Sean Clark pays extra each month for his cell phone service so his daughter Amanda can enjoy unlimited, no-charge text messaging. So the Bothell, Wash. man was stunned when his Sprint bill for September showed with nearly $10,000 in text message charges.

"When I opened the bill, it was just pure shock," he said. "There were pages and pages and pages of things on there."

He called Sprint immediately looking for an explanation. Clark knew ringtones and Web-based downloads could get expensive, so he had turned off Web access from Amanda's phone. He also knew that Amanda, a developmentally disabled 18-year-old, liked to send text messages so he "protected himself" by signing up for unlimited messaging. The bill for his family plan was normally a couple of hundred dollars per month.

Initially, a Sprint customer service agent agreed with Clark's guess that he was a victim of fraud. But a bit of research revealed that he was instead the victim third-party providers who offer services on Sprint's network. And he quickly learned that not all text messages are equal.

Amanda had signed up for a series of so-called "premium" text message services. Premium texts cost typically $1-$2 each and are not covered by monthly bundling plans.

It's hard to imagine one teenager running up $10,000 in text charges in a month -- until you consider the services she used. Amanda had signed up for text-chatting services, lured by ads promising romantic dialogs with "cool guys." With each message costing $1-$2 a pop, such chats can easily cost hundreds of dollars a day.

Clark asked his daughter about the services, and then found the advertisements which had led her to sign up. He discovered a pile of magazines aimed at teen-age girls in his daughter's room, all crowded with advertisements full of smiling teen-age boys bearing headlines like "Hook a hottie."

"She had no understanding of the repercussions," Clark said. "… My conversations with the phone company customer service lines have been laughable."

Clark asked Sprint to waive the charges, saying he hadn't authorized them; the company countered by offering to cut his bill by 50 percent.

U.K-based company
He also contacted the third-party text providers. One, Switchfire Ltd., a British firm, had charged for 642 messages sent from Aug. 14 to Sept. 5. At $1.99 a message, Clark's total Switchfire bill was nearly $1,300.

The company refused to offer a refund, saying Amanda had knowingly authorized the charges. Clark provided MSNBC.com with e-mails he said were sent to him by Switchfire customer support manager named Dace Viesture.

"Having checked the history of your daughter's number, it shows that she signed up for the service on 15 August by texting us 'guys.' In response to the request we then sent her the following text message:

'Almost there! Please text the letter: 'Y' to: '74447' to start. 14+ textconnectusa.com Help?1-866-662-7132. Send STOP to end.100c per msg rcvd + std msg fees,' which she answered to with 'yes'. This proves that she had read the previously sent text and confirmed she agreed with the information we sent to her," the Switchfire e-mail said. "As to the age of your daughter - she has said in chat on various occasions that she is 18 years old, besides, the services she was using were not adult ones. As the service has been initiated and used, we are sorry to inform that you are not entitled to a refund."

E-mail sent by MSNBC.com to Viesture went unanswered.

Providers could do more to stop surprise bills, advocate said
Still faced with a huge $5,000 bill, Clark contacted consumer advocate Edgar Dworsky looking for advice.

"I feel helpless," Clark said. "I have tried to get in contact with an attorney, but I can't seem to find anyone in this area of work, and I'm not sure the dollar amount is significant enough."

Dworsky, who has written about confusion surrounding premium text messaging services on his Web site ConsumerWorld.org and Mouseprint.org, said the services frequently bring surprise cell phone bills. There are some laws and regulations governing advertising to children, but none that specifically address premium text messages, he said. And since Amanda was 18, regulations that cover children-focused advertising wouldn't apply anyway. Still, he thinks cell phone companies could do more to help parents.

"Unfortunately, kids are enticed by a particular service and sometimes ignore the fact that there's a price associated with it," he said. "Also, looking at the ads (Amanda answered), they really did not have clear disclosures." Only at the bottom of the ads, in very small print, were the per-minute charges revealed, he said.

Clark, meanwhile, says it's unfair that Sprint never warned him as the third-party charges on his bill skyrocketed far beyond his normal monthly usage. Some kind of fraud controls should have kicked in, he said.

"I received no alerts from the phone company of this escalating bill," he said. The cell phone text message trade association, called the Mobile Marketing Association, does publish best practice guidelines that call for such warnings. In the most recent guidelines, published July 16, it actually addresses text chat services, advising firms to send warning messages to consumers every time a $25 threshold is reached.

"To me, this makes it seem as though Sprint was not fully acting within (the association's) best practice suggestions," Clark said.

Sprint representative Emmy Anderson would not discuss Clark's account, citing privacy rules. She suggested parents use online billing access to monitor their kids' cell phone usage. Some Sprint plans also allow parents to turn off their kids' text message feature, or limit them to communicating with only certain pre-approved phone numbers.

The problem of premium text message services was previously discussed on the Red Tape Chronicles.

Technology improvements, such as the invention of five-digit shortcut short-codes for joining third-party services, have led to an explosion of premium text message business. One mobile phone industry veteran, who requested that his name be withheld, said all cell phone providers are struggling with ways to appropriately screen third-party firms before giving them access to customers. But for now, it's up to parents to monitor their kids cell phone use closely and to keep up with any new services that become available on their kids' handsets.

RED TAPE WRESTLING TIPS:
• Most important: Know that premium texts are not covered by monthly text message plans.
• Ask your carrier to block premium text messages from your phone. Not all of them will.
• Use other tools to limit and keep track of kids' cell phone use.
• When asking for a refund, be persistent but polite. Dworsky said some consumers have been refused any refund, while others have received full reimbursement. "Apparently it depends on who you speak to," he said. "One representative might say we can't do anything for you, while others might say (they) can waive some or even all of it." So if you don't get the answer you want right away, keep trying.

Most consumers don't realize the rights they surrender by signing everyday contracts. MSNBC.com's Bob Sullivan reports. Produced by NBC's Andy Gross, with help from Patrick Longstreth in graphics and editor John Peris.

If I told you there was a courtroom in America where consumers lose lawsuits to businesses 94 percent of the time, and there is no chance to appeal, you'd probably never want to go there.

But here's the problem: You don't have a choice, thanks to small print.

While you may have never heard of binding mandatory arbitration, it is part of nearly every significant transaction you engage in now. It's also become a controversial battleground over consumer protection in America, and on Thursday Congress held hearings debating legislation that would largely nullify many arbitration agreements. The hearing came on the heels of a new report that claims to offer a first-ever glimpse into a world that some say has turned Americans' Constitutional rights on their head.

You might call it the ultimate fine print. It's in virtually every consumer contract in America. It substantially alters the most basic consumer rights. Yet, virtually no one knows about it.

Pull out you cell phone agreement, your credit card terms and conditions, the paperwork from your last automobile purchase. Then grab a magnifying glass, read carefully, and you will eventually come upon what's called the "binding mandatory arbitration clause." By entering into the contract, you agree to waive your right to a standard courtroom trial should you want to sue the company. And should the company sue you, you agree to abide by rulings made by arbitration boards, and to waive most of your rights to appeal.

Binding mandatory arbitration clauses crept into consumer contracts during the late 1990s and are now standard practice. They arrived in the name of efficiency and tort reform. With federal courts overwhelmed, and justice crawling along at a snail's pace, companies seized on a 1925 law permitting "alternative dispute resolution" between two parties that agree to it. Alternate routes can take many forms: online dispute resolution, or voluntary mediation, for example. But binding mandatory arbitration, where parties are forced to appear before a panel of paid referees whose rulings are absolute and final, quickly became the companies' choice.

Arbitration forums vary greatly from traditional courtroom settings. The hearings are informal, and often virtual, decided essentially through an exchange of letters. Unlike a public courtroom, the proceedings are private; even the eventual rulings are not disclosed to the public. For years consumer advocates have alleged that arbitration boards have largely served as rubber-stamp courts that do companies' bidding, but they had little evidence to support the claim.

California law provided study data
Now, they think they have some. A California law passed in 2002 required arbitration firms that do business in the state to publish court results on their Web site. One of the three main arbitration forums, the National Arbitration Forum, began posting records soon after. Consumer advocacy group Public Citizen recently downloaded the reports -- 34,000 cases adjudicated between January 2003 and March 2007 -- sorted the data, and analyzed the results. While limited to California cases, the report offers one of the first glimpses of the real-life consequences of arbitration clauses.

Here are some highlights:

• Businesses initiate the legal actions in the National Arbitration Forum nearly all the time. Of the 34,000 cases filed, only 118 were filed by consumers.

• In the 19,300 cases that were decided during the time period, consumers prevailed only 4 percent of the time, while businesses won 94 percent of the time. Winners were not listed in the remaining 2 percent.

• About 99 percent of the cases filed by businesses were collection cases; and a majority involved credit card firms trying to recover bad debts.

• A small number of arbitrators decide nearly all the cases. The study found that 28 arbitrators handled nearly 9 out of every 10 cases.

• Public Citizen found one arbitrator had ruled 1,292 times during the span -- and only 21 times for the consumer. On one particularly busy day, he ruled on 68 cases -- all in favor of companies. The arbitrator did not respond to an e-mail request for an interview.

Laura MacCleery, who helped author the Public Citizen's report, describes arbitration boards as "collection mills."

"Our problem with arbitration is not only that the outcomes are grotesquely unfair but there's no remedy when a mistake is made," MacCleery said.

A spokeswoman for the National Arbitration Forum wrote in an e-mail exchange that the Public Citizen analysis "is misleading." Since most cases are uncontested collection cases, it's no surprise that businesses win most of the time, she said.

"Evaluating arbitration outcomes is only meaningful in comparison with court outcomes of similar cases. ... Public Citizen's findings, placed in their appropriate context, establish that arbitration provides the same substantive outcome as court," said spokeswoman Christina Doucet. "Virtually all of the cases in the arbitration data were collection matters, and the fact is that consumers rarely respond to collection claims filed in arbitration or in court. Research shows that lenders prevail 96-99% of the time in consumer collections cases in court."

Companies prefer quick arbitration results for obvious reasons; traditional court proceedings can drag on for months, even years, giving debtors a chance to hide almost indefinitely from their bills. Courtroom trials also expose companies to huge, and sometimes unnecessary, legal bills. But MacCleery says that swift justice isn't necessarily good justice.

"What's so hard about going through due process?" said MacCleery. "That's a Constitutional right."

Proposal would invalidate many clauses
Earlier this year, two Senate Democrats introduced the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2007. If passed, the law would make many arbitration clauses unenforceable.

"Arbitration can be a fair and efficient way to handle disputes, but only when it is entered into knowingly and voluntarily by both parties," Sen. Russ Feingold (D.-Wis.) said in July when introducing the bill. "People from all walks of life ... often find themselves strong-armed into mandatory arbitration agreements. We need to make sure that all Americans can still have their day in court."

Similar legislation introduced in the House of Representatives earlier this year was debated Thursday by the House Judiciary Committee.

Richard Naimark, senior vice president of the American Arbitration Association – another main arbitrating board – conceded in his testimony that arbitration isn't perfect.

"It could use some fixing, some balancing," he said. Still, he said dismantling the system wouldn't give consumers more access to justice. Most consumers can't afford legal representation, and only 2 percent of cases ever get before a judge.

"The idea of getting 'my day in court' is a myth for most mere mortals," he said.

Still, mandatory arbitration is a fundamental attack on consumer rights, said consumer advocate Paul Bland in an interview on Wednesday. Bland, who works at Washington D.C.-based Public Justice, often files lawsuits that attempt to void arbitration clauses. He calls the current system a "protection racket" for corporations that dissuade consumers from filing their own claims against companies. Many class action cases are prohibited by the clauses, for example.

Another issue he has with arbitration agreements are the "loser pays" rules that are often implemented, he said. When "loser pays" rules are in effect, consumers who might want to file a case against their cell phone or credit card companies must take on the financial risk of paying arbitration costs and opposing attorney fees, which often far exceed the value of the case. In contrast, traditional consumer protection cases filed under federal or state law provide "one-way" legal fee provisions -- if the company loses, it pays the consumer's legal fees, but if the company wins, consumers only pay for their own legal representation, unless the lawsuit is deemed frivolous. The provision is included to give private individuals a level playing field in what could easily be a David-vs.-Goliath battle of legal fees.

But in arbitration, Bland said, consumers risk having to pay for all of Goliath's lawyers.

"For most people, that's a deal breaker," Bland said. The fact that only 118 arbitration cases were with the National Arbitration Forum filed by California consumers from 2003-2007 proves this point, he said.

Bland concedes that federal courts are so crowded that companies trying to get justice in certain kinds of cases, including big-ticket debtor cases, can face huge delays. And he agrees that arbitration has a place in the legal landscape. Much of his objection revolves around the stealthy way that mandatory arbitration clauses have been slipped into consumer agreements, quietly changing basic rights to public courtrooms, he said.

"Most consumers don't even know what 'arbitration' is," he said.

Other consumer advocates complain chiefly about companies' insistence that arbitration be mandatory, rather than voluntary.

"If arbitration were in any way beneficial to consumers, it could be made an option and consumers would choose it," said Richard Alderman, Director of the Consumer Law Center at the University of Houston, in the Public Justice report.

RED TAPE WRESTLING TIPS
For now, fighting arbitration clauses is a tough nut. The best most consumers can do is write to companies and complain, and write to their congressional representatives and support laws that change arbitration rules. But here are a few other tips.

• Support companies that don't require arbitration. The AARP offers credit cards that don't include mandatory arbitration provisions, as do some credit unions and smaller banks.

• Try to strike arbitration clauses from new contracts. A cell phone sales clerk or auto dealership may not object to you crossing out the provision. Of course, any retailer can simply refuse to let you make the purchase then.

• Paul Bland recommends to clients facing an arbitration case that they decline a hearing by mail, often called a "desk arbitration," and request an in-person hearing instead. That may seem time consuming, but it will prevent companies from hand-selecting their favorite arbitrators, as it forces arbitrators who live near the consumer to be involved, giving consumers a better chance at a fair "trial."

• Some firms are now offering "opt-out" provisions, though many opt-out windows close 30 days after a contract is signed. Exercise that option when you can. Also, you can send a letter to firms where an arbitration clause is already in force saying you no longer agree to it. The letter may or may not get you out of your contractual agreement, but it may help in a future litigation if you attempt to get the arbitration clause struck.

Fear not, telemarketing haters, your spot on the Do Not Call list is safe.

The Federal Trade Commission announced Tuesday that it would not allow registrations on the list to expire next year, when the list's five-year anniversary arrives. The law that created the Do Not Call list originally called for registrations to last only five years. After that, consumers would have to re-register to continue the prohibition on unwanted sales calls.

In recent months, many news reports suggested consumers might forget to re-register, leading to a flourish of telemarketing and home phone frustration.

That led to introduction of new federal legislation that would make registration permanent. It is not clear, however, whether a new law will be passed and signed into law before millions of registrations begin expiring in June of next year.

But on Tuesday, the Federal Trade Commission announced a simpler solution -- it simply won't let registrations lapse while future legislation is being discussed.

Lydia Parnes, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, delivered the news in testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection.

"The commission now commits that it will not drop any telephone numbers from the registry based on the five-year expiration period pending final congressional or agency action on whether to make registration permanent," Parnes said.

The Do Not Call list has proven wildly popular with consumers. A 2006 survey by Harris Interactive found that 76 percent of adult Americans had placed their numbers on the list. Some 62 million Americans signed up in the list's first year, and all of their registrations were in peril before the FTC announcement.

As of 2007, there were 149 million phone numbers registered with the list.

FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras said the original five-year limitation was put in place to help clean out old phone numbers registered by consumers who move or disconnect phone service. New technologies now help keep the list clean of old numbers, making the sun-setting provision unnecessary, she said.

"When the registry was developed in 2003, the five-year registration period was a reasonable way to ensure that the list remained accurate and up-to-date," she said. "Our experience since then in building, maintaining and enforcing the registry has led the commission to re-examine its original position on re-registration."

'List hygiene' still an issue
Steve Berry, a spokesman for the Direct Marketing Association, said his group supports the FTC's actions today because it provides much-needed certainty to a potentially confusing situation.

Still, Berry said more could be done to improve what he calls "list hygiene." His agency estimates that as many as 48 percent of the phone numbers registrations on the Do Not Call list are inaccurate or contain errors.

"This hopefully allows Congress and the FTC and the industry an opportunity to figure out a better way to bring clarity to the list hygiene issue," he said. "Maybe we can get it right this time."

The Do Not Call list was long in the making. Its origins date back to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991. Bureaucratic delays and lawsuits by marketing agencies stalled its launch for nearly 12 years. Only in 2003, with the passage of the Do-Not-Call Implementation Act of 2003, was the path cleared for telemarketing relief. The law ordered the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communication Commission to split the enforcement work.

Web site programmers at both agencies may be breathing a sigh of relief over Tuesday's announcement. In 2003, initial sign-up for the Do-Not-Call list was so popular that the government's Web site was overwhelmed. Automated e-mail responses from the FTC were so numerous that they clogged many spam filters. Automatic expiration of registrations threatened to create a similar technology headache.

Most serious identity thieves are strangers -- not relatives or friends -- and a surprising number of them are women, a new study has found.

For the first time, researchers have been given a peek into Secret Service case files on identity theft. A working group called the Economic Crime Institute, based at Utica College, was recently allowed to study a set of identity theft case files from U.S. Secret Service records from 2000 through 2006. The group's findings provide a first-ever, soup-to-nuts look at the criminals and victims in major identity theft cases.

Among the results, which were released Monday:

• Only 8 percent of criminals were friends or relatives of the victims. That finding flies in the face of prior research indicating that a large portion of ID theft crimes -- perhaps as many as half -- are committed by people close to the victim.

• In another surprise, 36 percent of identity theft crimes in Secret Service cases were committed by women. That's a much more equal gender split that most other crimes.

• A high percentage of ID thefts were committed using fairly high-tech means, such as stealing databases from companies. In fact, 34 percent of the time, data used in the crime was stolen by a company employee, most often from a retail company.

• In only 9 percent of the cases studies, old-fashioned mail theft was the culprit, another finding that varies from other studies.

"Some of this does challenge conventional wisdom," said Gary Gordon, executive director of the institute." "Other studies report you (often) know who the person is that committed the crime. This study didn't find that."

The research provided new elements that will help law enforcement agencies develop a character sketch of the typical identity criminal. For example, while the research found a large number of female thieves, many of those were part of husband-and-wife or boyfriend-girlfriend teams, said researcher Don Rebovich, a professor at Utica.

"In one case, we had a couple who went from hotel room to hotel room, bringing all their equipment with them to make fake IDs and so on," Rebovich said. "When law enforcement asked them where they were going, they said, 'Disneyland.' "

'Resourceful'
The average loss for each crime was more than $30,000, much larger than the average loss in earlier studies. In one case, criminals stole $1.3 million before arrested by federal authorities.

"If I had to use one word to describe (criminals) in these cases, I would say resourceful," Rebovich said. "They look for gaps in the system."

While providing much more detail than previous identity theft studies, the data may not be a representative sample of identity theft, as it only included about 700 case files shared by the Secret Service. The group decided to omit so-called "existing account" fraud case files from its research, also called "credit-card only" identity theft.

Secret Service data 'homogeneous'
James Van Dyke, who for several years has run the nation's largest ID theft study for California-based consulting firm Javelin Strategy & Research, said the results don't necessarily contradict research he's done which shows that many ID theft victims know their imposters.

"Their data comes from a small minority of what are likely to be homogenous cases," Van Dyke said. "The cases the Secret Service get are a narrow slice of crimes, typically over $100,000 (in theft)."

Bigger-ticket crimes are likely committed by more professional thieves who are strangers, he said. But more garden-variety identity thefts are committed by roommates, family members, and friends, he said.

"If (the criminal) is a family member, there's only so much you can do before the crime is exposed," he said.

In Javelin's study, of victims who knew how the crime was committed, about half knew the criminal. In most of those cases, high-tech data theft is not a factor, as roommates can easily steal identifying information with a passing glance at monthly bills.

The distinction between his results and the Utica study's conclusion that the Internet and other high-tech tools were used in about 50 percent of ID theft cases is important to industry groups and law enforcement. If new research finds that data theft and "stranger" ID theft are more common, there would likely be more pressure on companies to protect customer data and other personal information. But if ID theft can be blamed on personal relationships, at least some of problem could be blamed on consumers, helping companies escape some scrutiny. That in turn could also influence pending federal legislation designed to rein in identity theft.

Other surprising findings from the study: A large number of crimes were discovered and reported by unrelated parties. In one case, an ambulance worker noticed multiple forms of identity on a patient being transported to the hospital and reported it. The patient was later arrested. Other criminals were reported by co-workers.

Many consumers might not think to report a co-worker or stranger for having multiple ID cards in multiple names, but such a "neighborhood watch" mentality would help law enforcement combat the crime, Rebovich said.

The Economic Crime Institute, founded in 1988 at Utica College includes board members from both government and private industry, including Visa USA, LexisNexus, and JP Morgan Chase, as well as the U.S. Justice Department and the IRS.

The group's study of Secret Service files is ongoing, Gordon said.

The average ID theft cases takes two years to complete, so there were very few closed cases later than 2004, he said. The number of open Secret Service ID theft cases doubled from 2006-2007, however.

"We will have a lot more to research," Gordon said.

There's an iCrime wave, a new report suggests. America is suffering a surprising resurgence in muggings, which increased more than 7 percent last year, the FBI says. The Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank, thinks it knows why: iPods.

The little gadgets are the perfect target for snatch-and-grab thieves who find a zoned-out music lover to target, easily identifiable by those signature white ear bud headphones. And the devices are also very easy to fence after being wiped clean, shoved into stolen iPod boxes and sold in small electronics stores.

I've never been shy about blaming Apple for its shortcomings, but even I was skeptical about the report, which appeared anecdotal and oversimplified. Still, author John Roman offers some pretty powerful anecdotes – there has been a documented iPod crime wave in the New York City subway system, for example.

But what I think readers need to understand about the report, and about the phenomenon, is this: there truly is a gadget crime wave going on right now. GPS gadgets, cell phones, iPods all are easy marks for criminals. In fact, according to some in law enforcement, stolen gadgets are now a bigger problem than stolen cars.

The loss of a gadget means more than the out-of-pocket cost. Think about what a bad guy could glean from your Blackberry or PocketPC. Getting these gadgets back is virtually impossible, though there are some fledgling initiatives on that front, which we'll get to in a second. But the headache of losing the item, combined with the potential nightmare of losing the data, should have you worried.

First, the iPod wave
Before you dismiss the iCrime wave theory (Acrobat required), consider other mini-crime waves you've heard about, like the 8-ball jacket craze in East Coast cities during the 1980s, or the Jordan sneaker craze about the same time. Both were blamed for upticks in overall crime. Then consider this: Way back in 2005, New York City police held a press conference warning subway riders about the perils of iPod-wearing. The agency said iPod thefts that year had radically altered overall crime data for the city's subways. Felonies were up in the first half of the year by 18 percent -- but excluding iPod thefts, overall crime was actually down 3 percent.

Such detailed data isn't available for the rest of the country, so it's impossible to say if iPods are fueling the nationwide increase in robberies, commonly called muggings. Still, says Roman, there are hints.

"There is a compelling correlation between when iPod sales took off and when the crime rate changed," he said.

An Apple official declined to comment.

If you talk to local police, they will tell you that gadget theft is a much bigger problem than even a 7 percent rise in robberies would indicate, in part because many gadget thefts aren't reported.

"People have just grown accustomed to it. It's the norm, now," says Boston police officer Tom Shea. College students, in particular, are notorious for not reporting stolen iPods.

Not just iPods, all gadgets
Shea is among those who think iPods are only the tip of the gadget theft crisis.

Paramus, N.J., Police Chief Fred Corrubia, who watches over a New York City suburb jam-packed with shopping malls, says theft of GPS gadgets from cars has kept his officers busy recently.

"We were getting killed by this," Corrubia said earlier this year. National data backs up his claim. From 2000-2004, the most recent data available, gadget theft from cars was up 30 percent, according to the FBI, while auto theft was essentially flat.

Gadgets are a good target for criminals for one reason; they are easy to sell.

Airport parking lots in Boston are a breeding ground for GPS theft, Shea said.

"You have crack-heads breaking into cars and selling them to cab drivers at airports," he said. Some of the $800 gadgets get dumped for as little as $50.

Cell phone thefts are also a growing problem, Shea said. Earlier this month, we reported on consumer frustration with cell phone firms, which are not as helpful as they could be when handsets are stolen

Solutions?
There are attempts to stem the tide of stolen gadgets, including some innovative technology solutions. None has made a serious dent in the problem, but some sound promising.

Shea has started a service called JustStolen.net, which allows victims to register their lost loot in a nationwide database accessible to law enforcement officials. Should a stolen item show up in a cache of gadgets recovered by police, it can be returned to the rightful owner. So far, hundreds of thousands of stolen items are listed on the site. Shea said has no idea how many have been returned to their owners, as agencies can contact victims directly without notifying him.

GadgetTrak, a small Portland company, has a service that can be installed on almost any USB-enabled device which will make a stolen gadget "phone home" as soon as it is connected to a computer with Internet access. Registered devices, when told to do so, will send the user's IP address, computer name and other identifying information to GadgetTrak, which then provides the data to the victim so it can be shared with police. The service costs $12.95 a year.

Owner Ken Westin said he's recovered four iPods since the service launched earlier this year. In three of the four cases, the music player was stolen from a student by a student.

There also are lower-tech services, like subscription product StuffBak, which provides users with "reward for return" stickers they can place on their gadgets. Good Samaritans (or thieves, for that matter) can call a single phone number and arrange to return an item through StuffBak. USAToday reporter Edward Baig had a positive experience with StuffBak several years ago, but obviously the service hasn't done much to stop criminals.

In truth, the only way to blunt the gadget crime wave is decisive action by the manufacturers, something we've yet to see. Gadget makers have nibbled around the edges of the crime problem. Garmin, for example, now allows GPS users to add PIN protection to their units. That doesn't really stop theft, though. It only prevents the criminal from using the gadget after it's stolen.

Earlier this year, Dateline NBC did an incisive investigation into iPod theft.

Producers added software to an iPod that allowed them to track a gadget through the fencing process, eventually enabling reporter Chris Hanson to interview people who bought stolen iPods. The question hanging over the project was this: Why isn't Apple doing something similar? If every iPod told on its thief, or at least became unusable after it was registered as having been stolen, the market for hot iPods would dry up. So would iPod theft. Apple hasn't made any motions toward such a process.

The same goes for cell phone makers, who could figure out how to completely disable stolen handsets. Right now, all they do is disable accounts connected to stolen phones, which can often be reprogrammed and fenced. The same also goes for digital cameras, GPS gadgets, and nearly anything that ever needs an Internet connection.

"The way you get to the root of the problem is to kill the service," Shea says. "But that's not happening now."

I hope by now you are wondering why gadget makers would do this: After all, what is their financial motivation? What happens after you iPod or GPS is stolen? You buy another one. Without additional pressure from somewhere else (Congress? Users?), lack of a profit motive means nothing will change.

RED TAPE WRESTLING TIPS
For now, there are ways you can decrease the odds you'll be a victim. Just like parking your car under a streetlight and locking the doors, you should always think about where you keep your gadgets at night.
• Never leave obvious signs of a tech-haul in your car, like a GPS mount on the windshield or a charger in the cigarette lighter. In a high-prowl area of Washington D.C., some residents have taken to emptying out their glove boxes and leaving the doors open to show would-be criminals that their car isn't worth raiding.
• This might seem tedious, but it is worthwhile to take an inventory of all the gadgets in your life. Write down serial numbers. That's the only way you'll have a prayer of getting your gadgets back if they are stolen. Some police departments will refuse to take reports without them. And while we're at it, always file a police report. Otherwise, we'll never get an idea how big the gadget theft problem is.
• Also tedious but worth it: adding password protection to your gadgets, particularly PocketPCs, Blackberries and anything else with valuable personal information. If your gadget is stolen, you'll wish you did. When you are feeling lazy about it, just think about some criminal (or some eBay buyer) reading all your e-mail and weeding through all your contacts.
• Finally, for high-end cell phone users, consider buying optional insurance. Generally, handset insurance is a bad deal, because of high deductibles and the frequent low quality of replacements. But if you're talking about a $600 phone, a $7 a month insurance plan isn't such a bad buy.

Forget image spam or even attachment spam. Get ready for audio spam. Two British companies say they've detected a new kind of spam that could be even more annoying than the old-fashioned kind, if that's possible.

Earlier this week, spammers loaded up tens of thousands of e-mails with short 30-second audio "'commercials" and let them fly across the Internet.The audio file bragged about a small company's impressive revenue growth and urged recipients to purchase its stock. In fact, the language was almost identical to that used in image spam, in vogue early this year, and Adobe Acrobat attachment spam, which hit this spring. It's not yet clear if audio spam is the next big thing, but it is a small leap forward in spam technology.

Many consumers who wouldn't open other kinds of attachments think nothing of opening an audio file, as they are generally considered safe. To make the clips more enticing, many are named after famous recording artists, such as elvis.mp3, britney.mp3, or beatles.mp3, says e-mail security firm MessageLabs.

The company said it began seeing a steady stream of these files at 11 p.m. British time (6 p.m. ET) on Wednesday. The company's filters were trapping 10,000 messages per hour by midday Thursday, it said.

The spam is obviously designed to evade anti-spam filters, which have recently gotten wise to image spam and attachment spam but apparently still let many .mp3 files reach recipients.

"Mp3 spam is a natural progression from PDF and Excel spam," said David Vella, director of Product Management at British-based GFI Software, a computer security firm that also spotted the audio spam with its anti-spam technology."There is also a social engineering aspect to this tactic because people frequently share .mp3 files."

Users who click on the file first hear an alarm sound reminiscent of the radio Emergency Broadcast System. Then, they hear a synthetic female voice hawking the stock.

It's not clear how successful such stock scams are, but the Securities and Exchange Commission has announced several investigations in the past 12 months. On Oct. 3, the SEC halted trading in three companies after a round of stock spam. On March 8, it suspended trading in 35 companies. The agency said then that about 100 million stock spam messages were being sent every week.

A new survey indicates that many consumers are more worried about banks raiding their accounts than criminals.

Consumers are five times more likely to switch banks because of hidden fees than security concerns, according to the survey conducted by the Gartner consulting firm. And one in six U.S. adult consumers -- an estimated 28 million people -- said unexpected fees make them more upset or aggravated than having their financial accounts taken over or used by a thief.

The survey also found that 1 in 4 U.S. adults – an estimated 42 million people -- have been hit with a bank overdraft charge in the past 12 months. Gartner banking consultant Avivah Litan will publish the results soon as part of a larger study about consumer attitudes toward banks and security.

"The surprising thing is that (some consumers) were more upset about the fees than they are about the crooks," Litan said. "… Banks make the biggest deal about security and how they protect your accounts and spend a lot of money advertising that ... but what people really care about is fees."

She said she was stunned by the frequency of overdraft fees that showed up in her survey.

"Twenty-five percent was way more than I expected," she said. Also surprising: the customer churn these fees generate. "When you have one in five customers leaving a bank because of excessive fees, that's a huge customer service cost. They must be making a lot of money from excessive fees."

Congressional scrutiny
Overdraft fees have recently drawn the scrutiny of Congress. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., has sponsored legislation that would require banks to notify consumers before imposing overdraft fees, similar to fee notifications required at ATMs for cash withdrawals. Maloney cited MSNBC.com reader dissatisfaction with bank fees at a House banking committee hearing on overdraft charges July 11.

That same day, the Center for Responsible Lending released a report saying banks collect $17.5 billion each year in overdraft fees.

In the era of stiff competition and free checking accounts, penalty fees have become an increasingly important source of revenue for banks. About half of bank profits now come from fees -- exceeding profits from credit cards, mortgages and all other interest income -- according to the research firm R.K. Hammer.

Banks annually collect about $32 billion in fees, the bulk of that from overdraft or what were once known as "bounced check fees," according to SNL Financial.

Click to watch a video about the smallest small print in contracts.

More ways to pay
Formerly, these fees were mostly limited to consumers who wrote checks that exceeded the balance in their checking accounts. But as consumers use debit cards linked to their checking accounts more frequently -- and in more complicated ways -- the chances of overdrawing their accounts have skyrocketed. Consumers making purchases with debit cards or withdrawing money from an ATM can now easily push their accounts into the red. In fact, according to the Center for Responsible Lending, most "bounced check" charges now arise from debit purchases or other electronic transactions.

The banking industry has long maintained that overdraft fees benefit consumers, giving them flexibility to occasionally spend money they don't have. "Courtesy overdraft protection" also prevents consumers who write bad checks from facing fees levied by retailers, banks say.

But the industry puts the onus on consumers to keep track of what's in their account.

"The bottom line is that customers are in the best position to know what their actual balance is -- only they know what checks they have written, automatic payments they have authorized and debit card transactions they have approved," Nessa Feddis, a spokeswoman for the American Bankers Association, said during congressional hearings earlier this year. "Simply put, consumers are in control of their finances and can avoid overdraft fees."

Many of those who responded to the Gartner survey didn't see it that way.

They said that overdraft fees are unfair about two-thirds of the time. About 40 percent of overdraft fee payers said their balances dipped below zero banks were slow to credit funds that had been deposited into their accounts.

Delayed deposit
Controversy over check depositing procedures has grown since the advent of Check 21, a new banking law that took effect in 2004. The law allows banks to clear checks electronically rather than requiring them to send canceled checks to the originating bank. While Check 21 means banks can withdraw funds from consumers' accounts almost immediately when a check is cashed, they still have up to five days to credit consumers' accounts when money is deposited. Many consumers say the time lag is a factor in overdraft fees.

Another 20 percent of respondents said the bank simply made an error when they were charged a fee. And one in eight – or 12.5 percent -- said the overdraft was the result of unauthorized withdrawals from their account.

When asked to provide additional details about fees they felt were unfair, many consumers complained that banks intentionally manipulated withdrawals to maximize fee revenue, a practice banks calls "high-low" check cashing. Others said banks were unforgiving, assessing $35 fees when accounts were short only by pennies.

Banks that persist in charging heavy fees risk a loss of trust from their customers, but little else Litan said. And many customers who switch banks find they are in the same boat.

"Consumers really have no place else to go," she said. "They may leave a bank because they are upset about the fees ... but they just go to another bank that's got the same fee structure. It's like a merry-go-round."

RED TAPE WRESTLING TIPS
• Go small. Few consumers think to compare fees when shopping for a bank, but that's the best way to judge an institution. Litan said some smaller banks and credit unions often have more generous fee structures and are more willing to waive fees for customers who make occasional mistakes. Investigate a credit union near you. Many now refund ATM fees, so there's really no reason to stick with Big Bank Incorporated.
• Go online. Given all the ways we can drain funds from our checking accounts now, it's easy to lose track of your balance. Online banking can help. It's not perfect, of course, but checking your balance every few days can help you avoid going into the red.
• Go with credit. Debit card use is often to blame for overdrawn accounts. It's hard to keep track of all those purchases, and it's easy to ring up five or six overdraft fees in a single day if you are a serial swiper. A recent Consumer Reports study found that using debit cards costs consumers more than credit cards in the long run. Pay your credit card bill on time every month and use the debit card only at ATMs and you will be ahead of the game.

The cashier's check has long been an Internet criminal's best friend. Consumers seem to think cashier's checks, which come emblazoned with bank logos, are as good as cash. Once a check clears and funds are made available, people think the check must be legit.

But that's not true. It can take weeks for banks to identify fraudulent checks. That means it might be a month or more before they take the money out of your account.

For years, online con artists have exploited this misunderstanding. But the United States Postal Inspector's office is launching a new campaign aimed at clearing things up. On Wednesday, the agency announced the arrest of 77 criminals worldwide involved in bank check frauds, and unveiled a new public education TV campaign and Web site named FakeChecks.org.

A view of FakeChecks.org.

With a bit of wry humor, the site exposes six common cashier's check scams: online seductions, overpayments, renter schemes, fake lotteries, work-at-home scams, and foreign business partnerships.

You might think you're too clever to fall for any of these cons, but they still work. The Postal Inspectors also announced the seizure of fake checks worth more than $2 billion from January to August of this year.

The National Consumers League released data on Wednesday showing that most consumers are confused about who picks up the tab for check fraud. Only one-third of those surveyed realized that they are responsible if a check they cash turns out to be fraudulent, said Susan Grant, vice president of the National Consumers League.

'I Chop Your Dollar'
The postal service announcement at the National Press Club, included officials from Nigeria, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Canada, and stressed the international nature of the crime.

International cooperation has helped U.S. authorities put "boots on the ground," in Nigeria, said Greg Campbell of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. In many fake check scams, criminals are overseas but victims are in the U.S., so it's important to convince international authorities to "protect our (U.S.) citizens and go after their criminals," he said.

Johan van Hartskamp, commissioner of the Amsterdam Police, said his agency recently raided a party at a cafe where a large group of West Africans were celebrating their successful cons against U.S. victims. About 100 illegal immigrants were arrested, and 67 were charged with some form of fake check fraud. At the party was a famous Nigerian comedian, there to perform a sarcastic song titled "I Chop Your Dollar," in which a Nigerian con artist describes how easy it is to scam Americans.

The scams vary wildly, but the basic premise is always the same: A criminal sends a consumer a fake check, which the victim deposits into their bank account. Because bank laws require that funds be made available within a few days, the money appears in the victim's account quickly. And that point, many consumers believe the bank has blessed the check and the money cannot be removed. Then, the con artists ask for some of the money to be returned, usually via an irreversible and untraceable wire transfer. Since the victims think the original check has been validated, they comply.

Cashier's and corporate checks, however, are just as likely to be fraudulent as personal checks. For 30 days or more, the bank that deposits the check can reach back into the consumer's account and take the money -- leaving the consumer with a large debt.

Convicing schemes
Among the more convincing ruses is an apartment rental scam. A criminal posing as a college student will answer an online advertisement for an apartment by saying they live overseas, and will happily send a security deposit and first month's rent without seeing the apartment. The landlord cashes the fake check. Then, a few weeks later, the prospective renter writes to say that something has gone wrong with the college admissions office and asks for a partial refund of the deposit.

A landlord who tries to be fair and returns the money loses it.

FakeCheck.org includes funny "Candid Camera" style videos of an actor getting members of the public to fall for fake check scams, and videos of real victims sharing their stories.

One thing that isn't on the site: Any mention of changing consumer protection law to make it harder for banks to take back funds they've already deposited into consumers' accounts.

Grant said some banks have begun training tellers to offer more detailed instructions about check-cashing liabilities and that such education efforts have worked. At one bank, fake check fraud plummeted 85 percent after tellers were trained to warn consumers about cashing any check for more than $1,000. Her agency is pushing for new banking laws that would require such notification.

Still, one British law enforcement official, who asked not to be identified, said better banking procedures in the U.K. are one reason British citizens suffer almost no fake check fraud.

"The tellers would look at a check like that and just say, 'I'm not cashing this,' and throw it away," he said.

RED TAPE WRESTLING TIPS
·It's worth visiting Fakechecks.org just to watch the videos, they're that funny. But if you don't, you'll see some of them on local television soon anyway. The ads make the point that people do things online that they'd never do in real life, such as cash a check for a stranger. That's a good question to ask yourself when conducting financial transactions online: Would I do this in person?
·Maybe you are too smart to fall for this, but don't assume your friends and relatives -- particularly older relatives -- are. Don't be shy; ask your parents if they know about check cashing laws and Nigerian scams.
·To review: According to U.S. law, you are responsible for verifying the authenticity of a check. Just because a check clears and the money is put into your account doesn't mean the check is legitimate and the money is yours. The truth is, there's no real way to verify a check is authentic. You can call the issuing bank and ask, and you can even visit the bank in person, but the answer you get might not be accurate. So never cash a check from a stranger if you can avoid it; and if you have to, never spend or refund even part of the money for at least a month, in case the check is fraudulent.