"It's very embarrassing," says Denise Tarramorse, 43, reflecting on the five months she spent in a long-distance relationship with a man she believed to be a American soldier, but who was actually a con artist. "These families give up so much for our safety and our freedom, and to have these jerks -- I won't use a harsher word -- impersonating them like that, I think they should be shot."

Tarramorse (pictured below), a teacher in California and a self-described "hugely pro-military person," was excited when she met Peter Genthe online through smartdate.com. Communicating over instant message, Genthe told Tarramorse he was a sergeant in the Army, deployed to Iraq. They emailed and instant messaged each other frequently and Tarramorse quickly developed feelings.

"Absolutely," she says. "I absolutely was falling for him." So one day, when Genthe asked her to wire him $300 to purchase a satellite phone so that he could call her, she didn't hesitate to send the money. Soon after, he began calling her, but it was hard for her to hear him.

"The line was very garbly, so we didn't talk very long. Basically, he would say 'Hey baby, I love you. So good to hear your voice.' And then we would lose the connection and he would send me an instant message."

After a few of these phone calls, Tarramorse noticed that Genthe, who'd told her he was from Australia, didn't sound Australian. "I thought maybe I just wasn't hearing him very well, because the line was so bad." So she continued to communicate with him, enjoying their online chats and believing him when he said he would come back to America after his deployment to marry her.

One day, Genthe explained that his mother, who he said was from Mexico and currently living there with her family, was sick and needed money for prescriptions and surgery. "I have a college degree and a master's degree," explains Terramorse. "I consider myself fairly intelligent. But the thought that this could be a scam never crossed my mind. It never even occurred to me even though I know there are scams out there." Instead, she wired him $1,400.

Once she sent the money, though, she "started having this kind of weird feeling in my stomach." She looked up the number for Genthe's satellite phone and discovered that the calls were placed from Nigeria. Then she googled Peter Genthe and found his name posted on various websites that identify scams, including scamwarners.com. That's when she knew there was no soldier who would one day come home to marry her. Instead, there was a man somewhere in Nigeria who'd robbed her of $1,700.

A Scam Out of Africa

Tarramorse is one of the thousands of women who fall victim each year to fraudsters posing as U.S. servicemembers. "A couple of years ago we were getting hundreds of calls a year about this scam," says Christopher Grey, chief of public affairs for the Army Criminal Investigation Command. "Now we get thousands. If we're getting calls from thousands of women, we know there are many more out there who aren't reporting it."

According to Grey, Tarramorse's experience is a textbook example of the scam. "This typically happens on an Internet dating website. The perpetrator takes the identity of U.S. soldiers and Marines, mainly, meets multiple women online and after a couple of weeks starts asking them for money. He professes love at hyper speed and continues to rob them."

Stealing a servicemember's identity can be surprisingly easy, laments Grey. The fraudster pulls the servicemember's photos from Facebook or press releases or local news stories, and builds an identity from there. Sometimes he uses a real servicemember's name and rank. Other times, he creates a new name.

The vast majority of the perpetrators are in Africa, which means the Army doesn't have the jurisdictional authority to go after them. The distance and cultural differences further confuse matters. "These guys are working in foreign countries where they can set up shop in a cybercafe and then move on," says Grey. "A lot of those cafes don't keep any records, so tracking someone down and bringing them to the U.S. is extremely difficult, both financially and logistically."

Fighting Human Nature

As a result, the military focuses on prevention by educating women about the realities of life in a combat zone. "I keep telling people to talk to someone who's been in the military," Grey says with a little sigh. "The perpetrators say they have to pay for their leave, but someone in the military knows that there's no such thing as paying for your leave."

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Scammers also frequently provide addresses that anyone with military knowledge would immediately recognize as fraudulent. "In a combat zone, you can never send a letter directly to Chris Grey at my location," says Grey. "There are designators that the military has used for decades, generic addresses where the military collects the mail then sends it on to your actual location. If someone says to send the mail to Ghana because they can't get mail in Iraq or Afghanistan, or because their commanding officer is in Ghana and will pick it up and bring it back to them, that's just outlandish claims."

Despite the press releases and educational materials made available by the Army Criminal Investigation Command, women continue to fall for the scams. "I spoke to one woman who sent $28,000 total," says Grey. "I spoke to another who sent $15,000, and countless women who sent $5,000, $4,000, $3,000. It's worldwide. I've had victims come to me from Japan, Australia, Great Britain, you name it. When we do an alert, they just shift their business. Right now, we're seeing a lot of victims in Denmark."

Ultimately, Grey's command is not only battling the fraudsters, it's also fighting human nature. "I've had women tell me that they thought it was suspicious that the guy said he's from Atlanta but has an African accent, but still they kept up the relationship. It all comes down to love is blind. They continue in the relationship and hope that it is what it appears to be. It's just heartbreaking."

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Still scrambling to find a Halloween costume? Beware of ghoulish fraudsters looking to profit from your mad dash.

Last year, the Better Business Bureau, a national, nonprofit organization dedicated to creating trust between consumers and businesses, received 378 consumer complaints about costume stores and websites.

According to Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, the February indictments are the first time in history that a racketeering case in Southern California has focused on a gang's white collar crimes. "Generally, large-scale racketeering charges focus on drug trafficking activities. The allegations against the [Armenian Power] are noteworthy because they deal primarily with white-collar crime and various types of fraud." Multiple requests for comment from the defendants' lawyers for this article went unanswered.

Counterfeit Checks, Mortgage Scams

While there's no hard data on the growing involvement of street gangs in white collar crimes, a quick search of news headlines demonstrates the trend. According to National Public Radio, in the last four years in Chicago alone, members of the Black Disciples gang participated in mortgage fraud totaling $70 million, while the Vice Lords engaged in similar mortgage scams totaling $80 million. In Los Angeles, the Long Beach chapter of the Crips, as well as members of the Mexican mafia, have been involved with identity theft, reports the Los Angeles Times.

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The Trentonian, a New Jersey newspaper, reported in 2009, that eight members of the Nine Trey Gangsters, a sub-group of the infamous Bloods, were charged in a counterfeit check scam valued at $654,000. "This investigation reveals the Bloods on new turf, defrauding banks of hundreds of thousands of dollars using counterfeit checks," said New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram. "Just as we have targeted the financial crimes of traditional organized crime through the years, we will crush any inroads by street gangs into these activities, which could bankroll more drug dealing and death."

White collar crime not only funds other gang activity, it can also be used to launder dirty money. "Depending on the gang's needs, if they want to detach themselves from the real money maker, for example, which would be dealing drugs or trafficking guns, they'll create some sort of front to launder the money," says Jason Boone, a research associate at the nonprofit National White Collar Crime Center. "It's a very classic gang and mob behavior. Like in the movies, the nice little restaurant with all sorts of guns and drugs in the back." Except now, the criminals are using drug money to buy and flip properties in fraudulent mortgage transactions, for example.

Internet Makes Crime Easier, Safer

The increase in white collar crime among street gangs is also explained by the shifting economic landscape. "Most criminals are opportunists," explains Calvin Shivers, assistant section chief of violent criminal threats at the FBI. "They seek to make money anywhere they can. With mortgage fraud, for example, with the economy over the last couple of years, there's an increase in mortgage fraud as a whole, and criminal organizations are taking advantage of that. If they're in a neighborhood where there are a lot of houses in foreclosure, there is a greater opportunity to engage in fraud."

According to Boone, technology has also paved the way for street gangs to expand into fraud like identity theft. "With the Internet, there's a lot more anonymity, in terms of your role in the scam, so it's perceived as safer than being out on the street."

Street gangs also consider white collar crime less risky in terms of potential punishment if caught. "If you have the choice between charges for some kind of violence, murder, assault, armed robbery, things like that, and some sort of fraud, like larceny, they're thinking that the potential consequences will be a lot less," explains Boone.

However, as Shivers cautions, the calculation isn't that simple. "Sentencing has an entire formula that considers a number of factors. Was there violence involved? What was the amount of money lost? Were there prior convictions? Drug sentencing tends to be stiffer, but it all depends on the magnitude of the crime. Look at Bernie Madoff."

Though street gangs are unlikely to rival Madoff's historic Ponzi scheme anytime soon, they are expanding their domain. "I wouldn't say that white collar crime is replacing drug dealing and other traditional street gang crimes," says Shivers. "It's more an issue of diversification."

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"Dating is really difficult," says Juliette Kimoto, Mrs. Nevada 2006. "The minute I say 'Hi, I'm Julie. I have six kids, my ex-husband is in prison for 30 years and I'm flat broke, it's like 'Thanks, where's the check?'"

Kimoto, 35, made headlines this week when the Federal Trade Commission announced that it had settled a case against her for allegedly deceiving tens of thousands of consumers of millions of dollars. It's hard to understand how Kimoto, a former beauty queen, a devout Mormon and a mother of six children, ended up entangled with the FTC, which is why she agreed to break her years of silence to share her side of the story.

Kimoto admits no wrongdoing, and offers little explanation for her role in the alleged scam beyond ignorance of its workings. She manages to both defend and blame her ex-husband Kyle for her current situation, and for the actions that lead to his long prison sentence.

Indeed, any description of Kimoto's tale begins with Kyle. The two married after her junior year of high school, when she was 17. That same year, she gave birth to their first child, and though she completed school and eventually earned a degree in elementary education, she stayed at home raising the kids while Kyle worked in telemarketing.

"Do I know what he was doing every day? As a wife, I have six kids. I am going to soccer practice, nursing babies. Ask any woman with six kids what her husband does any given day at the office and most would say, 'Well, he has a legitimate office and employees and he's working. Beyond that, I don't know what the heck he's doing.'"

At least, that's how Kimoto says she saw it. Her husband provided a nice home, a good income, and a nurturing environment, and she had no reason to doubt how he was doing it. She says she believed Kyle "sold a variety of marketing products," to clients including AT&T.

Was Kyle Kimoto Committing Fraud or Just 'Marketing'?

The FTC tells a different story: According to them, Kyle Kimoto orchestrated a massive fraud targeted at consumers with poor credit histories, "offering credit cards that never materialized, while upselling various benefit packages through an incomprehensible, computer-generated 'verification' tape."

In April 2008, Kyle, 36, was convicted and sentenced to 29 years is prison, earning him the No. 6 spot on Forbes' list of longest white-collar prison sentences. Juliette was left to grapple with her mixed feelings towards her husband. "Do I believe he intentionally defrauded people? Intentionally? Absolutely not. Do I believe that the advertising, or the way they were selling it, was misleading? Yeah, probably. But there are misleading advertisements everywhere. It's called marketing."

At the same time she was processing her husband's conviction, she was confronting the new reality of her finances. Juliette had been out of the workforce for years, and with a family to care for, she needed money.

His Business, Her Name

"Before Kyle left for prison, he started a new Internet marketing business," she said. "Because of the civil settlement he'd signed, he opened it up in my name. Between soccer practice and coming home to get the kids one day, I signed the papers. The business was in my name.

"I sat down with my accountant after Kyle was in prison and asked if it was OK to continue with this business," she continues. "I had four people sitting around me and saying 'You know what? We've got good people running it. It's fine.' The business was clean, as clean as possible, because everybody had seen what had happened to Kyle. But I was the owner. I did receive an income from the business."

So when the FTC alleged that the business "deceived consumers with misleading and unsubstantiated claims about bogus products and services, including one that supposedly would help them get free government grants," Juliette says, she was surprised. "I'd never stepped foot in the company. People working there wouldn't know who I was. I have six children. Anyone with kids knows I wouldn't have time to mastermind a scheme. I wasn't masterminding a scheme. I was not there conspiring. If you asked me what they did there, I don't even know. I've never worked for a company other than my dad's dry cleaner."

Juliette is especially adamant about her ignorance regarding the allegations that her company dealt in government grants. "I know that whole grant thing sounds really crazy, but if you look at companies and who owns them versus who works at them, often times the people who own them aren't there. You'll have an owner and a manager and they're different people and I just really honestly wasn't there. So this thing that I was selling grants, it probably was one of the projects they were working on, but those are things I don't have any knowledge of. There are other people in place doing those jobs."

Settling for the Sake of the Children

So if she's innocent, why did Juliette agree to settle out of court? "When the FTC comes in, they freeze all your assets and bank accounts." Now, she has to think about the kids: Kohl, 18, Kiana, 15, Keilani, 13, Kahlea, 10, Kru, 9, and Kaiya, 6.

"My son is 18 years old and has had his account frozen since he was 8," she says. "I wasn't able to get money out for him to go to college. Once they cut you off, how can you afford to get an attorney? How do you defend yourself? They've taken my cars so I can't get anywhere. I don't have health insurance. I can't get a job anywhere. I can't even get a job at a local gym because when you Google me, you see all these articles, and people say 'I can't hire you, but tell me [about] this interesting story.' I could not afford to go to trial. I had to settle."

"The companies also agreed to publicize tools for consumers to monitor their own usage. The F.C.C. has teamed with the nonprofit Consumers Union to track companies' compliance," the newspaper continued.

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The man claimed that he had gone to Canada with some friends, that he'd hit a telephone poll with his car, and that he was now calling from a Canadian police station for help. After reassuring Precht that he had not been drinking, he told her he needed $5,000 to get home to the United States.

Online, she found an attractive, professional-looking website. "They advertised that they made donations to the American Cancer Society, autism groups, all these great causes, so of course I was drawn to that," she explains. "I thought it would be really great to get involved."

The money sounded good, too. "They told me they would pay me $2.50 for every pin I assembled for them, that I could make as many as I wanted, that they would sell them." All she had to do was mail the company a $500 deposit for the supplies. She'd then make a sample pin, submit it to the company for review and, once approved, begin production.

Yeast mailed her $500, received a box of supplies -- and became one of the millions of Americans victimized by financial scams.



Consumer fraud -- the intentional deceit of a consumer -- is nothing new, unfortunately. For decades there are have been scams related to mortgage loans, credit cards, employment opportunities, lotteries and identity theft, to name just a few. But in recent years, as the American economy has struggled with a high rate of unemployment, a collapsed housing market and a stubborn recession, scammers have seized on Americans' financial fears in new ways.

"There are a suite of scams that concentrate on people that suffer financially and we've really been going after those," says Steven Baker, director of the Midwest region of the Federal Trade Commission. "Certainly it's an increasing problem of people taking advantage of that suffering. It's really bad because you're holding on by your fingernails in the first place and then they steal what little money you have left."

In 2010 more than 1.3 million Americans complained of consumer fraud. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. Unlike Yeast, most don't speak up.

The Dawning Realization That You've Been Had

It didn't take her long to become wary, but by then, it was too late.

"They didn't send me the wire I needed to complete the pins," says Yeast, "and that got me a little suspicious, but when I called them they said, 'Oh, assemble the one pin, send it back, and once we make sure it's of quality, we'll send you the rest of the supplies." So she did.

Except, instead of receiving permission to begin producing more pins, the company rejected her little angel (pictured, right). She made a few changes and sent it back. Again, the company returned it. "It went back and forth, back and forth. I thought to myself that there is no way this pin is not of good quality." She called to discuss the problem. Initially they refused her calls. Then they began saying they'd never received her sample pin.

Eventually, Yeast told them she wanted her $500 deposit returned, which the company had said would always be an option. They refused. So Yeast called an attorney, who discovered that Darling Angel Pins was a multimillion-dollar fraud. The company never accepted anyone's pins. instead repeatedly rejecting every sample until their "potential contractors" simply gave up and walked away, leaving behind their $500 deposits.

Infuriated, Yeast sent letters to "anybody and everybody who would listen." One day, she got a call from the FTC, which wanted to hear more about her story. The national investigation of online fraud that she helped with succeeded, among other things, in shuttering Darling Angel Pins and a dozen other similarly fraudulent companies, and seizing their assets.

A Shocking Number of Scam Artists

While it's hard to measure the size of the problem -- consumers often neglect to report being conned, either because they don't know where to turn for help or because they are embarrassed that they've been victimized -- experts agree it's big.

In the last five years, 6.1 million consumer complaints have been tracked in the Consumer Sentinel Network, a database made available exclusively to law enforcement officials and a clearinghouse for complaints filed with various agencies. In 2010 alone, consumer complaints totaled over $1.7 billion.

And that's only what gets reported. According to Baker, a few years ago his agency conducted a random telephone survey and discovered that only 8.2% of victims reported complaints. "In other words, 90% don't. And we know that from our own cases that we only have a couple of hundred complaints and it turns out there are thousands [of victims]. If I didn't do this for a living, I'd never believe how much fraud is out there."

Tailoring the Cons to the Times

While there hasn't necessarily been an increase in the number of frauds, their shape has evolved to keep pace with the changing economy. "Scams follow the headlines, so the people who do these scams, if they see that a lot of people are unemployed or are at risk of foreclosure, they will go after them, will design something to go after those people," explains Peter Kaplan, deputy director of public affairs at the FTC.

For example, in response to the collapsed housing bubble, there are now scammers who offer to help struggling homeowners to avoid foreclosure, often by promising to secure a mortgage loan modification in exchange for an upfront fee. Frequently, the scammer takes the money, makes maybe one phone call to the loan servicer, tells the homeowner they tried and failed to arrange a modification, and calls it a day, pocketing hundreds or even thousands of dollars the distressed homeowner could have put towards their mortgage.

"People have had such a hard time with their mortgage loan, and such a runaround, that they really think it's better to pay somebody than to work with their servicer or housing counselor," says Yolanda McGill, senior counsel for the Fair Housing and Fair Lending Project at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization. "People who get declined for a modification by their lender and want one figure they can go out and pay for it." Scammers know this, and capitalize on it to make a buck at the homeowner's expense.

Other increasingly common frauds leverage the fact that 9.1% of Americans are unemployed. Scammers may offer to help a consumer to start a medical billing practice in exchange for an upfront fee, or advertise an opportunity to start selling a product that doesn't exist.

When It Sounds Too Good to Be True ...

"It's really terrible," says Monica Vaca, assistant director in the FTC's Marketing Division. "These folks are really looking for a chance to work, so they'll pay money to send away to learn about the opportunity. They're not sitting back and saying 'Oh well, I'll just sit back and see where life takes me.' They're really trying to take control of their destiny, really trying to earn money for themselves. Instead, they lose their money and then they also lose their aspiration."

Unfortunately for Yeast, she may never get back her $500 deposit. "It may not sound like a lot of money, but to me, that was my mortgage payment. Literally, at that time, we had a $500 mortgage payment."

She does, however, feel empowered. "I will tell anybody who will listen to be careful with opportunities that sound too good to be true. I mean, of course it's embarrassing. I'm embarrassed. I'm smart. I am college educated. And I got duped. But if I say nothing about it, the scammers keep doing it to other people. So I tell people, 'I know. I get it. Even though you wonder if it's too good to be true, you'll just try anything to work, to feed your kids, to find your next mortgage payment. But that's how you get hooked.'"

Loren Berlin is a reporter with the AOL Huffington Post Media Group. She can be reached at loren.berlin@teamaol.com, on Twitter at @LorenBerlin, and on Facebook.

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1. Identify Which Benefits You Need ... and Which You Don't

"There's no right plan for everyone," says Ellen Laden, director of public relations for the individual line of business at UnitedHealthcare (UNH), one of the nation's largest health insurers. "Ask yourself, for example, how often do you go to the doctor? Do you take prescription drugs? Do you have a chronic condition that is being managed? Do you have a physician you see routinely or do you go to clinics? Do you want dental coverage? Or vision coverage? Determine what kind of plan you want, and what kind you can afford. Everybody would drive a Mercedes or a Lexus if they could, but most of us drive a Toyota or take public transportation because it's what we can afford and gives us what we need."

Adds Mahoney, "For example, if you don't plan to have a child anytime soon, you probably don't want a maternity rider. You can add it later. Dental, vision, maternity, life insurance, those are all benefits you can add on later and are all ways to shave a little bit off the cost if you don't need them now."

2. Consider a Short-Term Plan

Short-term plans provide health insurance coverage for a limited period of time, usually one to 11 months -- you select the duration. "They are designed to bridge the gap between your previous coverage and your future health insurance," explains Laden. "Let's say you get laid off, or your COBRA coverage is about to run out, or you just moved to a new city and don't want to be committed long-term to a plan, you could buy one month of short-term or 10 months."

According to Laden, these plans are generally less expensive than longer-term plans, and often times you can reapply for coverage if you want to extend the term. Additionally, "you can drop the coverage at any time, without penalty, and have returned to you any premium that hasn't already been applied to coverage."

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2. Identify Which Benefits You Need ... and Which You Don't

"A lot of people take employer benefits for granted. They don't dive in on the details, they just know they've always had insurance through work," says Mahoney. "But it may be that you have benefits you don't need. For example, if you're not planning to have a kid soon, you may not need maternity coverage." In instances where your employer's plan offers benefits you don't need, Mahoney suggests pricing an individual plan that only includes your needed benefits, and comparing the two.

However, the opposite is also true. If you know that you need certain benefits, your employer-offered plan may be the cheapest way to get them. "I have three kids," says Winkler, "and everyone in our family wears glasses, so it would be foolish for me to pass on the vision benefit given the cost of contacts, glasses, annual eye exams." According to Winkler, many employers offer additional benefits such as vision, dental, disability and critical illness coverage for relatively low-cost premiums.

3. Establish Your Priorities

Once you know what you need, you can determine how important various aspects of your coverage are to you. You might have a certain doctor you want to use, or a specific medical facility. Is that more important to you than saving money on your monthly premium? These are questions you have to answer as you select your plan. For example, most employers offer access to both an HMO or a PPO plan. "Traditionally the HMO is cheaper but has fewer options," explains Mahoney. "They have a smaller list of providers that insurance will pay for, and they won't cover the service if it's out of network." In contrast, a PPO costs more, but has a wider range of providers and will cover some portion of the cost of service even if the provider is out of network (say, for example, that you require medical assistance while traveling out of state).

4. Compare Treatment Costs

Like most everything else in the world, the cost of medical services varies by provider and insurer. This is due in part to the fact that different providers negotiate different rates with different providers, and in part because each provider determines its own prices. As a result, most insurance providers offer tools that allow you compare the costs of various physicians and facilities, and Winkler suggests consumers use them.

"Comparing gives you a better sense of how much is paid by you versus the health plan for various services," she says. "They give you a sense for discounts that apply that health plan has negotiated, and helps you to understand average cost of care."

5. Determine Your Risk Tolerance

"Insurance should be a financial protection product," says Mahoney. "It should protect you when you have an accident or an illness." To that end, Mahoney stresses the importance of thinking long and hard about your comfort with risk when you select your plan. "If you earn $25,000 a year and you have an accident and have a $15,000 deductible, that insurance really didn't provide any protection. If your deductible is $2,000, that's a lot more protection, but you have to pay more per month for that privilege."

6. Take Advantage of Preventive Care

Basic preventative care -- medical services intended to help you stay healthy -- is covered 100% by health care providers, irrespective of whether or not you have a low- or high-deductible plan. That's a great thing not only for your wallet but for your long-term health as preventative care can identify problems before they become serious. So, if you aren't currently taking advantage of these free services, which usually include annual physicals, well-baby care, immunizations, mammograms and colonoscopies, get started.

7. Know the Bells and Whistles

These days, employers are offering all sorts of extras to help employees get, and stay, healthy, and most of them can fatten your wallet while helping your health. For example, many employers are now offering incentive-based plans that "give employees the opportunity - and maybe dependents - to earn dollars for healthy actions," says Winkler. "Sometimes it's credit towards the premium, credit towards the deductible, or maybe even a gift card. We have an employer, an international company, who offers employees the chance to win a car in a raffle when they do various healthy actions." The activities can be as simple as taking a screening exam to educate yourself about "your numbers" -- that is, your cholesterol, your blood pressure, your glucose level.

According to Winkler, another popular program is the Health Savings Account. Unlike a Flexible Spending Account, the funds of which must to be used up within the year and cannot be transferred between employers, the Health Savings Account is "like a personal bank account specifically related to health expenses," explains Winkler. "Those dollars are yours, so if you leave, that money can go with you. It's interest-bearing and tax-free. There are limits on it -- for 2012, single coverage is capped at $3,100, and family coverage is capped at $6,250 for the tax year. But it can be deposited pre-tax from your paycheck, so there's a lot of tax advantage to it and it's very worthwhile."

whether or not to smoke, it's high time they be required to accept at least some personal responsibility for the financial and other consequences of their choice to others."

The idea has gained traction. Today, almost a dozen state governments charge higher health insurance premiums to employees who smoke. Companies are also jumping aboard. PepsiCo (PEP), Macy's (M) and Gannett (GCI) charge smokers a higher premium, while others, including Humana (HUM), Union Pacific (UNP) and Scotts Miracle-Gro (SMG) simply outright refuse to hire smokers.

"But some critics said the code did not go far enough to address the influence of drug marketing on the practice of medicine,"
the newspaper goes on to say. "The guidelines, for example, still permit drug makers to underwrite free lunches for doctors and their staffs or to sponsor dinners for doctors at restaurants, as long as the meals are accompanied by educational presentations."

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