Some frauds have been around for years. Others are new. This is how they work - and how to avoid being defrauded.

Crooks will stop at nothing when it comes to parting you from your money Some schemes have been around for years, others have emerged more recently. It's estimated that consumers lose over $1 billion dollars a year to cons. Here are some that are still operating , and others to expect in the future.

The Free government Grant

Here's another way they entice you to give out sensitive information that they can use to steal your identity and defraud you. Beware

This one is the offer of free government grants. A man was nearly a victim of this scam. He received a phone call from a man with a heavy accent who claimed to be from the "Government Grant Processing Center " and that he had been selected to receive a free grant of $8000.00.

All he had to do was furnish his checking account number so they could take out a service charge. The man became suspicious when he was asked for more and more personal data, so he hung up. Had he given the information they wanted they could have stolen his identity

This practice is very common and comes in various of guises. Do not give any personal data to anyone unless you have initiated the transaction and know who you're dealing with. Do not respond to any unsolicited offers or requests for personal data.

Identity Theft

An e-mail fraud scheme designed to get people to divulge account information has intensified recently.

The scheme known as phishing, AKA identity theft generally uses e-mail to link us to bogus sites that lure you into disclosing credit card numbers, passwords, user names PIN numbers and other sensitive information.

The e-mails purport to be from well known institutions, banks, online businesses even government agencies. The links are exact copies of legitimate web sites and even use a lot of genuine links.

There are in the neighborhood of 400 active phishing sites and they are on the rise so be Cautious

They use a combination of threats and urgency to entice victims to fall for their schemes. Once the phishers get the data they need they can cash bogus checks, buy expensive merchandise, withdraw money from ATM machines, open new accounts in your name, pay expensive hotel bills or anything else they can think of to spend your money on. So beware.

Phishing, or identity theft is really a two part crime where the first step is e-mail fraud but the main goal is identity theft, says a spokesman for the Justice Department.

Most of these operations are overseas so prosecution is virtually impossible. Reimbursement can be a problem because you are considered responsible if you give out personal data although most banks consider phishing a fraudulent transaction.

Tax Refund Fraud

This is an iteration of Phishing or Identity Theft.

The tax refund phishing scam starts with an e-mail, which appears to originate from taxrefunds@irs.gov. The e-mail tells recipients they may be owed a federal tax

The IRS does not use e-mail to solicite personal information so Beware Do not reply.

Telemarketing scams

This is an example of the unscrupulous .taking advantage of current situations. When gasoline prices went off the charts it was a severe blow to my wife who distributes newspapers.

At the height of this fiasco I received an offer of $200.00 in gasoline vouchers as an inducement to try out a telephone service and a couple of other products. It also involved coupons for discounts in restaurants and other services. It sounded plausible, I had used these programs in the past and the companies mentioned were known entities.

There was a charge of $1.95 for the package which didn't appear unreasonable so I acquiesced to an electronic transfer from my checking account. These trial offers were subject to your cancellation when you received the material in the mail and had an opportunity to inspect it.

The upshot was that they delayed mailing the material until the time limit had expired and substantial charges had been made to my account.

Being furious I began an offensive. I called the phone company, the Attorney General, the Better Business Bureau the FCC, the FTC and any other agency I could think of, as well as the principal companies.

Most of them claimed lack of jurisdiction. I also called my credit card company, who were unable to help because technically I had sanctioned the transaction. The next step would have been small claims court, but my aggressive action paid off and the companies eventually issued full refunds.

This all took time and involved needless aggravation. My first mistake was giving out my checking account information. NEVER, EVER, do this.

In the first place don't fall for deals like this. If they sound too good to be true, they usually are. Again if you are going to buy, use a protected credit card, don't use checks or even debit cards, you are too vulnerable.

Not only was that a problem but apparently I got on a sucker list and I am plagued with calls from people who want my account number under one pretext or another. BEWARE

Work at home schemes

Not only are we deluged with