David was struggling to slide back into civilian life after leaving the Army in May on a medical discharge and spending four frustrating months searching for a job. But the 13-year vet, who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, got a break in early September, landing a position as a store manager with a major retailer near his Texas home. Then he hit a nightmare snag: A background check turned up a potential criminal conviction in his past. Once before, nearly a decade ago, he'd had a run-in with criminal identity theft, when someone in Virginia used his Social Security Number during an arrest for drug possession with intent to distribute. He worried that same incident had reared its ugly head again. 

"I cannot believe this is happening to me," David said at the time. "I really need this job right now."

David learned of the problem only because a recruiter told the firm had put his hiring on hold and gave him a special number to call at background check provider Lexis Nexis.  An operator there told him it would investigate the situation and get back to him in 15 days. 

David hired an attorney, but he worried those 15 days could cost him dearly. By the time David contacted msnbc.com looking for help, the clock was running.

"I don't know if they are going to hold the job for me or not," said David, who requested that msnbc.com withhold his identity to not harm his employment prospects.

The veteran was put in touch with the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and its director, Beth Givens.  The nonprofit agency gets these kinds of call all the time, Givens said.

"We've been contacted for many years by individuals who have experienced some kind of criminal identity theft. It can be a real life-destroying experience," Givens said. "We've had people lose job opportunities over this. We've had people forced out of the workforce because of experiences like this."

Fortunately for David, the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse interceded on his behalf, got him an expedited review and he was cleared for hire within days.  Someone with the same first and last name, who had another conviction, had gotten lumped in with David. But Givens worries that many other job applicants, without an advocate on their side, may be missing out on employment because of background check errors. And many may never know.

Firms that use criminal background checks as a reason to deny a candidate are required by federal law to follow a two-step process for informing the applicant.  When the discovery is made, a "pre-adverse action" notice is supposed to be sent to the applicant. Later, if the applicant is rejected, an "adverse action" notice is required. Both are designed to give applicants a chance to correct errors that might appear in background reports and cause a firm to make an unfair decision.

Many times, however, employers who see even a hint of a criminal record simply move on to other applicants, Givens said. 

"They can just say they had a splendid job pool, sorry," she said. "It is terrible, but we hear that a lot. We think there is a lot of non compliance."

And pleas from the applicant that there is a mistake often fall on deaf ears. "Even though the individual can prove he is not a criminal, the employer often sees it as black mark anyway," Givens said.

Because many applicants never learn the reason for their rejection, there is no hard data on how many potential employees are caught in this trap. But criminal background checks fall into the larger controversial area of pre-employment screening – hiring firms routinely check numerous for-sale databases when considering applicants, including credit reports.  The Society of Human Resource Management said in a recent survey that 60 percent of employers check credit reports, for example. Rep. Stephen Cohen, D-Tenn. introduced a bill in Congress earlier this year that would severely limit use of credit reports in employment screening, and some states legislatures have enacted similar measures.

(Msnbc.com's John Schoen wrote about this earlier this year)

But criminal background checks raise even more thorny issues.  Adults who work with children in schools, athletic clubs and many churches are now required to submit to criminal checks, a development generally welcomed by parents.  On the other hand, criminal background reports are notoriously inaccurate, and often mix up records from several individuals.  Several years ago, I ordered such a report on myself and found I was flagged as potentially having a brother with a murder-related conviction, and a child molestation charge.  Both involved inaccurate links to non-family members, established because of my common surname.

There are some indications that labor groups are gaining traction in efforts to call attention to background check problems.  In California, a new state law requires that applicants must be informed every time a public record about them is accessed – not only when an adverse action is taken.  And In April, the U.S. Census Bureau was hit with a class-action lawsuit accusing it if using criminal background checks that placed minority groups at an unfair disadvantage.  The lawsuit is still pending (you can read more here.)

Still, Givens thinks that the red tape associated with criminal background employment checks is a simmering crisis for American workers, and she thinks federal agencies need to do more to protect applicants.

"We think the Federal Trade Commission should elevate the background check issue to the level of identity theft. They should create a special section for it," she said.

RED TAPE WRESTLING TIPS

It's not easy to avoid criminal background report trouble once a gremlin gets in the system.  Applicants can order something called a "pre-employment screening report" from companies such as Lexis Nexis, but the report isn't free. And Givens didn't endorse that strategy because the report given to consumers may be different from the report companies purchase during applicant screening.

It's important to pay attention to any negative signals you might receive during the application process. After a rejection, it's OK to ask for a reason -- both formally and informally. If you are hit by several surprising rejections after firms initially express interest, ask directly: "Did you find anything unusual in my background check?"

Applicants who receive an adverse action notice should also receive the name and phone number of the company that provided the pre-employment report.   "It's important to call that company and demand a copy of that report," Givens said.  "If you don't get it, complain to the Federal Trade Commission." Frustrated applicants could also consider complaining to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, she said.

In Bell, Calif., residents of the relatively poor, mostly Hispanic city nearly rioted after discovering that their city manager was earning about $800,000 a year. And he wasn't the only overpaid worker on the city's payroll.

This week, as eight Bell employees and officials were arrested and a nearby town fell under scrutiny for the same excesses, California Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown demanded a list of every state and local government employee earning more than $110,000 annually -- or about twice the median household income in L.A. County during 2008.

So we got to thinking: What about the rest of the country? At a time when the world of private sector employment is dominated by layoffs, wage freezes and uncertainty, shouldn't taxpayers know which public employees in their communities earn more than $110,000? Or at least know who's earning taxpayer-funded salaries of more than double or triple the median household income in their region, and why?

Maybe your town has an $800,000 city manager too. If so, we want you to tell us about him or her. Below, we'll give you a few tools to get you started.  But first, here's what I found when spinning around various government pay databases available online.

Not surprisingly, government worker pay has become a politically charged issue during this extended recession.  With most states facing dire budget crunches, and collectively facing a mind-boggling $2 trillion obligation for future pension benefits, many elected officials have trained their eyes on public employees' salaries. In New Jersey, which has the highest property taxes in the nation, Gov. Chris Christie rode into office last November in part by tapping into this frustration.

 "(There are) two classes of people in New Jersey: Public employees who receive rich benefits and those who pay for them," he said earlier this year at a gathering of city mayors.

Government workers do generally have it better than private-sector workers at the moment.  Studies disagree about the size of the advantage – some claim government workers earn 50 percent more than their private-sector counterparts when benefits like pensions and health-care coverage are included.  And even conservative estimates show government workers on the lower end of the wage scale earn 5 percent to 10 percent more than similarly qualified private-sector workers.

But perhaps most important, while the economy has shed some 8.4 million private-sector jobs during the recession, public sector jobs have increased by 2 percent in the past three years, according to the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, in part thanks to the Obama administration's stimulus plan. Clearly the burden of economic anxiety during the recession has not been evenly spread.

That makes government workers an easy target for a frustrated populace. There's even a blog for the topic now, called overpaidgov.blogspot.com, not a bad place to start when looking for examples of outsized government paychecks.

It's relatively easy to discover federal workers' salaries, and in fact, that's a popular sport among the dating set in Washington D.C. ("Ooh, and the guy I went on the blind date with makes $89,000 at the Department of Commerce!"). Data on state and local government workers is much harder to come by, and that's part of the reason local officials, such as City Council members in Bell, manage to pay themselves $100,000 for part-time jobs. So we will focus on state and local government workers in this project.

Bell's story, however  dramatic, is hardly typical.  Local and state salary databases I scoured reveal a hidden army of teachers, child welfare workers and health professionals who earn salaries that are barely livable. 

In Missouri, where median income is $46,000,it's easy to find a youth facility manager earning $28,000, a state trooper earning $35,000, a firefighter earning $40,000, a public defender earning $42,000. Perhaps not surprising, the hardest jobs sometimes return the least compensation: The maximum salary for a mental retardation assistant in Texas is $26,700. The median salary is $20,000, and there are nearly 5,000 of them in Texas.  Plenty of public servants do an amazing job for fair -- or less than fair -- pay. 

Happy cops, prison doctors, and psychiatrists
But the flip side of this story -- the Bell side -- is dramatic. Online salary look-up tools reveal plenty of surprises.  For example, it's good to be an experienced firefighter or cop in Yonkers, N.Y. – 19 of the 20 most-highly-paid workers in New York state's 62 cities are Yonkers' uniformed men and women.  Well, men. (Note "cities" do not include municipalities designated as towns or villages in New York. There are another 33 municipal workers earning more than $200,000, and one earning more than $300,000, in the smaller New York hamlets).

It’s also good to be a prison doctor in Oregon. No doubt it’s hard to find qualified doctors who want to work with incarcerated patients. But here’s a list of people earning four or five times the median household income in Oregon (about $60,000).

In Ohio, mental health professionals and IT workers are among the most highly paid. One IT manager in “administration services” earned $125,000, plus $19,000 in overtime. Ohio’s median family income, which has been dropping, is around $46,000. Meanwhile, there are 182 employees earning more than $100,000 in Ohio’s Mental Health Department, including one who earned $234,000 and $83,000 in overtime pay.

Of course, in many states, it’s good to be a university professor – particularly, of medicine. UCLA has at least five med school professors earning more than $750,000. But it’s even better to be a college sports coach. In Texas, the five most highly paid state employees are all coaches, each earning more than $1 million a year. (First is University of Texas’ football coach Mack Brown, at $5.1 million annually; Gail A Goestenkors, the UT woman’s basketball coach, earns just more than $1 million). But here’s an irony: Among the best paid employees in every state is someone with a title like “Chief Investment Officer,” who manages pension investing. In South Carolina, that job is worth $350,000 a year, for example. In Oregon, where the investment officer’s salary is tops in the state, it’s $318,000.

In aggregate, some salary numbers are staggering. Texas has 12,000 state workers earning between $100,000 and $200,000. California has 400 employees with salaries over $400,000 (an attempt to find out how many earned more than $100,000 crashed the look-up site). In New Jersey, where police officers earn the top salaries in the nation, 6,100 of the 20,000 cops earn more than $100,000 per year. In Texas, meanwhile, cops who actually have to live with criminals – correctional officers – earn about $35,000 per year.

Stories like these led the conservative Heritage Foundation to host a symposium this week called "Are Government Workers Overpaid" , where the organization argued that "government workers have experienced little of the economic downturn."

One simple demonstration that government workers are overpaid is the number of applicants for new openings – and the low rate of turnover, or quit rate, among government workers, said James Sherk, a labor economist at Heritage.

"Federal employees leave their jobs at one-third the rate of the private sector," he said. "By their own actions, they are saying they think they are getting an amazing deal."

Of course, the truth is far more subtle, particularly among state and local government employees. It's untrue that they haven't felt the recession.  Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said earlier this year that between 100,000 and 300,000 teachers around the country faced layoffs this year. And the Economic Policy Institute says state and local governments have shed 282,000 jobs since April 2008.

Last week, the institute – a labor-friendly, liberal think tank -- released a report designed to tamp down outrage over public payrolls titled "Debunking the Myth of the Overcompensated Public Employee." It argued that government workers are more experienced and more highly skilled than their equivalent workers in the private sector, so they deserve higher pay. And when controlling for that difference, the report concluded, government workers are slightly underpaid.  

How can that be, with databases full of six-figure-salaried government workers?

Think back to Oregon's prison doctors, or Ohio's psychiatrists and IT consultants.  In many cases, it's obvious that government pay can't keep up with pay scales at high-paying jobs.  Physician specialists, for example, forgo private sector salaries which could easily reach $500,000 or more to work in those Oregon prisons.  On the other hand, lower-skill workers tend to do very well in government jobs, the Economic Policy Institute's report conceded.

"The public/private earnings differential is greatest for doctors, lawyers and professional employees," it said. "… (But) high school-educated public workers are more highly compensated than private sector employees, because the public sector sets a floor on compensation. The earnings floor has collapsed in the private sector."

It's that collapse which has led to increased scrutiny of government worker pay, and to the extreme politicization of the compensation issue.

So what's the truth? Are government workers overpaid or underpaid?  It's wrong to even attempt an aggregate apples-to-apples comparison. Local and state government workers earn about $1.1 trillion in wages and benefits each year, according to Heritage. Mapping that to $1 trillion in earning power at private companies is a nearly impossible task.

That's why individual anecdotes are so powerful, and why we are turning to you. Maybe you live in a Bell, too?  Do a little digging, and tell us what you find.  We've decided to focus on state and local government employees, since egregious salaries at that level of government can go unnoticed for a long time. Bell's city manager, for example, was earning nearly $500,000 annually back in 2005, according the the Los Angeles Times.

Look up your state.  Find your county officials. Keep in mind, you may have to use different tools to find state, county and local salary information.  Include some context – a $100,000 salary is far from upper class in New York, but would do quite nicely in rural Mississippi.  The more context, the better.

Here's an example: The good folks at Southern California Public Radio recently published a list of the highest-paid city managers in California, divided by population to make comparisons easier. The results were fascinating. The city manager of San Jose, with 1 million residents, holds a $273,000 salary, for instance, while the manager of tiny Vernon, with a population of 96 people, earns $211,000.

E-mail me your findings at BobSullivan@feedback.msnbc.com. You can post comments below, too, but we won't publish comments on specific individuals until we've had the chance to do some follow-up, but general comments are welcome.

Better yet, Tweet about this story by clicking here and ask your friends to join you in your search.

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You can also recommend this story, and this quest, to friends on Facebook.

There are several options, though none is easy.  In general, those in debt should never sign up for a service that requires a large up-front fee. Here's a look at your choices: 

Debt consolidation: Using a single loan – such as a home-equity loan -- to pay off multiple debts at full price. The benefit is usually lower interest rates, and this option is generally credit score neutral – a big plus compared to the other options.  Unfortunately, debt consolidation is also far less common since the economic collapse of 2008, as banks are far less willing to give out home equity loans today.

Credit Counseling:  Involves paying a small fee – usually under $100 – to a service that offers budgeting advice and will negotiate lower fees and interest rates with debtors. Debtors pay the counseling service, which in turn pays the lenders. These nonprofits sometimes receive financial support from credit card companies. Still, Consumers Union says credit counseling is often the best choice for consumers who are struggling with high interest rates but capable of paying back their debt.  Debt counseling will impact a consumer's credit score, but not as severely as default. And it's not magic; according to this story by MSN Money's Liz Weston reveals that counseling programs have a 45 percent dropout rate. To find a debt counselor, visit the National Foundation for Credit Counseling.

Debt settlement: Offering a creditor, such as a credit card company, a lump sum payment on a debt at a negotiated lower amount. For example, a consumer who holds a $12,000 balance on a Visa card might accumulate $8,000 and offer to give the issuing bank that amount in exchange for forgiveness of the rest of the debt. There are hundreds of firms that claim expertise in these kinds of negotiations, and have advertised aggressively since the onset of the recession.  However, consumers can engage in these kinds of negotiations on their own.

Debt settlement comes with many caveats.  First, many debt-settlement firms will instruct consumers to stop paying their bills and instead contribute to a special checking account set up by the settlement company.  At the same time, consumers are told to cease all contact with their creditors.  This tactic is designed to look and feel like a credit counseling arrangement, but it's often deceptive and gets the consumer into more trouble.  Creditors don't take kindly to being ignored and often file a lawsuit.  Also, even a successful debt settlement will have a dramatic negative impact on your credit score, as future creditors will consider it an unpaid or partially-paid bill. Finally, debt settlement can incur a tax liability, as the IRS may consider the forgiven portion of the debt as income.

Bankruptcy: A federal judge will consider your debts and assets, and decide which debts get paid and which get erased. While bankruptcy is sometimes the only option for some consumers, it has the longest negative impact on credit scores.

For more information, consult these prior stories

Debt cut in half? Don't count on it

Will cut your debt ads stampede to Web? (Explains new FTC rules aimed at tamping down debt settlement ads)

For teacher, tough lesson in debt settlement

Want lower interest rates on your credit cards? While the answer is almost certainly "Yes!" you shouldn't  pay a random telemarketer $600 or more to try and do it.

Apparently some consumers are doing just that in response to a long-running ripoff in which telemarketers offer to slash credit card interest rates,  according to Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray. His office has been pelted with complaints from residents who were called in violation of the "Do Not Call" list and pressured into signing up for alleged rate reduction services offered by companies with vague names like "Card Member Services" or "Credit Card Services."

It's unclear if the rate reduction telemarketers plan to simply take the money they charge for the service and run or if they do make calls on behalf of consumers. Either way, said Cordray, "These companies are trying to steal from people," and consumers should steer clear of them.

"These companies are collecting fees for a service that consumers do not need," Cordray said. "They are not offering anything that consumers cannot do on their own. While the solicitations may be touting 'guarantees' and 'exclusive offers,' the companies have no more clout with creditors than consumers do."

The calls have an air of believability because the telemarketers often hint that they work for the consumer's credit card company. Some already know pieces of personal information about the consumer.  In addition to name and phone number, some seem to know -- or at least manage to guess -- the victim's bank and part of their card number. (The first part of all credit card numbers is based on the issuing bank and easy to discover).

Their claims are bold.

"Card Member Services Scam called my home (saying) they can reduce my rates as low as 6.99 percent," one Ohio resident said in a complaint provided by Cordray’s office. "They asked if I was Terri ... and I said yes. They asked if I was interested in a rate reduction."

The sales pitch was even more alluring for another resident.

"They said (they) could get a 1.5% interest rate," the consumer said. "The caller said she knew (I) was only paying minimum payments on the account."

In perhaps the boldest sales pitch, a caller who said he worked for a company named Global Direct Services actually got the consumer's bank on the phone to try to close a sale.

"(He) said for a one-time fee of $595, they will contact all of your creditors and get your interest rates reduced as well as amount owed," the complainer told the attorney general's office. 

An official at the AG's office described what happened next:  "The company contacted PNC (Bank)… while the consumer was on the other line. Global Direct Services put PNC and the consumer on the phone together so that the consumer could give permission to release information to Global Direct Services."

But the telemarketer got a surprise. "PNC told the consumer this is a scam and the company was not calling from the United States," the official said.

Evidence of similar scams can be found dating back at least as far as 2006, but it's clear from the flurry of recent Ohio reports -- and a smattering of similar complaints from all corners of the country-- that what Cordray calls a ripoff is resurgent and isn't confined to the Midwest.

The uptick in rate reduction offers comes just as consumers are about to be protected from debt settlement companies and their nearly ubiquitous advertisements.  The Federal Trade Commission recently issued new rules that will severely curtail debt settlement advertisements, starting Sept. 27.

The rate reduction calls came from all over the country. In the three dozen sample complaints provided by the Ohio attorney general to msnbc.com, no two calls came from the same phone number. They originated from far-flung area codes in Florida, Nevada, and California and elsewhere.  In many cases, the victims received "robo-calls," and were instructed to "press 1" for a chance to lower their rates.

Many consumers who tried to return the calls using their caller ID reported that they reached a non-working number. Msnbc.com tried to call several of the numbers provided by consumers; none worked.

Some consumers complained of harassment, saying they have been getting the calls for up to six months straight, even after requesting placement on the firm's Do Not Call List.

"I find myself constantly amazed at the predators and fraudsters we hear about," said Cordray. "If these folks worked half as hard at creating legitimate small businesses, we could really grow our economy in this country."

RED TAPE WRESTLING TIPS

First, hang up immediately on all telemarketers. If you must be polite, hang up as soon as anyone unexpected calls and asks for money.

Second, it is possible for consumers to call their credit card issuer themselves and request an interest rate reduction, though such reductions are much less common since the onset of the financial crisis. A well-planned call might still be worth it, particularly by consumers who have a solid offer for cheaper credit from another bank.

But some financial experts warn against making such calls.  At some banks, such a request could cause an account manager to suspect the consumer might be in some kind of financial trouble and an account review, which could actually lead to higher rates.

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Gemma Meadows / eea2020.com

It started out as a routine case of credit card fraud.

Dr. Gemma Meadows, an optometrist in Virginia, got a call from Bank of America in June warning her that there was suspicious activity on her Visa card.  Meadows confirmed the fraud, and Bank of America issued her a new card.  Case -- and account -- closed, she thought.

Instead, a grand mystery began, as unexpected packages containing small-priced items started arriving: a portable night light from Mobi Technologies; a thank you letter for a $30 donation to BoysTown in Australia; a T-shirt from the University of Illinois. Almost every day for two months, surprise boxes from UPS, FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service showed up on her doorstep. 

But the packages paled in comparison to the phone calls and e-mails about suspicious orders placed in her name. There were Vietnamese movies ordered from SaigonCity.com in Southern California; a $299 pendant from Universe Collection in Connecticut; peanut Brittle from Fannie May Candies in Chicago; several orders of wine or champagne; Brazilian Coffee Beans from EVP Coffee in Madison, Wis.  And crammed in among the seemingly trivial purchases, an order for a classic Gibson guitar valued at $2,500. 

"I just received five more items today at my home and I'm truly sick of it," Meadows said two weeks ago, when she first contacted msnbc.com. "I have no idea why the perpetrator would bother doing what they are doing, as it seems like all the merchandise is being sent to me." 

Was it harassment?  A practical joke? Was there a criminal lurking around the corner hoping to intercept the packages?  Meadows doesn't know.

She spent the better part of two months beating a path to the nearby UPS Store to return the items, and returning phone calls to dozens of website fraud departments.  The workload, at times, was overwhelming.

"I have a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old, and when they go to bed, my choice has been, do I work on (keeping track of the stolen merchandise) or work on my charts?" she said. 

Meadows, who keeps impeccable records, shared with me the incredible list of fraudulent activity that has dogged her since June. The log offers a rare look at the tactics of credit card criminals, and the fate of a consumer trapped inside a fraud operation.

Among the first frauds, on June 24: two tiny $1 donations attempted at EnlightenNext.org, a nonprofit spiritual Web site. Meadows' name, home address and phone number were listed in the "order," but two different Visa cards were used for payment. 

On June 25, a $35 hockey stick was ordered from Harrow Sports. Again, a new card was used, but the suspect entered Meadows' cell phone in the order.

That same day, a potential clue surfaced: There were five attempted orders for magazine subscriptions from a firm named Communications Arts. Again, various credit card accounts were used, but Meadows information was all over the orders, she was told.  A fraud specialist at the site told Meadows that the orders were flagged as suspicious because they arrived through an IP address that was traced to Vietnam. Of course, the clue was unreliable: the suspect could have been ordering magazines through a hijacked computer in Vietnam.

Within days, Meadows provided a summary of the crimes to local police, who listened attentively but told her not much could be done.  The orders continued unabated, offering few additional clues.

A firm named K&L Wine called to ask her about an order of Mumm champagne for $37 that was destined for Newport Beach, Calif.  Books were ordered from several booksellers, including "Folk Arts in Education: A Resource Handbook" from Michigan State University. A $7 order for an eyeglass case at BestBuyGlasses.com was flagged by fraud software there. 

One merchant told her the IP address associated with the order "was 13,642 km away from my home," raising a red flag. In July, there was an order at Books-a-Million that was placed from an IP address in India, further confusing matters.  There were orders for $10 worth of stationary, a $17 order for five sticks of lip balm and even a $2.85 order for one sleeve of sugar cane cups from Greenfeet.com.

A TYPICAL DAY BEATING BACK FRAUD
A July 7 entry gives a sense of Meadows' typical day. She started by calling a website to say an order she'd received was fraudulent and to request details so she could provide them to police.  Then she dropped four packages off at the post office to be returned, visited the postmaster's office to ask about submitting a complaint and called FedEx to arrange pickup of a fraudulent package.  Later, another website returned her call to discuss a fraudulent book order.

"It's been tough to deal with all of this," she said.  "But I kept documenting things. ... I kept thinking, 'Maybe someone can see a pattern in all this.'"

After all the frustration and time she's spent returning packages and taking notes, many consumers might be tempted to just throw out the unwanted stuff that's arrived at her home, or even open the packages and keep anything that seemed useful. But that "never crossed my mind," Meadows said.

"I am one of those people who like obeying the rules," she said. "If it's not mine, I shouldn't keep it.  Instead, she has kept careful records because she "wants this person to be caught."

Exhausted by all the activity, she took a new tactic a few weeks ago, telling UPS, FedEx and the USPS to stop delivering packages to her home. That halted most deliveries, but it didn't stop the fraudulent orders and the phone calls.

WHAT'S GOING ON?
As with most credit card frauds, it's very unlikely the criminal will be caught. But long-time Internet fraud investigator Julie Ferguson, now with fraud-fighting firm Ethoca.com, thinks she knows what's happening to Meadows. She called it a "card tester scheme."

"Her identity is probably being used to pass fraud checks," Ferguson said. "These people are testing merchants, trying to figure out what triggers the fraud rules."

Given the sheer volume of orders, it's hard to believe the criminals don't care what they are ordering or what happens to the packages, but that's typical credit card thief behavior, Ferguson said.

Every online merchant uses software to estimate the likelihood that an order is fraudulent. The software tests range from rudimentary checks -- is the credit card number valid? -- to more-sophisticated techniques, such as, "Has this computer ever ordered from us before?"

Merchants set a sliding scale to determine when they will reject an order or trigger additional security measures, such as a phone call. Many might challenge orders for $100 but let one for $10 slide, for example.

Ferguson believes that Meadows' tormenters are probing hundreds of merchants, looking for easy marks.  It's common for criminals to borrow parts of consumers' identities when making such orders. So, after Meadows' credit card number was stolen and deactivated, the criminals likely got in the habit of using her address and phone number as placeholders when filling out orders using other stolen data, she said. That's why her mobile phone, name and address are all over the orders, even though her credit card was not.

Meadows' tale is a reminder that there's no such thing as a simple credit card fraud case.  Consumers who suffer a compromised card should know that hackers likely have other bits and pieces of their identity and should be on high alert for other kinds of identity theft in the following months.

RED TAPE WRESTLING TIPS
Ferguson had other advice for Meadows, or anyone else who finds themselves being used as part of a credit card fraud operation.

*Insist the police department get a subpoena for the email accounts involved, and pull all the records.
*Every time it happened, I would send a letter to the email addresses saying, "Stop using my information," and I would copy the police department I am working with. Sometimes that scares off the suspect
* Call the local U.S. Postal Inspector's office and see if you can get anyone to care there. The postal service is more likely to investigate widespread mail fraud than local police.
* File a complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov

Finally, there is good news for Meadows: Within the past few days, the packages and fraudulent orders have abruptly stopped. That could mean her fraudster is on vacation or has gone back to college, but it most likely means the crime ring that was haunting her has finally discarded her information as useless, Ferguson said.          



Union-Tribune via ZUMA Press

Deborah Borza, mother of Flight 93 victim

On Sept. 11, 2001, passengers on United Flight 93 engaged in perhaps the most heroic act of our generation, fighting back against terrorists who had hijacked their plane. Today, the spot in Shanksville, Pa., where the plane slammed into the earth remains a largely unrecognizable patch of dirt.

On Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the attack, the place will be dressed up for visiting dignitaries, scheduled to include Michelle Obama and Laura Bush. Soon after, though, the field will be back to normal -- a barely active construction site.

And yet, a woman who would have every right to be angriest about the delays -- the mother of the youngest victim on Flight 93 -- recently showed me the best kind of patience, and a heroic grasp of a concept in short supply during our troubled times: perspective.

I visited Shanksville this summer on a detour during my "Hidden Fee Tour," drawn -- as nearly 1 million Americans have been since 2001 -- by stories of the doomed passengers' bravery. 

Shanksville couldn't be any more different from lower Manhattan.  Set about 20 miles off the Pennsylvania Turnpike, its rolling hills are barely disturbed by occasional twisting, empty two-lane roads.  It's quieter than any church I've been in.  As you approach Shanksville, you wonder what the roar of a 757 about to crash must have done to this quiet place.

Finding the crash site is surprisingly tricky.  Signs leading drivers to the place are tacked onto stop signs and light poles, with all the permanence of "garage sale" posters you might spot on a Saturday morning. The road up to the temporary memorial is unpaved but passable.  It leads to an old barn that was commandeered by the FBI to conduct its investigation. The makeshift structure now houses placards that tell the Flight 93 story, as well as some artifacts.

The main attraction is the abandoned mine field below, where the plane slammed upside down at about 500 mph. When I was there, a fence separated visitors from the point of impact. A couple of earth movers, part-way through efforts to level the ground, stood silent. Given the size of the place -- the memorial grounds ultimately will cover 1,500 acres -- the trucks seemed dwarfed by their task. 

A volunteer, standing at the fence, showed visitors an artist's rendition of the planned permanent memorial, flipping pages in a notebook protected from the elements by laminate.

"This is our tribute to these heroes?" I thought.

The rest of the story will probably sound familiar to you, even if the details are not.  While Congress passed a law authorizing creation of a memorial a year after 9/11, the National Park Service and the Families of Flight 93 spent the better part of the next nine years working to acquire the the crash site for the memorial. The process did not go smoothly. At one point, the park service had to move the temporary memorial when a mining company that owned the land where it had been erected tried to solicit donations from visitors.  After years of bickering, the federal government threatened to use eminent domain to take the land in 2008, which finally persuaded several local coal companies to sell. In the meantime, the park service and the coal companies argued over who would clean up the manganese left over from prior mining activities.  After the design for the memorial was chosen in 2005, protestors -- led by a family member of a Flight 93 victim -- complained that the plans include hidden pro-Islamic messages. Work on the memorial finally began in 2009, but stopped almost immediately when a New Jersey construction company challenged the bidding process.

Denise Custer, who grew up near the crash site and now lives in nearby Lambertsville, told me that the locals are sick of hearing all the talk about the memorial -- and they are saddened by how little has been done. Still, when relatives come to visit, they all want to go.

"In May, I took my sister who was here visiting from Florida, and she said, 'Is this all there is?'" said Custer, 58.

At a press conference last week in Pennsylvania to announce new fund-raising efforts, David Beamer said much the same thing, albeit with more diplomatic flair.  Beamer is the father of Todd Beamer, who famously led the charge against the terrorists with the call, "Let's roll."

"We're very pleased with the progress," Beamer told the Pittsburg Post-Gazette. "But I must tell you it has been nine years. The 40 folks on that plane that day did what they had to do in about 30 minutes. ... I must also say I'm a tad disappointed that it's not already done."

'An amazing process'
When I tracked down Debby Borza, treasurer of the Families of Flight 93, I expected to hear exasperation, bitterness, even flat out anger.  Borza's daughter, Deora Bodley, was only 20 when she stepped onto Flight 93.  She was headed back to California to start her junior year at Santa Clara University. Slated to take a later flight, she arrived early at the airport that day so the friend who dropped her off could attend an early class. Fate gave her a stand-by seat on Flight 93.

Borza's expected anger, however, was absent.  Instead, when talking of the memorial, her voice sounds like the gentle breezes that blow almost continuously through Shanksville.

Deora Bodley/DBPT.org

"We're on target for next year," she said, referring to the park service's plans to have the first section of the memorial ready for a formal dedication on the 10th anniversary. "There's a lot of people who are dedicated, people willing to go above and beyond. It's really just a labor of love. … It's been an amazing process, and it is really something that what will be there next year will be an amazing place for visitors to come to."

Borza spent our first fifteen minutes talking by thanking seemingly everyone she could think of.

"The state of Pennsylvania has been so generous. It's because of them that visitors who take Route 30  can access the site," she said. "The families are always grateful when we see dignitaries like Laura Bush and Michelle Obama. We are always thankful that they come."

But what about the lack of obvious progress on the memorial site?

"The design is mostly a landscape memorial," she replied.  "It's not a typical memorial with buildings and monuments, lots of markers, so you wouldn't see the normal construction signs."  Borza then lovingly described what's to come: A wall that tracks the descent of the plane. A walkway to what's now called the "Sacred Ground," the impact area where the remains of the passengers were scattered on impact. 

"And the rest is just open area for people to just walk through, sit down and reflect," she said.  "A nice place to honor the heroes."

'40 percent complete'
Joanne Hanley, superintendent of national parks in Western Pennsylvania, also said the memorial project construction is proceeding according to schedule. 

"We're 40 percent complete," she said. Also to be finished by next year: A 2.5-mile entrance road, and a parking area for the Sacred Ground. A second phase of the project, which includes a visitor's center and an education center, is targeted for completion by 2014, she said. 

View of the construction on Sept. 6 / Flight 93 National Memorial Campaign

Still, after a nine-year process, Borza understands there are complaints and frustrations, and of course she feels them. Deora was close with her grandparents - Borza's parents. While her mom has passed away, she hopes her father will live to see completion of the memorial.

"Deora used to fly from California to North Carolina every summer to see (her grandparents)," she said. "It's important to him."

But complaints don't do her -- or her daughter's memory -- any good. On the other hand, being "gracious" helps keep her moving in the right direction.

"I have my moments," Borza said. "I just share those moments with my family or close friends. But I know that from the moment I wake up in morning until I go to sleep every night, it's not going to make a bit of difference to anybody how my identity feels about this. When I'm gracious about it, it provides a different point of view other than the same old thing."

The "same old thing" is the negativity and complaints that so often trivialize all that's happened. "(Complaining) doesn't get you anywhere. I run into a lot of visitors who are really upset and angry. But if I'm going to spend time on anything, I spend it on filling up that empty void I have instead of having more hatred or anger," she said.

And for perspective, she notes  that 10 years is actually not a long time for planning and construction of state memorials.

"They are still working on the MLK Memorial," she said. "Look at how long the World War II Memorial took."

Indeed, on the other side of Pennsylvania from Shanksville is perhaps the most important battlefield of America's 19th century -- Gettysburg. Its largest monument -- devoted to the soldiers from Pennsylvania who fought there -- was dedicated on the 50th Anniversary of the battle.

This weekend, memorial design protesters have taken out advertisements in local newspapers, still hoping to draw attention to their complaints. Their presence will no doubt be felt at local ceremonies, which include a motorcycle rally this week which begins at a nearby chapel christened the Flight 93 Memorial Chapel.

'Your job isn't finished'
On Saturday, Borza will be standing aside the two first ladies, but she spends most days now with her father in North Carolina -- and she keeps up with her daughter's friends. Their lives are a more important memorial to Deora, anyway, she said.

"So many of them changed their majors to things like social work, headed for jobs that could help people," she said. "They woke up that day and life took on a different meaning for them.  Business degrees, where it was easy to make a little money, didn't seem to make a lot of sense any more. A lot of them do nonprofit work now." She also hears occasionally from workers at the U.S. Capital building and White House, the suspected targets of the Flight 93 hijackers. They regularly thank Flight 93 families for potentially saving their lives, she said.

"All I have to say to them is, 'Your job isn't finished yet. Go find something you love doing and play hard.'"

 The Flight 93 Memorial, estimated to cost $58 million, is being built through a combination of private and government funds. While funding for phase one is complete, Hanley said another $15 million is needed to begin work on phase two.  Donations are accepted at HonorFlight93.org.

Recently, a Web cam was installed so Internet users can keep track of progress at the construction site. It can be viewed at

http://www.honorflight93.org/memorial/construction/?fa=live-webcam

A Facebook fan page includes updates and updated photographs of the site.

Become a Red Tape Chronicles Facebook fan and follow RedTapeChron on Twitter.

It took years of complaining, two years of legislating, and one year of waiting, but last month, a host of new rules kicked in designed to protect credit card consumers.

Now comes word that many of the pieces of credit plastic in your wallet may not be covered by the new consumer protections after all.  Read on to find out why some credit cards in your wallet are safer than others.

Even before the last round of provisions from the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act took effect, banks were engaged in widespread loophole hunting, trying to invent new fees while billions in penalty charge revenue had been eliminated by an act of Congress.  But it turns out a very large loophole could make that relatively easy.

So-called "professional" cards are not covered by new consumer protections. That means they can come with all the old booby traps -- late fees of $35 or more, less than 20 days to pay the bill before being hit with those late fees, random interest rate charges without warning, retroactive interest rate charges, and so on. Perhaps you think that won't impact you -- "professional" credit cards might sound like plastic that CEOs use to expense private jet trips.   

You're wrong. Professional cards include what are sometimes called "corporate cards" -- the plastic that most companies insist employees use for work expenses.  Millions of such cards are in circulation. Citigroup, Bank of America, U.S. Bank, and JP Morgan Chase together have issued 4 million corporate cards, for example, according to the Nilson Report. American Express, which would not reveal the number of corporate card accounts it holds, is the largest issuer, according to Nilson. Amex's corporate cards are not subject to CARD Act rules, according to the company.

So, despite the CARD Act's cap of $29 late fees, Amex's corporate card users are liable for $39 fees. Individual employees are generally responsible for late fees, which can occur while employees are waiting for expenses to be processed.

A lot of money is at stake.  In 2008, BusinessWeek reported that every month, 4.8 percent of employee payments are delinquent.

Perhaps you don't have much sympathy for people using corporate cards to pay for travel and entertainment expenses, if you don't have one. Well, credit card companies are after you next. Apparently, they want everyone to feel like they have a swanky corporate card, because they are slinging special "professional" card applications at millions of Americans.

Synovate, which tracks credit card solicitation mail, revealed recently that 47 million professional card applications were sent out in the first quarter of this year -- representing a 250 percent increase in those kinds of offers.  In one case, the business card application was simplified to include a single check box with the question, "I am a business professional with business expenses."

'Bruising step backwards'
Banks are clearly pushing CARD-Act-immune plastic because the accounts are more valuable, but that's not fair, says Bill Hardekopf, publisher of Lowcards.com. He says the terms and conditions of the professional cards are a "bruising step backwards" for consumers who should be enjoying the new consumer protections.

"It seems some banks do want to get around the law rather than just comply with the law," said Josh Frank, who's studied the issue at the Center for Responsible Lending, an advocacy group.  "Why else would they be randomly sending out solicitations to people for small business cards?"

The ability to skirt CARD Act provisions is no small advantage, he said.

"Raising rates on people's balances retroactively, that's pretty powerful, worth a lot of money," he said.

Last week, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., sent a letter to the Federal Reserve crying foul about this latest development, and asked the Fed to step in and stop the faux business card solicitations.

"Credit card companies seem to be purposely hawking corporate cards to consumers who don't own a business and may even be retired. This is more than deceptive marketing; it is a dirty trick meant to get around the new credit card law," he said in a statement. "We need to put an immediate stop to this scheme." Schumer suggested requiring an added step to prove the applicant is a small business owner to keep regular consumers from falling for the business card trap.

But that step would still leave millions of corporate expense card holders with plastic in their wallets that are still exempt from the CARD Act.

It should make you wonder: Why are there two sets of rules, one for consumers and another for small business owners?

Those who've ever tried to run a small business know that such a dual-rule system isn't unusual.  Small businesses are often abandoned by Congress when it passes laws aimed at protecting consumers.  Small retailers, for example, bear the brunt of much credit card fraud. Unknown to many consumers, who enjoy superb liability protection from credit card fraud, businesses which accept credit cards are often on the hook when criminals use stolen cards at their website or when ordering on the phone.

"If something is wrong, it should be wrong for everybody," says Hardekopf. "It doesn't make a lot of sense that small business cards aren't protected by the same set of rules."

And by extending the new protections to small businesses, it turns out, Congress would be protecting all of us.  Time to get back to work, Congress.