Gina Walker is a struggling 23-year-old mother of two living in Bay St. Louis, Miss., an area still recovering from the ravages of Hurricane Katrina. Her husband wakes up at 3 a.m. every day to work at nearby Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport, and gets home 12 hours later.  So to help ease her husband's burden, she did something about 65 million Americans are doing every month, according to comScore Media Metrix – she turned to an online job listing site.

While that led to several work-from-home jobs, it also put her squarely in the sights of online crooks running an international con -- a con that every online job seeker should know about.

In Walker's case, she placed a "work wanted" ad at Odesk.com, which helped her find part-time, work-at-home jobs to supplement her husband's income. Typically, she requests $7.78 an hour for remote data entry, virtual assistant work, or customer service.

So it wasn't unusual in April when a man calling himself Justin Hugh Jones contacted her and asked her to be his virtual assistant. Jones said he was doing work for an international fashion marketing firm named Mandi Lennard.

"You are what we'll call our virtual boss," said the man, who called himself dhugh91 in a chat room, according to a transcript provided by Walker. He then described a set of duties meant to make life easier for models and other vendors who travel frequently around the globe.

First, the man from the marketing firm contacted her directly -- not through the ODesk.com system.  And second, she was curious about her actual day-to-day work. Jones (dhugh91 in this transcript) was very interested in her printer, and gave her specific instructions to buy special ink and paper.

dhugh91: like I said you'll need to get some supplies from office max

dhugh91: you said there is one close by

ginawalker911: Yes office max and office depotd

hugh91: let me give you links to the supply

dhugh91: here is a link to the universal ink that you'll need

ginawalker911: okay

dhugh91: check it out and let me know

ginawalker911: okay

dhugh91: whats your printer's model

{...}

dhugh91: Now here is the check paper

ginawalker911: Okay

Walker had some initial misgivings, and discussed the job at length with her husband.  But she was impressed when she did some research on Mandi Lennard.  In the end, she accepted.

Jones' initial requests were small.  A few days after she "got the job," he asked her for help keeping a French photographer happy.

dhugh91: We just got a request from our contact in South Africa

ginawalker911: Okay

dhugh91: One of the French photographer requested we got him some Alcohol

dhugh91: for his mini launch

dhugh91: Its called NUVO

ginawalker911: Oh okay

dhugh91: i found some online

dhugh91: so i was wondering if we could send you the funds

dhugh91: and you'll use your credit card in buying them

dhugh91: once you get them

dhugh91: you can now send it to them in South Africa via DHL

ginawalker911: Okay, is there any particular reason why you would like me to send them?

ginawalker911: I don't mind just curious.

dhugh91: No reason

dhugh91: just because i am very busy

dhugh91: and you are my assitant

Then, she received a $50 payment via MoneyGram to pay for the printer supplies.  The money arrived without incident, leading Walker to believe that Jones was legitimate.

Soon, the requests turned to money.  She was told to visit a local Wal-mart and receive funds at a MoneyGram location, then wire that money using a nearby Western Union kiosk.  She was instructed to perform four such transfers in short order, and to keep 10 percent of each transaction to cover her costs. The money arrived from U.S. cities like Atlanta, but she was instructed to send it to a city in South Africa, to a man named Taofeek Olalere.

Then, on May 6, Jones told her to print out a check for $1,300, deposit the money into her own account,  and then draw a check off her account and mail it to Taofeek Olalere.

Walker hit a snag, however, when she deposited the money. Her bank told her the funds would be held for seven days, pending a check for fraud.

'There would be felony charges'
A few days later, she received a phone call an irate woman in Atlanta. The initial check was drawn on her account, she said, and when she called the bank to complain a representative gave her Walker's contact information.

"She never heard of this person and never authorized any such check. She said she was contacting the police and there would be felony charges brought against me," a frantic Walker wrote to msnbc.com on May 23. "I don't know what is going to happen and am really scared. I have never been in trouble before, I have no record at all, not even a speeding ticket. I am afraid of going to jail, I have two little girls to take care of, they depend on me."

Walker was caught up in a relatively common "money mule" scheme.  Overseas criminals who steal credit card and bank account information have one serious hurdle to overcome before they can make their easy money -- they have to figure out a way to move cash from a U.S. account to an overseas account without raising suspicion.  They often do this by involving an unwitting middle man, or money mule, and passing the money through his or her hecking account.  It's far less suspicious for Walker to send a $1,200 check to Africa than for a criminal with an African Internet address to request online payment through a bank Web site.

There's nothing new about Internet-based money mule scams -- they've been around for at least 10 years. What's new is a persistent national unemployment rate that's been hovering near double-digits for the past year.

Tabatha Marshall tracks such online scams at a Web site named PhishBucket.org, which is devoted to stopping online employment fraud.  She's seen the scams grow more sophisticated and the cover stories more believable, even as the ranks of the unemployed grow more desperate.

"I think of Phishbucket as a barometer of what's going on, and it's getting exponentially worse," she said.  Typically, money mules invoke the name of a trusted brand such as Mandi Lennard to give their proposals an air of legitimacy.  Her site now catalogs this kind of "brand identity theft" against 2,185 companies. "And I have 2,000 unread e-mails in my inbox I still have to go through," she added.

Online job seekers are particularly vulnerable because they are obliged to publish their e-mail addresses and other personal information about themselves in order to be attractive to prospective employers. That gives scammers plenty of material to work with ("I see you live in Oregon and you're looking to get into the fashion industry. ... We might be a great match!")  And e-mail filters or other tools that might help identify scams are useless against many job scam solicitations precisely because virtual job seekers are constantly scanning their inbox -- or even their junk mail folder -- for that one piece of e-mail that might bring good news.

At ODesk, scammers must be a bit more persistent. Users can't see each other's personal information until they "agree to an interview" with each other, according to company spokeswoman Erica Benton.  Still, as Walker's case demonstrates, that's hardly an insurmountable hurdle. She believes the scammer got her information after she responded to an ad for a customer service assistant.

Marshall is a member of the Anti-Phishing Working Group, a banking industry trade group that works to fight Web fraud.  In a report she prepared for the group(pdf) last fall, she revealed that money mule scams had more than tripled from 2007 to 2009.  Meanwhile, other frauds, such as pyramid schemes, reshipping scams or online auction fraud, had remained relatively flat.

Law enforcement authorities have taken notice.  The FBI issued a warning about increased money mule activity in November.

Still, that warning was little help to Walker, who was more focused on helping her husband keep food on the table than evaluating global fraud trends.

She spent a couple of hours on the phone with the victim whose checking account funded the fraudulent transfer, and shared all her notes and chat logs.

"She was understanding," Walker said. "I sent her everything right while I was on the phone with her."

She no longer fears prosecution, and Jones has disappeared into the vacuum of the Internet.  She figures the episode cost her about $500, despite the "commission" payments.  The bad check caused her account to be overdrawn, and she was forced to pay about $150 in overdraft charges. She's also out money she spent on a new printer and other supplies Jones directed her to buy.

Now she's back to looking for $7.78-per-hour data entry jobs online, but with a renewed sense of caution about virtual job hunting.

"It's just important that you do a lot of research before you sign up with anyone," she said. "Make sure you check them out."

RED TAPE WRESTLING TIPS
ODesk offered three tips for online job seekers:
* Never pay up front for the privilege of working
* Never go outside the system to arrange for payment (this is similar to advice that eBay gives its users)
* If possible, avoid giving personal information

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I had just finished showering and turned off the water. Soaking wet, I did what millions of Americans do every day -- I reached for my snazzy sliding glass shower door. Seconds later, glass was raining down on me. The door had failed somehow and exploded into a million little pieces. The sound was hideous, something between nails on a chalkboard and a torrential downpour. Only this didn't make me wet, it made me bloody.

This was the grisly scene in my bathroom after a shower door exploded on me while I showered. I bled substantially from a wound on my right foot and had to walk on glass to get out.

Glass shower doors are a substantial upgrade from old, mold-magnet plastic shower curtains found in many older homes. They look great. They let ambient light into the shower and make the bathroom look larger. If you have fancy tile rimming your tub, they show that off.

The aesthetics come with a cost however, as I recently learned the hard way: Glass shower and tub enclosures can shatter without warning, endangering any person or pet in the path of the raining glass.

Interviews with building inspectors, glass companies and manufacturers -- along with a quick Internet search for complaints -- reveal that it's fairly common for bath doors to shatter, a tendency that isn't made clear in glossy brochures with beautiful images of modern bathrooms.

It's important to note, however, that the doors are made of special tempered safety glass, required by federal, state, and local building codes and designed to break into small, relatively harmless shards. A shattered shower door will produce a pile of glass chips similar to the glass left in your back seat after a criminal breaks a car window to steal a GPS. In doing research for this story, I found no reports of life-threatening injuries from a broken shower door.

In my case, I was left with about 20 cuts -- not much worse than paper cuts -- along the right side of my body and on my feet. I had one fairly large gash on the top of my foot that bled profusely, perhaps because a piece of the door hardware fell on it.  And I had quite a scare. I had to figure out a safe way to climb out of the pile of broken glass without suffering more cuts, and then I had to shower in bath No. 2 to get broken glass shards off my body. Even so, I was picking small pieces out of my skin for the next day or so.

I sent pictures of the incident to Kohler, the manufacturer of my shower door, which confirmed it was their product.

"Glass doors do shatter," said Kohler spokeswoman Kristine Cristina. "We really can't give you an answer to how often because many people don't call to tell us." She said she believed the incidence was very low, however -- in the past two years, she said she knew of fewer than 10 incidents like mine. "It is very few and far between," Cristina said.

But it is not hard to find similar tales of bathroom floors covered in broken glass. In many cases, consumers report shower doors spontaneous exploding even when no one is in the bathroom.

"That's called a spontaneous blow," said Kathleen Bond, president of Sunset Glass in Bellevue, Wash., which occasionally is called on to replace broken shower doors. "Somebody is at the dinner table and they hear this crash."

What would make shower doors suddenly explode?  It turns out that their greatest strength – safety -- is also their greatest weakness. When glass is heated in the tempering process, its tensile strength is altered. While it becomes much stronger and resistant to direct impact, it becomes much more susceptible to a side impact. As a result, tempered glass dropped on its edge will readily shatter.

When tempered glass breaks, it leaves behind a pile of small pieces.

"I've broken tempered glass just trying to remove it,” said Terry Love, a Seattle-area plumber. “When it pops, it's just instant. It's pretty amazing when you see it, how quickly it happens."

Cristina, the Kohler spokeswoman, said that sometimes a small fracture will occur on the edge of a shower door that won't immediately cause it to shatter. Hours or days later, the door will then explode, creating the appearance of a spontaneous blow, she said.

"It can happen for 100 different reasons," she said. The door could be incorrectly installed, rubber stoppers might be missing or cracked or the runner which lets the door slide is damaged. Or abusive treatment by consumers, such as rough openings and closings, could cause such a crack.

Bond said many incidents of breakage she's heard about involve cleaning staff who improperly handle the doors.

I don't know why my shower doors broke; there's not enough of them left to do honest forensic work, and the Kohler company declined to inspect them. I installed the doors myself about five years ago, using one of Kohler's "EZ Install" systems, and they worked flawlessly until last week. Still, it's possible there was some kind of operator error.

My memory is distorted by the surprise of the event, but I remember it this way: I grabbed for the door, felt it slip down slightly and then it exploded. I believe my door fell off the overhead runner, perhaps because a plastic wheel supporting the door broke. Slipping just an inch or so onto the bottom frame of the door could cause an explosion, according to several people interviewed for this story.

Still, after expressing concern for well-being, Cristina noted that "the tempered glass did what it was supposed to do."

My still-swollen right foot doesn't necessarily agree, but in truth, my injuries are remarkably negligible given the amount of glass that showered over me, and I am lucky that the tempering worked as well as it did. I shudder to think about the injuries I might have sustained were this normal glass.

It's important to note that there's nothing special about Kohler shower doors. There are scattered complaints about shower doors and tempered glass involving several manufacturers.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission, the agency charged with tracking complaints and issuing voluntary product recalls, uses a variety of statistical methods to estimate the number of injuries caused by thousands of consumer products to build a database it calls the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System. The information is generated from actual consumer complaints as well as sampling of data providing by hospital emergency rooms, said agency spokeswoman Nychelle Fleming.

I was left with about 20 small cuts like these, and one large cut on my foot.

The system tracks and estimates injuries caused by "glass bathtub or shower enclosures," and a query showed that they were involved in an estimated 1,986 incidents during 2009. There were another estimated 4,470 injuries involving "bathtub enclosures" where the word "glass" was not used by the consumer or hospital. Reading a random sample of those reports, however, made it clear that most involved glass enclosures.

But accidental shattering is not the only cause for those injuries. The supporting reports suggest that about half of the injuries were caused by a direct impact with the door, such as slipping and falling into it.

For perspective, there were an estimated 86,000 injuries related to toilets during 2009 -- most involving some variation of "falling off."

There have been no recent voluntary recalls of shower door products, but Kohler voluntarily recalled 41,000 doors with swinging hinges -- different from the sliding doors on my shower – in 2001. In its press release about the recall, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said the hinges of the door could fail, "causing the shower door to fall and injure nearby consumers."

WHAT TO DO

Glass in the home is a hazard, as any family with an aspiring athlete will tell you.  Glass doors and windows are no match for thrown baseballs or footballs – or even a child who falls into one.  There is no such thing as an injury-proof home. Glass shower doors are hardly the most dangerous glass in the house. Consumer Reports last year made the case that glass coffee tables pose a far greater risk, precisely because tempered glass is often not used. It said the tables cause approximately 20,000 injuries per year.

"This is a serious safety hazard with a simple remedy," wrote Donald Mays, senior director of Product Safety and Technical Policy for Consumers Union.

Still, the risk posed by glass shower doors is real. Russel Ray, a San Diego-based home inspector, said he believes injuries from falling into doors – as opposed to spontaneous shattering -- are a greater concern. As a result, he thinks glass doors probably aren't suitable for homes with elderly residents. "In assisted living facilities, you just don't see them anymore," he said.

Parents with small children might also consider the added risks of glass shower doors.

In case of a spontaneous blowout, Love, the plumber, said it's important to have a bath towel handy and to use it to throw over broken glass on the floor to create a safe route out of the bathroom.

Bond, of Sunset Glass, said she believes frosted or otherwise less transparent shower doors tend to shatter more often.

Kohler also offered this set of safety tips for long-term care of shower doors:

• Ensure moving panels are securely attached to the door system.  If concerned, consult your instructions or contact the manufacturer.
• Periodically check the shower door hardware to ensure fasteners remain secure.  Tighten them if needed.
• Ensure moving glass panel is not directly contacting the wall or metal during operation. That means checking the panel alignment and making sure the bumpers and seals are in good condition.
• Inspect glass regularly for any chips or cracks, paying special attention to glass edges, notches, and around holes in the glass for hardware.  If there is any evidence of a crack, replace the glass panel immediately.
• Do not use the shower door towel bars as a safety grab bar or as a lift assist when getting in and out of the bath, or lowering and lifting off a toilet.

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The Federal Reserve placed a soft cap on credit card late fees last week, the latest salvo in an ongoing battle between Congress and corporations that squeeze consumers with punishing surcharges and fees.  It's a small victory for consumers, but on many other fronts in this war the news isn't nearly so good.  When you consider the way new rules are impacting checking accounts and credit card interest rates, and Congress' incredible unwillingness to take a stand on 401(k) retirement account fees,  it seems consumers are getting nowhere fast.

The rule imposing a $25 limit on credit card late fees isn't bad, although it is ironically dogged by fine print. When Congress passed the Credit Card Accountability and Responsibility (CARD) Act last year, it directed the Federal Reserve to take a crack at making late fees fairer.  The Fed issued its new rule last week.

Credit card issuers had been charging $30 to $40 per month when consumers were even a day late paying their bills. Starting in August, the top charge in most cases will be $25, saving consumers from $5 to $15. Not bad, but hardly the signal of a new age in consumer protection. And even that small victory comes with asterisks. Consumers who are late more than once can face a higher late charge. And banks can appeal to the Fed to raise the fee, as long as they justify the costs.

The Fed rule does offer one piece of unqualified good news for consumers.  Inactivity fees will now be banned. This is important, because the appearance of inactivity fees in recent months led to major confusion for consumers. For years, experts have advised cardholders never to close a credit card account because of negative effects on their credit scores.  The new fees suggested that consumers might be better off closing the cards and taking the score hit.  Now, the old advice is once again valid. Make note, however: Banks can still add an annual fee to your cards, in which case, card holders may be better off closing the accounts to save the money.

The good news ends there, however. Since the passage of the CARD Act last year, half of U.S. cardholders saw their interest rate rise or their credit limit fall, millions through no fault of their credit behavior. Consumer groups had asked the Fed to force banks to roll back those changes. On this issue, the Fed punted, saying only that it would encourage banks to "re-evaluate" the changes.

Don't hold your breath.

The American Bankers Association had a generally positive reaction to the news.

Courtesy, Miller's office

Image of the sarcastic pie sent by Rep. George Miller

“This brings to a close the most sweeping overhaul of the industry since the invention of credit cards. Taken together, the new rules will provide consumers with numerous tools for better management of their credit costs,” said Kenneth J. Clayton, a senior vice president with the trade group.  And the Federal Reserve Governor Elizabeth Duke said in a release that the new rules require that “late payment and other penalty fees be assessed in a way that is fairer and generally less costly for consumers."

But consumers groups had a much more mixed reaction.

"This is tepid," said Kathleen Day, spokeswoman for the Center for Responsible Lending.  "It's marginally better for consumers, but why not make it great for consumers? ... Once again, the Fed just cannot stand to take a stand. (The Fed) always likes to split the difference. They can't ruffle a few feathers. They are trying to be popular with everybody, rather than do their job as a regulator. How is that working for them?"

That reluctance will almost certainly be tested during the next 12 months, when consumers slowly begin to lose free access to checking accounts. Big banks continue to rattle their sabers about this issue, which threatens to cause a gigantic shift in the American banking landscape. With billions in overdraft fee revenue disappearing when those new rules kick in on July 1, banks have begun testing various fee-based checking accounts.  Soon, simply parking $1,000 in an account or employing direct deposit for your payment will no longer earn a consumer free checking at many banks.

It's been a long time since consumers paid for checking accounts – fee-based accounts went out of favor during the early 1990s --  and the banking world has changed dramatically since.  Today, it's nearly impossible to actively participate in the economy without checking accounts, debit cards, online bill payment and all the other functions that stem from checking accounts. But some consumers who are faced with a $10 monthly fee might join the ranks of the unbanked, using money orders and cash to move around the economy.  Annual fees could also hasten the movement to smaller banks or credit unions, which already has picked up steam. Last year, more than 1 million consumers switched to credit unions, according to the Credit Union National Association. And a study by Bankrate.com found that 39 of the top 50 credit unions offer free checking.

Banks, naturally, will give their largest customers a break.  Use multiple services at a bank and you might enjoy a fee waiver. Rather ominously, the Wall Street Journal reported recently that a Bank of America executive told analysts in April: "Customers will have a choice,... (of) bringing more relationships to us or paying a maintenance fee."

It is undeniable that banks are losing a huge chunk of money as easy overdraft fees disappear. And it's not necessarily bad that banks will be forced to charge transparent, up-front fees rather than back-end, gotcha fees to make their money. It's much more natural for consumers to compare monthly fees than overdraft fees, so the change should be positive for competition.

Switching checking accounts is non-trivial, however, and many consumers will likely just pay up. And of course, the devil is in the disclosures. How will banks communicate the new charges and the new hoops consumers must jump through to avoid them?  At the moment, it will be the Fed's job to make sure the transition is orderly and fair.

Congress could get involved, but if history serves as any guide, federal legislation and Washington's slow-moving ways don't work well for regulating granular issues like monthly fees. Credit card late fees are one good example, but the issues surrounding 401(k) fees take the cake.

It's essentially impossible for a U.S. worker enrolled in a 401(k) plan to determine how much he or she paid in fees on their 401(k) investments during a given year. But the cost can be draining 20 percent or more of a worker's retirement kitty.

The charges are disclosed in oblique ways, such as the common "expense ratio," which is expressed only as a percent to consumers.  Back in 2006, Congress' General Accounting Office found that the vast majority of workers don't understand what they are paying in retirement fees.

There are numerous measures of the cost of unexplained fees, but here's one used in that GAO report: a 45-year old worker who puts aside money in a 401(k) and overpays by just 1 percent in fees will see his available retirement funds shrink 17 percent by age 65. Here's a simpler way to look at it: if a money management company takes 1 percent of your money for 20 years, you'll have almost 20 percent less than you should 20 years later. Obviously, the longer you pay into 401(k) plans, the deeper the cuts are.  A 25-year-old could see more than one-third of his or her retirement money sucked out by Wall Street.

For years, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., has sponsored legislation that would force investment firms to make those fees clear for consumers. Note, it would not limit the fees; it would merely make them more obvious. And every year, dutifully, Congress finds a way to ignore Miller's proposal.

This year, it looked like the legislation had a real shot. It was attached to the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act that was passed by the House of Representatives earlier this year. But the 401 (k) portion was yanked two weeks ago by members of the Senate Finance Committee, which is considering the companion Senate bill.

"(Democratic Chairman Max) Baucus threw it out like a paper airplane," said John Wasik, author of several books on investing, including "The Kitchen Table Investor." "He didn't say why, but I think it was a bargaining chip."  

Exasperated, Miller sent a pie to each committee member last week with a one-third slice removed.

"At a time when the middle class has already lost too much of their retirement savings because of the financial scandals, they shouldn't also be losing out because of unconscionable hidden fees," Miller wrote in a letter that accompanied the pies.  "I urge you to stop Wall Street from hiding 401(k) fees by restoring the House disclosure provisions. The 50 million Americans with a 401(k)-style plan deserve a fighting chance to keep more of their retirement pie."

Clearly, the Senate doesn't agree.

Wasik said the Department of Labor, which regulates retirement accounts, is planning to come out with its own set of 401(k) fee disclosure rules within the next few months.  He's optimistic that those rules will deal with many of his concerns, but until they are published and take effect, U.S. savers will remain largely in the dark.

Which brings us back to the point at hand: Credit card fees, checking account fees, retirement fees and most other hidden charges are simply too elusive for Congressional legislation.  You wouldn't expect Congress to legislate the details of an off-shore oil drill's blow-out preventer -- only a regulator with specialized skills and the ability to act fast can provide the needed oversight.  And only an agency with the ability to set and adjust rules on the fly can prevent the gushing of Americans' money out of the checking accounts and retirement accounts to hidden fees.

That the idea behind the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is part of the financial reform legislation that's now in the stretch run in Washington.  Final details about the agency's reach and influence are still in flux, but as currently constituted, it would have the ability to review the credit card and checking account rules issued by the Fed, according to Day, from the Center for Responsible Lending.  It could, for example, lower that $25 maximum credit card late fee.

"It's very inefficient to get all this stuff through Congress, and then industry just finds its way around it anyway," Day said.  "That's a bad way to stamp out bad products.  We need a new consumer protection agency."

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Americans overwhelmingly think texting while driving is dangerous, but about half of cell phone users do it anyway.  Worse yet, 44 percent of U.S. adults say they've been a passenger in a car when a driver used their cell phone in a way that created a dangerous situation, according to a poll released Friday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.  The finding suggests that drivers are talking out of both sides of their mouth.  In a poll published last year, 89 percent of adults said they think texting while driving is dangerous and they would support a ban.

States and local governments have acted aggressively to legislate against texting while driving, and 28 states ban it outright, but the laws appear to be having little impact.

While recent emphasis has been placed on stopping young drivers from texting -- 28 states and the District of Columbia ban all cell phone use by novice drivers -- adults are by one measure even more likely to text while driving. A Pew study last year found that 34 percent of 16- and 17-year-old drivers admitted sending or reading a text while driving, while 47 percent of adults said they had done so in the new study.

The study has limitations. It relied on drivers' honest answers to poll-takers' questions. But Rainie said that respondents were unusually willing to confess to cell phone use while driving, another sign that there is not an overwhelming social stigma attached to it.

And the study did not account for the circumstances of drivers' cell phone use. Some may argue that texting while sitting at a stop light or calling while on an open highway in the Southwest is not dangerous behavior.

Still, respondents in numerous other studies show drivers think cell phone use in cars is dangerous. These do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do results shouldn't be too surprising, Rainie said.

"This is a classic thing you see in a lot of polling, this idea that it's OK for me but not for others," Rainie said. "People often underestimate their neighbors' ability and overestimate their own."

Behavioral scientists sometimes call this "superiority bias," and it shows up in all sorts of studies. Most people think they have above-average intelligence, for example. More on point, in a study conducted during the 1980s, 93 percent of Americans said they were above-average drivers.

The Pew research is consistent with other studies that show U.S. drivers just can't seem to put down their cell phones. According to figures released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in 2008, at any given moment 6 percent of drivers are talking on a cell phone.  That was up from 4 percent in 2002. The study also found that 1 percent of all drivers are texting at any given time.

That's not hard to observe.  Just stand on any street corner and peek at drivers as they pass. Even during rush hour, a stunning number are yakking -- or even typing -- away.

Perhaps that's why a 2009 study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that 35 percent of drivers feel less safe on the road than they did five years ago.

Roads are getting safer, too
On the other hand, based on number of fatalities, driving is becoming safer. In March, the federal government announced that highway deaths fell nearly 9 percent from the previous year.  The fatality rate was the lowest since the government began tracking the data in 1966. Highway deaths have fallen steadily since 2005, leading some to suggest that the drop off is no cause for celebration: They say a sluggish economy that has kept drivers off the road is the cause. But dramatic safety improvements in highway design and cars, along with increased seat belt use rates, are also cited as reasons for the dip in deaths.

But the drop-off might come with a trade-off, in the form a surprising cause-and-effect that's referred to as the Peltzman Effect.  Cars can become so safe that drivers become overconfident and engage in more risky behaviors, such as texting while driving. It appears that while fatalities are down, fatalities caused by cell phone users are on the rise.

Not all states collect data on the cause of crashes, and often, that data is speculative. Still, the NHTSA estimates that in 2008, 5,870 people lost their lives and another half-million were injured while talking on the phone or texting -- meaning cell phones played a role in nearly one out of seven driving deaths and one out of five accidents.

Efforts by states to legislate the problem away have been bumpy.  Seven states and the District of Columbia outlaw the use of all hand-held cell phones while driving, encouraging a thriving market in hands-free devices. But several studies have discredited this strategy, showing it's the conversation -- not the one-handed driving -- that causes the distraction and danger.

Still, despite those fits and starts, Congress seems ready to take on the issue.  This month, the Senate Commerce Committee approved a bill that would set up a $94 million grant fund for states that take action against cell phone use while driving. The measure is awaiting action by the full Senate..

Enforcement also is a tricky issue. While in most states texting and driving is a primary offense -- meaning cops can issue tickets even if there is no other offense -- there are practical limits to the ability of police officers to peer into drivers' cars and see what they are doing behind the wheel. In many cases, tickets are handed out only after a police officer witnesses a tell-tale sign of texting while driving, such as erratic swerving.

(Click for a summary of state laws).

In recent years, there has been more focus on the more general topic of "distracted" driving, which includes activities that range from fumbling with iPods to putting on makeup.  Still, cell phones are a lightning rod for emotion on the topic. The heartbreaking stories of tragic deaths caused by cell phone use rival those on drunk driving.

Even Oprah has gotten involved, recently promoting a "No Phone Zone" pledge on her television show and in radio advertisements.

The Pew study shows that both legal and educational efforts aren't gaining much traction. Perhaps that's because technology is apparently using our brains against us. Some studies show that cell phone use -- calls or texts – evokes a response similar to addictive behavior.  Receiving or sending a message can give recipients a "kick" in the form of dopamine, part of the brain's seek-and-pleasure system. One kick usually encourages another, and users often get caught in a "dopamine induced loop," according to psychologist Susan Weinschenk, author of the book "Neuro Web Design."

That makes it awfully hard to ignore a buzz that indicates a text message is waiting to be read -- outweighing any perceived risk.

Pew researchers found that men are more likely than women to text while driving, perhaps because men are generally "more risk takers," Rainie said. Still, 42 percent of women have texted while driving.

The only group which seems unwilling to make the dangerous texting-while-driving bet are older adults -- only 3 in 10 adults aged 46 or older say they have done so. The gap is easily explained because younger users are far more comfortable with multitasking, Rainie said.

"They are multitaskers in every other dimension of their lives, why not driving?" he said.

Imagine this scenario: Estonia, a NATO member, is cut off from the Internet by cyber attackers who besiege the country's bandwidth with a devastating denial of service attack. Then, the nation's power grid is attacked, threatening economic disruption and even causing loss of life as emergency services are overwhelmed.  As international outcry swells, outside researchers determine the attack is being sponsored by a foreign government and being directed from a military base. Desperate and outgunned in tech resources, Estonia invokes Article 5 of the NATO Treaty -- an attack against one member nation is an attack against all. It requests an immediate response from its military allies: Bomb the attacker's command-and-control headquarters to stop the punishing cyber attack.

Now, the U.S. government is faced with a chilling question: Should it get dragged into a shooting war by a cyber attack on an ally? Or should it decline and threaten the fiber of the NATO alliance?

About half this fictional scenario occurred in 2007, when Estonian government and financial Web sites were crippled by a cyber attack during a dispute with Russia. That incident never escalated to this hypothetic level, however: The source of the attack was unclear, physical harm did not occur and Estonia never invoked Article 5.

The incident did, however, get other NATO members thinking: When would they be required to rise to the defense of an ally during a cyber attack?

Last year, a working group led by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright was formed by NATO to study the future of the alliance in a post Cold War world. When the group issued its report last month, aimed at helping NATO form a new "Strategic Concept," the thorny issues raised by cyber war were listed as one of the three toughest challenges facing the alliance. NATO is expected to approve the Strategic Concept this November during a meeting in Lisbon, and cyber war issues will be hotly debated.

Mutual defense is the heart of the NATO alliance, formed in 1949 in the wake of World War II, largely to combat the aspirations of an expanding Soviet Union. Article 5 lays out the obligations of members in plain language:

"The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them ... will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area."

Despite all the attention Article 5 has received during the 60-plus years of NATO, it has been invoked only once -- after the 9/11 attacks. That led to an alliance attack to remove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan.

That means the odds of a rudimentary botnet attack against a NATO member leading to war are quite small.  They are not zero, however. The Albright group's report, titled "NATO 2020," was stark in its assessment -- ignoring the issue would probably only encourage attackers.

"The next significant attack on the Alliance may well come down a fiber optic cable," it reads. "A cyber attack that leads to chaos in one city may inspire copy-cat criminals in another. Due to the reach of modern media, even terrorist groups and pirate bands now have public relations specialists and NATO, when and wherever it acts (or fails to act), will do so with a global audience."

Among the report's recommendations(PDF): Give NATO military leaders pre-delegated authority to respond  "in an emergency situation such as a missile or cyber attack."

'What is the threshold for crossing the cyber line?'
Roger Cressey, a former member of the U.S. National Security Council, said there is a long list of unanswered questions that NATO hasn't begun to resolve.

"If there is a cyber attack, does NATO respond in kind? Do the NATO allies with the most advanced cyber capabilities respond on behalf of the member that was attacked?" wondered Cressey, now a consultant with Good Harbor Consulting and an NBC analyst. "Should a response be limited only to cyberspace or should kinetic options be on the table too?  This raises some very important issues -- do you attack another country with missiles and aircraft in response to a cyber attack?  What is the threshold for crossing the cyber line and into physical responses?"

An even thornier issue, he said, is "attack attribution." As was the case of the Estonian attacks and more recent attacks on Google and other big tech companies, it's often difficult to positively identify cyber-attackers. So foreign governments or other enemies can easily blame cyber attacks on rogue groups.

"Doctrine on cyber attack is a very problematic issue, one that the Pentagon is struggling with right now," Cressey said. "If individual countries haven't figured it out yet, then it's a guarantee that collective defense entities like NATO will be even further behind in coming up with an agreed upon approach."

NATO lawyer: A high bar
Lawyer Eneken Tikk is in a unique position to understand the nuances of the Article 5 mutual defense debate. She is the acting policy chief at a NATO training center called the Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Tallinn, Estonia, which was founded in 2008 in the wake of the 2007 cyber attack. She believes there is undoubtedly a legal basis for a mutual defense response to a cyber attack -- but the threshold for invoking such a response is very high. For starters, she said, mere electronic disruptions probably wouldn't clear the bar. Involving other NATO nations would require "a cyber attack on a country's power networks or critical infrastructure (that) resulted in casualties and destruction comparable to an armed attack," she said.

And even casualties might not trigger treaty obligations, she said.

"There is no clear threshold of a cyber armed attack - and even a kinetic attack is not always what the U.N. Charter considers as a threshold for invoking the right to individual (or collective) self-defense," she said. She pointed to research that suggests an attack "has to be of enough scope, duration and intensity ... to satisfy the accepted criteria of an armed attack under international law." Neither an overnight border skirmish nor a troublesome but temporary denial of service attack would qualify, she suggested. That why the Estonian government did not invoke Article 5 in 2007, she said.

The Albright report makes allowances for all these gray areas, but hints at a formula it suggests could be put in place to arrive at more delicate decisions.

"There is, of course, nothing ambiguous about a cross border military assault by the combined armed forces of a hostile country," it said. "However, there may well be doubts about whether an unconventional danger -- such as a cyber attack or evidence that terrorists are planning a strike -- triggers the collective defense mechanisms of Article 5. In the event, this will have to be determined by the ... nature, source, scope and other aspects of the particular security challenge."

'Can a cyber attack invoke a physical response?'
Mark Rasch, former head of the Justice Department's computer crimes unit and now a consultant at Secure IT Experts, said that NATO's attempt to clarify members' obligations during cyber attack is further complicated by the fact that low-level cyber attacks are happening constantly.  Some are better described as espionage or spying than cyber war, and many come from corporations or curious kids.  On the other hand, some of those "curious kids" are state-sponsored, he said.

"We've been having low-level cyber for 30 years," Rasch said. "There's been penetration testing, Web defacements, denial of service attacks, propaganda attacks. But we haven't yet had a cyber attack where a nation-state mobilizes to attack the critical infrastructure of another nation."

It's possible that means the NATO treaty is already working in the cyber world. Article 5's chief purpose, Rasch said, is not to drag countries into war but rather to act as a massive deterrent - and given its rare implementation, it's generally considered a success. By establishing rules of cyber war engagement, NATO is "throwing down the gauntlet" to enemies, making it clear that a cyber attack by a government could result in a powerful response -- a position designed to scare off would-be attackers. There are a couple of flaws in that position, however.

First, most cyber attacks are asymmetric, meaning the consequences of a counterattack are often very small. A single computer can be used to attack hundreds of computers.  A denial of service attack would likely come from millions of hijacked machines, so the risk of a counterattack against the attacker is quite minimal.

"It's kind of like when Hamas fires rockets from residential neighborhoods," Rasch said.  "(The attackers) might not have infrastructure that you can go after."

Also, while Rasch supports a NATO effort to clarify member nations' obligations under Article 5, he believes the effort could backfire. 

"Because the rules are vague right now there is plenty of wiggle room," he said.  "Right now, the U.S. could say, 'We don't think (Article 5) applies' if asked to enter a conflict. But by defining it more precisely, it increases the chances we'll get dragged into a cyber war."

Naturally, none of these issues was contemplated by the authors in the NATO agreement in the 1940s, and clearly the alliance will have a difficult time striking a delicate balance of mutual security vs. entanglements as it debates the role of cyber-alliances.  The Albright report calls for the alliance to have "expert teams" ready to aid member nations threatened by cyber attacks, and technical assistance might go long way towards diffusing many cyber conflicts.  But there is an inevitable question hanging over the effort.

"The big question is can a cyber attack invoke a physical response?" Rasch said. "The answer is we don't know what the appropriate response is to cyber war against a NATO ally, or what is the appropriate response by a NATO ally to an attack on us. We need to define those things."

Does web whining work? Private websites with names like ComplaintsBoard.com and PissedConsumer.com have developed an enormous following among consumers who feel cheated by companies. But are these complaint magnets filling an important role in protecting consumer rights or do they merely serve as online bitch sessions?

They're a little bit of both, the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) said in a report issued Monday. Researchers for the consumer advocacy group considered about a dozen such sites, before whittling the list down to what it says are the six most popular places to whine online: Complaints.com, My3Cents.com, ComplaintsBoard.com, PissedConsumer.com, ConsumerAffairs.com and RipOffReport.com. All show up in the top 20 listings when a Web user Googles "consumer complaint."

First, the bad news: There appear to be very few happy endings for those who complain.

"There is little evidence that the websites help consumers resolve their complaints," according to the report. That shouldn't be too surprising, given that, "None of the six sites claims to perform this service." But the lack of a clear path towards resolution was cited as a severe shortcoming by Jack Gillis of CFA, who helped write the report. The sites rarely point users toward the right government officials or agencies that could deal directly with companies and get refunds or redress, Gillis said.

On the other hand, there was good news about the web whine hangouts. Consumers in the middle of a dispute can sometimes find useful tips in the complaints of others who have gone before them: ("Try calling Bill in executive assistance. He helped me.")  And the repositories of complaints act as cautionary tales for future consumers.  In fact, complaint websites are usually more useful to shoppers than to complainers, the report concludes.

Still, Gillis said, consumers who feel ignored by a nemesis company seem to genuinely appreciate the chance to talk about their frustration.

"The large majority of people who post complaints understand fully that this posting is not going to lead to a resolution," he said. "But they are irritated at the company and perhaps want to warn other consumers."

Gillis recommends posting complaints on all six top sites, but said that those who only have time for one should visit my3cents.com. It has the largest number of recent complaints, lists the number of complaints per company, has the best design and offers some help with complaint resolution, he said.

While complaints sites are notoriously one-sided -- rarely do companies chime in with responses, even when they can -- Gillis said that most complaints are surprisingly even-handed, with posters adopting a just-the-facts tone full of dates, times and names. Still, no single report should be taken that seriously, Gillis said.

"People should not assume that any one complaint is valid, but when one sees a large number of complaints of the same kind, that ought to be a red flag," he said.

Complaint sites have other shortcomings. Not surprisingly, they include far more complaints about large companies than small, but make no allowances for that in their compilations. That can unfairly disadvantage large firms. Fourteen of the 21 sellers with the most complaints on My3Cents.com are Fortune 200 companies, for example. 

A better way to use complaints for comparison purposes would be to create something like the "complaint ratio" used in the insurance industry, which compares overall complaints to sales figures, he said. (Consumers who want to look up the complaint ratio of a particular firm can visit the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.)

Meanwhile, some of the consumer complaint sites -- which are privately owned, for-profit sites -- engage in tactics that seem strange for people who are used to the nonprofit ways of organizations like Consumers Union.  PissedConsumer.com, for example, offers companies targeted by complaints the chance to sign up what the site calls "Reputation Management" for a $5,000 annual fee. For that price, according to the site, businesses can "post rebuttals and monitor their online profile." Popular Consumer Review site Yelp, which was not considered by the CFA, has been dogged by accusations that companies can impact their review ratings by paying for advertising. And RipOffReport.com -- which was included in the survey -- has numerous advertisements on its site proclaiming Cash4Gold is a "Ripoff Report Verified Safe" company, despite numerous news reports alleging that the company has mistreated consumers.

It also appears that complaint sites and their users are under assault. A recent New York Times story detailed an uptick in defamation lawsuits again consumers who complain publicly about companies on the web.

And search engine optimization companies aggressively market their ability to trick search engines into burying negative reviews in their results so other consumers never see them.

Still, many firms are clearly taking web complaints seriously. Comcast has a full-time employee named Frank Eliason who is dedicated to finding and resolving web complaints via a Twitter account named ComcastCares.com.

RED TAPE WRESTLING TIPS
Gillis said there is no evidence of widespread legal action against web complainers, but it's best to be prepared -- legally, that it.

"If people just stick to the facts, the risk of being sued, we believe, is minimal," he said. As the report notes, truth is an effective legal defense. "Avoid what might be interpreted by a court as slander or defamation of character," it says.

Also, while generic complaints sites are often the best place to whine, there are exceptions in some specific industries -- auto complaints are often better placed at CarComplaints.com, for example -- so be sure to look for a site more focused on the target of your complaint.

For example, I recently had an electric window regulator fail on my out-of-warranty 2007 Jeep Liberty -- notice two of the top 6 complaints concern my issue -- and used the site to find out that Chrysler is honoring out-of-warranty claims, as long as the driver follows the proper complaint procedure.  That saved me a $500 repair.

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Country bumpkins or wise, earthy sages? Naive or ruled by common sense? Easy pickings or slim pickings for con artists?

As I drove from coast to coast last month, I had a chance to do something that many reporters for national media companies can't do -- spend time between the coasts, in the heartland of America. Being a connoisseur of cons, and being intensely curious about the vulnerability of consumers, I got to wondering: Are people in the simple middle of the country more or less likely to fall for scams and hidden fees than people on the sophisticated coasts? Are folks in North Dakota, Montana and Minnesota protected by good old-fashioned horse sense or overwhelmed by slick fast-talkers from big city banks and cell phone companies?

There's nothing like an incredibly subjective story to stir the pot. You probably won't be surprised to hear that the vast majority of folks I spoke with between Pennsylvania and Montana laughed at the notion that they had targets on their backs, or on their wallets. The idea that they're naive simpletons is a media creation, they said uniformly.

"Just because we have the movie "Fargo" doesn't mean we really act like that," said Erickson, who works at the North Dakota State University library in Fargo.

Matt Tomcik, from Indianapolis, offered the same defense for his part of the country.

"People from the Midwest are more perceptive than people on TV and people on the coasts want you to think," he said.  "I think we pick up on things and are more sophisticated than they give us credit for."

There is something unmistakably different about people in the middle of the country, however. They aren't as anxious. They aren't as paranoid. And, according to North Dakota State University communications professor Paul Nelson, they are far more trusting. As someone who has studied in both Harvard and Columbia, Nelson has a good frame of reference.  Yes, he told me, folks in the middle of the country are more vulnerable to big company tricks and traps because they are more trusting.

Jeff Olsen, a Minneapolis-based reporter who covers consumer issued for the NBC affiliate KARE, added a more subtle flair to his observation.

"I think people here are slow to get caught up in things. They take their time when signing up for things, they are deliberate," he said.  "But once they are, they are sometimes too polite to complain. They aren't as confrontational as people from the East Coast."  In other words, they aren't as easily fooled by flashy advertising as folks on the coasts, they don't need every latest gadget and they maintain a healthy sense of skepticism.  But because of their inherent belief in the goodness in others -- and their predisposition to decorum -- they are a bit slower to discover that they're being mistreated.

Laura Rizzo, a co-worker of Erickson's in the North Dakota State library, is originally from Wisconsin.  She agreed that people where she grew up are more trusting, but wasn't about to say that makes them naive.  Just because her folks aren't suspicious of everyone doesn't mean they are foolish, she said.

Laura Rizzo

"I feel like we are aware and observant but take more of a hands-off approach,” she said. “We're not automatically critical or looking for ways to dig in. I don't think we're taken advantage of more, but I do believe we are more trusting."

What about the other side of the question? Are Midwesterners actually smarter than their coastal counterparts?  I never did find a humble Midwesterner willing to brag that folks in their state are smarter than New Yorkers, though the question did elicit more than a few knowing smiles.

So without that subjective measure available, I decided to try even more subjective methodology: research and statistics.  Are there any databases which might suggest that folks in the middle of the country are smarter consumers?

Perhaps.

Credit bureau Trans Union offered one glimpse at the answer to this question last month when it released some state-by-state data on credit card debt. The three states with the lowest average credit card debt are, in order, Iowa ($3,872), North Dakota ($4,144) and South Dakota ($4,218). The lowest delinquency rates are in the Dakotas, also.

"That does stand out," said Bill Hardekopf, who runs credit card advice Web site LowCards.com. "Everybody thinks the middle of the country might be not as smart, but maybe they know what they are doing."

The credit card data don't hold up as a tool for indicting the coasts, however. The highest average debt was held by consumers in Alaska, Tennessee and Alabama. Debt level isn't exactly a great signal of predation anyway: It could simply mean that consumers in those states enjoy higher credit limits, or higher incomes.

Delinquencies might be a slightly better indicator, and here we have perhaps a glimpse of confirmation for our hypothesis. Last quarter, Trans Union said, credit card delinquencies were highest in Nevada, Arizona and Florida. If we presume that Arizona and Nevada are full of coastal transplants, perhaps we're on to something.  Meanwhile, both North and South Dakota were atop the lowest delinquency rate list. And topping the list of steepest decreases in credit card debt were Kansas, New Mexico and Vermont.

A look at foreclosure data also yields interesting results. Nevada, Colorado, and California held the top spots for foreclosures per household in March, according to RealtyTrac. The Dakotas (again!), Maine, Wyoming and Vermont ranked at the bottom. In fact, the big states are really a tremendous drag on the statistics: California, Florida, Texas, Michigan and Ohio represented 50 percent of all foreclosures in the nation in March.

Folks in the Dakotas don't like to brag. But they were quick to point out that while states like New Jersey, New York and California are in full-blown budget crisis mode, North Dakota enjoys a large budget surplus. Neighboring Montana also enjoys a surplus (though it is much smaller.) That's just another sign of a thrifty culture, they'll tell you.

But those comparisons, while also telling, aren't quite fair either. North Dakota's ranks of retired teachers and police officers earning full pensions wouldn't add up to the pension costs in Clifton, N.J., let alone the entire state's multi-billion-dollar liabilities.

But I was able to dig into an old bag of tricks -- I mean original research -- in my quest to quantify the horse sense effect. A few years ago, I worked on a "sneaky fee" study with researcher Larry Ponemon of the Ponemon Institute in an attempt to learn how much U.S. consumers lose to unfair fees every year. The research was published as part of my book, "Gotcha Capitalism." We asked a nationwide representative sample of Americans to tell us how much they overpaid for everyday items like cell phones, credit cards, ATM fees, hotels, airlines, pay TV, Internet and so on. The answer: just shy of $1,000 every year apiece.

At my request, Ponemon compiled a new cross tabulation of the research this week, breaking the subjects into the smallest regions he could while maintaining the integrity of the data: Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Southeast, Southwest, and Pacific.  His conclusion?

Consumers in the Midwest pay less in sneaky fees ($857 per year) than those in any other region in the country -- nearly 20 percent less than those in those in the Northeast ($1,035), for example, or the mid-Atlantic ($983).

The difference was most dramatic in cell phones, credit cards and pay TV. For each product, Midwesterners reported that they were screwed out of 15 to 20 percent less than their Eastern counterparts.

The survey results are of course imperfect. We asked consumers to self-report fees that were designed to be sneaky. It's certainly possible that Midwesterners missed more fees than New Yorkers or Bostonians.

But it's hard to look at all this data and conclude that folks in between the coasts are foolish, goofy or easy prey.

Mike Robinson, who has lived in both Long Island and in North Dakota, thinks he has a pretty good grasp on the issue.

"I think that Easterners or West Coast people think that there's some kind of naiveté with the Midwest," he said. "There isn't. People there are just as perceptive as anyone else. I think there's a lot of down-to-earth thinking here. I don't think Midwesterners are deceived that easily."

Of course, somewhere inside a bank or national cell phone company there is someone in a marketing department who can answer this question with much more precision than I can.  How? Just by compiling a list of zip codes where the most unfair credit card applications are aggressively dumped into mailboxes.  Where the cable TV costs more and the cell phone service works less.  Is that in Manhattan, Seattle, Los Angeles, Phoenix or Peoria?  I don't know. But after my trip across the great northern states in our nation, I doubt it's in Fargo, or Minneapolis, or Missoula, Mont., or Madison, Wis.

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