-Classic Closeouts, illegally made unauthorized charges and debits to the consumers’ accounts months or years after they bought low-cost clothing or household goods from classiccloseouts.com, the FTC charged. The charges usually ranged from $59.99 to $79.99, and Classic Closeouts charged some consumers’ accounts multiple times. Consumers’ efforts to contact the defendants to contest the charges were unsuccessful. Many consumers also disputed the charges with their financial institutions. After the financial institutions reversed the unauthorized charges, the defendants contested these disputes, falsely claiming that consumers had chosen to join the Classic Closeouts “frequent shopper club.”

The FTC recently issued a warning that economic-oriented phishing activities were growing.

Specifically the FTC said it was urging user caution regarding e-mails that look as if they come from a financial institution that recently acquired a consumer's bank, savings and loan, or mortgage. In many case such emails are only looking to obtain personal information - account numbers, passwords, Social Security numbers - to run up bills or commit other crimes in a consumer's name, the FTC stated.

The FBI Cyber Crime Task Force added it had arrested the first person under a new computer fraud law that makes it a federal crime to commit extortion relating to unauthorized access of, or damage to, a protected computer system or to impair the confidentiality of information obtained from that computer. In this case the person was trying to exploit customers of flailing insurance giant AIG.

In addition, ScanSafe and other Web security watchers are reporting a big uptick in the number of hackers using the Bank of America brand in a phishing attack that uses the bad economy as a lure.

Perhaps the concern is unfounded a recent PC World article notes. The article states that more than half of us are deleting messages from banks and financial institutions without even thinking twice. Experts say recipients who receive these e-mails believe that all the messages are part of phishing e-mail scams.

While the Federal Trade Commission does a lot of posturing about how it help consumers protect their valuable personal information, through laws and education, the agency has for the second time in less than a year delayed enforcement of its key identity theft rules until August.

The reasons for the delays are an old tune by now; banks and financial institutions can't get ready for the program which was originally set to go into effect Nov. 1, 2008. Other groups such as hospitals and physicians offices have complained about the Red Flag requirements saying they will cost too much to implement. A survey done by the MedPage today of 100 hospitals found that they would have to spend over $10,000 to comply with the Red Flag Rule.