FTC cracks down on scammers, but only those not running Government agencies

The FTC conducted a sweep, (dubbed “Operation Short Change“) going after scams involving job placement, government grant money (but not TARP, or PPIP, or any other four-letter acronymed government scam of US taxpayers), debt-reduction services, unauthorized credit and debit card charges. Hat tip to Felix Salmon for this, though he claims that the FTC is saying all business opportunities should be avoided, and then excerpts a selection that does not support his hyperventilation:

It doesn’t hedge, it doesn’t say that some are better than others — instead it says in a simple and forthright manner that if someone is advertising a “business opportunity”, even if it’s a celebrity like Adam West, you should run fast in the other direction:

Want to “be your own boss,” “work from home,” or just “make extra money“? Then you may be tempted by an ad for a business opportunity. Before you open your checkbook, check out the offer. Fraudulent business opportunity promoters use the classifieds and the Internet to tout all kinds of offers, from pay phone and vending machine routes to work-at-home businesses like medical billing and envelope stuffing. Too often, these ads make promises – about earnings, locations, merchandise, or marketability – that sound great, but aren’t truthful. The result: consumers are getting ripped off, losing money instead of making it.

Umm, it says: “Before you open your checkbook check out the offer. Fraudulent business opportunity promoters….” That sounds like one giant “hedge” to me. But perhaps Salmon is referring to some other text not quoted.

If you think any of the business opportunities we list are scams, please say so in the comments or send us an email. We applaud any effort to bust criminals and ripoff artists of any stripe. They just seem such small potatos ($ millions) compared to the much larger government operated scams and ponzi schemes ($ trillions) — the current stock market Government-manipulated crap rally, their attempts to reinflate the housing market, social security, US treasuries, the bank bailouts, detroit, and on and on.

But I digress. Go FTC!

Update: And here is another writer taking issue with Salmon on the same post.

It’s where [Salmon] calls for heavy regulation (why don’t we just go out say ban) for “business opportunity scams”. You know, get-rich-quick type offers. That I think most people with two bits of common sense simply laugh at. It sounds righteous to say these are bad, so let’s heavily regulate them, but with such action you will end up creating a nightmare for a lot of more reasonable business opportunities, adding legal fees (to cover your butt ahead of time) to, say, a fledgling franchise business.