Free Republic

A Long Island attorney who specializes in representing people who won major lottery jackpots was arrested by the FBI Tuesday, along with a soldier in the Genovese organized crime family, on charges of ripping off the winners of three lotteries for a total of $107 million, federal prosecutors said. The three alleged victims, who were not named by prosecutors, were described as the winners of a $1.5 billion Mega Millions jackpot; a $245 million Powerball jackpot, and a $150 million jackpot, officials said. Jason Kurland, 45, of Dix Hills, who bills himself as “The Lottery Lawyer,” was charged in federal...

Thirteen states — Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia — have enacted laws to combat what is seen as price gouging in the wake of natural disasters. Price gouging is legally defined as charging 10 to 25 percent more for something than you charged for it during the month before an emergency. Sellers convicted of price gouging face prison terms and fines. Price gouging in the wake of natural disasters is often seen as evil exploitation by sellers to rip off desperate customers. Let's hold off on that...

Had to right this. And no, I didn't make a mistake. Here in fragrant Los Angeles there is a new scam sweeping the streets. It's all the rage man! What the scumbags do is get a picture of a little baby, post it on a piece of cardboard, and write on it that little FuFu doesn't have any money for a funeral. They also write rest in peace and all of that. Then said scumbags, there are usually about 3 or 4, walk thru the L.A. traffic that is stopped at the light and beg for funeral money for little...

The Immigration Reform Law Institute revealed that a border protection agency has spent more than $100 million in taxpayers’ cash transporting young Central American migrants from the Texas border to ... destinations in the USA..... “the administration has been less than forthcoming [for 2 years] and why they’ve repeatedly tried to blame the costly… surge [of migrants] on Central American crime rather than its own amnesty policies.” The decision to spend $100 million since 2014 to help the migrants adds “insult to injury,” ... Under rules set by Obama, ICE must classify most Central American migrants as asylum seekers,... assigns...

March 3, 2014 3:45PM As we predicted/requested on Friday, The Tulving Company has gone out of business, as of Monday morning. They are no longer answering their phones, and we have reliable information confirming that they are ceasing operations. This page will be updated as more information comes in. There is a lot of information on our old page about The Tulving Company. We hope to update this page with information about what will happen next. At this point, our best guess is that The Tulving Company will file for bankruptcy. Unfortunately, we believe that there will be little in...

We hear from another reader who has been left out of pocket because of eBay's money back guarantee scheme Is online marketplace eBay really protecting the interests of its users? It claims to take action in 30,000 cases each month when something goes wrong and users are out of pocket. Yet after Telegraph Money reported on a case where the online giant’s user protection systems failed to help one reader, others were quick to comment and email about similar poor – and sometimes costly – experiences. Ebay’s main protection for buyers is its Money Back Guarantee service. This was launched...

NASA Advances Evaluation of Piantelli’s LENR Research Posted on September 28, 2011 by Steven B. Krivit Multiple sources have confirmed to New Energy Times that a team comprising NASA engineers and an investment group from the U.S. is expanding its interest in the low-energy nuclear reaction research of Italian biophysicist Francesco Piantelli. A meeting with the group and representatives of Piantelli will take place in the next few days. According to Dennis Bushnell, chief scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, NASA was working months ago on experiments based on Piantelli’s research. Piantelli’s work with LENR goes back...

The rules of money are getting a makeover, and it's about time. With the implosion of the housing market, the collapse of credit, the upheaval on Wall Street, and our brush with a second Great Depression, we've all paid a high price for the abuses at the center of our economic mess. The fallout has been painful: trillions of dollars in lost savings, 7.6 million people newly unemployed, and record-high home foreclosures and bankruptcies—a tidal wave that has yet to crest. Among those hurt most are Americans over 50, who had more to lose and have less time to recover.How...

It was a mix of the old and the new Wednesday as the Denver/Boulder Better Business Bureau released its list of 2009’s Top 10 Scams and Ripoffs. The list includes both local and national activity. “While fraudulent checks, wire-transfer scams and vague free-trial offers continue to wreak havoc in the marketplace, other circumstances in 2009 made way for new schemes and unethical activity,” the BBB said in a news release. The bureau cited such events as Colorado’s storms, the H1N1 virus and the struggling economy as new areas for scammers. Dale Mingilton, president/CEO of the BBB, cautions consumers to: •...

Hao Ting, who owns a petroleum-equipment business in Beijing, recalls the investment sales pitch from her private banker in Hong Kong at Singapore's DBS Bank: "The world is made for wealthy people. The more wealth you have, the easier it is to make money." Today she's out $10 million and owes the bank another $12 million. Hao and the bank are now suing each other in Hong Kong, with the bank saying it followed "local regulatory guidelines."

As an old-time consumer reporter, I can tell you when a salesman says you have to do the deal right now, chances are he’s a rip-off artist, and a good general rule is to walk away — or better yet, run away. The old now-or-never routine is generally regarded as a red flag flying. When a president tells Congress and the nation you have to do a trillion-dollar deal immediately or catastrophe is in the wings, you should be skeptical. When he says we’ll get into a recession we’ll never get out of, you know he’s just blowing smoky hot...

Bruce Watson, freelance blogger writes: When I was a student, there were many semesters when I spent less on food than on school books. I learned, from experience, that starvation is sometimes better than the 50th serving of lentils in a row, that there are only so many ways that ramen can be prepared, that $20 worth of raw materials can translate into a month's worth of hummus, and that sugar packets "liberated" from the local Burger King can be used to make Kool-aid, yielding a refreshing, almost free source of Vitamin C. I had always considered myself an expert...

Vitamin supplements taken by millions of people every day for their health could be increasing their risk of death a new Danish-led study suggests. The study is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The international research team reviewed the published evidence on beta carotene, vitamin A, vitamin E, Vitamin C and selenium. The team was led by Dr Goran Bjelakovic, from Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark. These dietary supplements are marketed as antioxidants and people take them in the hope they will improve health and guard against diseases like cancer and heart disease by eliminating the free radicals...

Urge to cash in on the housing bubble has spawned an industry of schemers: Every boom has a dark side. The merger mania of the 1980s produced insider trading scandals. The '90s stock bubble was busted for biased investment research. And so it is with real estate, the hottest market of the past eight years. The urge to cash in on rising home values has spawned a growing share of hucksters, schemers and rip-off artists. Learn how to avoid ten of the biggest real estate rip-offs or view Video: Real Estate Rip-OffsClick HereSo far, it is tough to know exactly...

I've never posted this sort of thing before but I've been researching it and not found much real info on the net and I've always found folks here to be very knowledgable about all sorts of things so.. I hope this is not too inappropriate and that I put it in the right place. I just bought a new Toyota Rav 4 and the dealer is pushing this Teflon coating that is supposed to keep the car looking like new without waxing for 5 years. I smell a scam but am not sure. If it works as advertised, it would...

Nine percent of U.S. Internet users have lost money on e-mail scams, according to a survey of 791 users conducted by market research firm The Radicati Group. The study was conducted online in April and commissioned by Mirapoint, a vendor of e-mail appliances that block spam and viruses. "We didn't expect it to be nine percent, we expected it to be a lot lower than that," says Marcel Nienhuis, a senior analyst with Radicati. Nienhuis defines an e-mail scam as "any e-mail whose intent is to trick somebody out of money." The survey, however, left it up to respondents to...

After a couple of lighthearted columns about my trip to Havana - the latest about Canadians participating in a political march and trying to dance - I came under some criticism from readers who felt that my perspective on the island "was unusually low-key and even somewhat clueless." I was trivializing the massive problems faced by Cuba and making a mockery of serious political processes. My column was "more of a postcard sent from a half-drunk co-ed to her sorority sisters." For the record, I was fully drunk. While I cannot entirely disagree with those assessments, I am unapologetic for...

Did you make up your mind yet about President Bush's Social Security proposal? Do you want some control over your future retirement or do you want to rely on the government to take care of you? Heads up! If Social Security faces financial problems in the near future, look again at Medicare-Medicaid. Hold your breath. While you've been distracted by politicians on both sides of the aisle who don't have the courage to speak the truth or use the brains God gave them at birth, the media, in their role as maidservant to the status quo – as perceived by...

Fellow Freepers, Here is an interesting find on ebay. P.T. Barnum was right: Click here for a fool and his money are soon parted.

When Congress passed landmark Medicare reforms last year, critics opposed a provision banning Americans from buying "Canadian" prescription drugs and a study of the safety and cost benefits of cross border purchasing was mandated in the legislation. For several years, healthcare policy analysts and health safety experts have produced a cacophony of powerful objections to importation based on worries about safety and pricing. Now adding to the din of serious concern comes this study from the Department of Health and Human Services produced by a respected, international expert panel that not only highlights the dangers of importation, but is likely...