Buyer Beware

Nearly 45% of people reporting being scammed were ripped off using a phony check scheme -- by far the largest type of fraud reported in the first six months of this year, according to the National Consumers League. The average dollar loss in that type of scam: $3,178.The group said top-reported...

Kids' shoe maker Buster Brown is recalling 1.4 million pairs of car-shaped water clogs because their decorative wheels can fall off and pose a choking hazard to young children, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said.The Chinese-made clogs were sold at major retailers nationwide from...

Before buying that foreclosed home that is too good of a deal to pass up, you may want to first check if it was a meth lab.No kidding. A recent New York Times story detailed how families are getting sick because they moved into homes that were previously used for making methamphetamine. The drug...

If you're like most savvy shoppers out there, you have reward, coupon or other loyalty cards from retailers you frequent regularly (I've got a whole key fob's worth of those little plastic bar-code tags that goes with me when I go shopping). As the recession rolls along, though, many retailers are...

Speed traps and I have a long history that owning a radar detector hasn't improved.I used to have a Fuzzbuster that sat on the dashboard. It never squawked until I could see the cop and his radar gun –– and then it was too late.Tickets, Fuzzbusters and opportunistic lawyers constitute a...

I have a little problem. Well, to be more precise, I have a few little problems: my transverse abdominus, internal obliques, external obliques, and rectus abdominus muscles. Collectively known as my abs, these muscles help me stand up straight, twist and turn, bend over, breathe, and lift things....

There are products that are clunkers, and then there are products that destroy otherwise healthy companies. The Ionic Breeze falls into the latter category.The Ionic Breeze was initially a major success, propelling shares of The Sharper Image to all-time highs, but the trouble began in 2002 when...