo. With little else to go on, she chalked it up to a clerical error.  But less than a year later, Pablo's life intersected with hers again. She switched banks, signing up with Bank of America's special military financial services. One day, she forgot a deposit slip and asked a clerk to look up her account number. When she told the clerk her Social Security number, the teller pulled up a record of Pablo's credit card.

A peek behind the curtain
But the teller would share nothing else, once again sending Harrison off to get her credit reports. And again, they were squeaky clean.

That left Harrison with a disturbing question: Why could the bank officer see Pablo's accounts, but she could not?

The answer: a quirk in the way the credit bureaus do business.  Banks, auto dealers and other lenders that have signed contracts with the bureaus are allowed to run a full background report on a Social Security number.  Consumers cannot -– not even on their own Social Security number.  When there's more than one name attached to a Social Security number at the credit bureaus, some call the extra files "sub-files."  Consumers cannot see sub-files; businesses can.

The credit reporting system is designed to help paying customers -- banks, auto dealers, etc. -- avoid lending money to people with a history of bad debts.  Many debtors apply for credit using false or altered names, so the system was designed to cast wide nets into people's financial backgrounds. The net is so wide, there are celebrated accidents.  Credit reports provided to banks about applicants can include entries that don't belong to the applicant -- if a name matches and most of the Social Security number matches, the bureau will regularly supply that data and let the bank sort it out.

In the same way, credit bureaus sell features with names like "Social Search" to banks that want to make sure a prospective consumer isn't hiding anything. It lists any financial activity connected to a Social Security number.

Consumers cannot order a "Social Search." They get much more limited access to credit bureau data.  Consumers who ask for their credit report only get debt history information where Social Security number, name and other fields match exactly.

Shared identities and privacy concerns
Privacy concerns prevent consumers from seeing Social Security number-only reports, said Equifax's David Rubinger for an earlier MSNBC story.

"Companies that have signed agreements with us can access data like that. But we can't let every consumer see it," he said. It would be difficult for the firm to establish definitively who the rightful Social Security number holder is, he said. And there would still be potentially sticky privacy issues related to revealing the impostor's information.

Equifax did not immediately provide comment for this report.

For now, there is no way for consumers to learn if they are a victim of this kind of ID theft. Free credit reports, granted with much fanfare to consumers last year, are useless to spot such crimes.  So there was simply no way for Harrison to find out about Pablo. Until, that is, Bank of America sent her an ATM card with his picture on it.

The federal government has known about this problem for years. In a Government Accountability Office report issued last year, the agency said mistakes in credit bureau data are inevitable, because the Social Security number is an unreliable unique identifier.  It recommended against allowing consumers to look up the history of their SSN, because such searchers would certainly violate the privacy of other consumers.  In other words, the credit data is so jumbled there is no way to let consumers see their own information without showing them other people's information.

Illegal immigrants and SSN-only ID theft
It's not clear who Pablo is.  MSNBC.com has decided to withhold his alleged last name and to withhold the photograph because there are several possible explanations for the double life of Harrison's Social Security number.  But SSN-only identity theft is often the hallmark of an illegal immigrant using another's Social Security number for work purposes.

Undocumented workers who need a Social Security number to qualify for employment often buy one. They don't intend to steal, just get the necessary documentation to work.  Employers often don't verify the numbers.  Then, the immigrant will later use the number to get credit cards or other loans.  If they are initially successful, a sub-file is created in the credit bureau data.

From that point on, there are two identities tied to a single Social Security number, says Evan Hendricks, author of "Credit Scores and Credit Reports."

For now, Harrison is hoping San Diego police follow up with police in Washington state and find some way for her to regain control of her identity. Meanwhile, despite receiving an ATM card with her impostor's picture, she continues to be told by the credit bureaus that she has no right to information on the accounts Pablo has opened with her Social Security number.

"They tell me I have no right to see it because it's not affecting my credit rating," she said.

And for now, the rest of America is left to wonder how many Pablos are out there.  Because today, barring the dumb luck of receiving an ATM card with the wrong picture, there is no way to know if your SSN is leading a double life.

"We know it's a growing problem because we continue to have undocumented people coming in here looking to work and because of the way the credit reporting system works," says Hendricks, the author.  "When you add up one plus one, you come to the inescapable conclusion that there is a growing parallel universe of SSNs that don't relate to the same person."

If you have children and you watched any of "Dateline's" "To Catch a Predator" series, you're scared.  You have to be.  And you have to wonder: Could this happen to my kids?

Well, there's one piece of advice everyone gives parents to keep their children safe from predators and all the other scary parts of the Internet -- keep the computer out of the bedroom.  The advice is so common, it's now trite.

It might also be the most commonly ignored advice in parenting today. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, twice as many kids have computers in their bedrooms today as did five years ago. 

Forget the bedtime story. These days, many kids go to bed, pull up the covers and just start chatting with friends online.

Perhaps that explains why so many kids are so sleepy in school these days.  Hard figures are hard to come by, but both parents and teachers will tell anyone who'll listen that classrooms are full of bleary-eyed kids who've been up all night text-messaging and e-mailing their friends.  A U.K. researcher recently released a study indicating that 20 percent of children there sleep at least two hours less each night than their parents, and she blamed computers, games and televisions in the bedroom.   

Unmonitored bedroom Internet access exposes kids to awful people, like those who showed up at "Dateline's" rented house full of hidden cameras. But even if you mistakenly believe your child is safe from predators, a bedroom computer creates another, less dramatic but much more common problem -– sleep-deprived kids.  The U.K. study indicated that two-thirds of kids are sleep-deprived because of gadgets. And in preliminary results of research now being conducted by i-Safe America, 22 percent of student-age kids admit they send instant messages while their parents think they're asleep.

Family therapist Susan Shankle says the problem is now so common she asks questions about the location of child computers in her initial client assessment.

"I ask if there are computers in the bedroom, and 'Are you sure your child is getting enough sleep?" she said.  "I always advise parents to take them out, but often the advice isn't followed. It's a big problem, and it's only getting bigger."

10 percent of 8- to 10-year-olds have bedroom Internet
Shankle's impressions are borne out by research.  The Kaiser Family Foundation released a study in May indicating that 31 percent of kids 8-18 have a computer in the bedroom, and 20 percent have Internet access -- double the amount from five years ago. One in 10 children between 8 and 10 years old now has bedroom Internet access. And 1 in 4 high-school-aged kids uses instant message software in the bedroom.

"It seems to be a trend, and I suspect it will continue," said Vicky Rideout, a researcher at Kaiser. 

Why are parents ignoring the bedroom computer advice, even after warnings as dire as "Dateline's" predator program's? One reason is convenience, Rideout said.

"Parents don't want competition for the computer, so they give kids their own," she said.  "That's the main reasons kids have TV in their rooms, too."

Wireless makes it worse
There was a time when a bedroom computer, disconnected from the Internet, did not pose this menacing threat.  As long as no one strung Ethernet cable into the kids' room, there was no way for kids to get on the Internet and no way for predators to get to the kids.  But home wireless networks have exploded in popularity. If you don't have it, your neighbors probably do.  Barring military-grade jamming technology, there's really no way to keep this floating Internet out other than keeping the computer out. 

Perhaps many parents think they can keep watch over computer use in the bedroom. Fat chance, says family therapist Barbara Melton. Kids will go to great lengths to outfox their parents and stay online when they should be sleeping, she said.

"I knew one 16-year-old who stuffed a towel under the door so his (parents) couldn't see the light from the computer," she said. "Other kids dim their monitors.... This might be new to parents, but if you bring this up with kids, they all know about it."

Staring at a computer is also among the worst things someone can do before going to bed, Shankle said, because it activates the brain in a way that makes it harder to fall asleep.  She recommended cutting off computer use at least 30 minutes before bedtime.

Increased restlessness
But that's not happening.  Shankle thinks the problem is so widespread that late-night computer use, fed by the addictive quality of the Internet, might even be contributing to increased diagnosis of attention deficit disorders, Shankle said.

"Sleep deprivation and too much computer look like ADHD," said Shankle. 

All this late-night Internet use might seem anathema to some adults, who couldn't imagine staying up all night to type messages to friends.  But Sandra Calvert, professor of psychology and director of the Child Digital Media Center at Georgetown University, said teenagers' diurnal sleep rhythms are quite different from adults', meaning they are more alert at night.  Bedroom Internet access only fans that flame.

Calvert recommends keeping computers out of the bedroom, but she thinks it's even more important to teach kids about the potential pitfalls of being online all the time.

"They're going to have access to technology. If they don't have it, their friends do. So parents need to educate them and empower them," she said. 

With handhelds coming, it'll only get harder
That's good advice, given that new technology means the Internet, increasingly, is not limited to computers anyway. Plenty of cell phones allow Internet access, video downloads and games.  So simply keeping a computer out of the bedroom will someday soon provide only a small measure of safety, if any, said Kaiser's Rideout.

"As it all jumps onto handhelds, those rules will be irrelevant," she said -- making a parent's role in separating the Sandman from the Internet all the more essential, both to keep kids safe from predators and to get them ready for school the next day.

If you feel inspired to speak out about "Dateline's" "Predator" package, or about the trouble parents face keeping their kids safe, feel free to post your comments here.  You can also visit the lesson plan we've set up, with links to various videos and discussion questions for families and classrooms. It's designed to help kick-start a conversation with kids.  Or if you're just looking for quick tips, we also have set up age-specific advice for parents at this link, with help from WiredSafety.org's Parry Aftab.