This Sunday, Jan. 9, at 8 p.m. EST "Dateline NBC" presents a compelling new feature, "The Hansen Files."

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Global fast-food chain McDonalds was subject to an attack by hackers who stole email addresses and phone numbers of many of their consumers.

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Phones for Soldiers, with the tag line “Help Our Troops Call Home!”? I received one, too, and wondered how that organization would actually use the phones: Would they sell them and make money to pay for the overseas calls by soldiers, install service on the phones and give them to a platoon, or give the soldiers the phones when theirs break?

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While you’re getting your holiday happenings lined up, scam artists near and far are working as fast as Santa’s elves to unleash a plethora of scams designed to separate you from your spending money or to install malware on your computer.

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Fly-by-night franchisors can turn people wanting to go into business for themselves into scam victims.

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Choosing a financial planner requires research, especially when it comes to determining what expertise the planner has and how the planner is being compensated

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Financial advisors and estate planners frequently use free lunch or dinner invitations to generate business. Most invitations come from legitimate businesses offering legitimate financial services. Nonetheless, caution is in order if you decide to accept one of these lunch or dinner invitations.

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The Better Business Bureau has heard of almost every scam. The scam described below has gone on for years, using almost identical messages and money amounts. Similar to the famous "grandparent scam," where the scammer wants a would-be victim to think their help is urgently needed by a grandchild, this scam seeks to convince recipients of an e-mail message that they have a friend or family member who needs their immediate help.

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Scammers often post car ads on AutoTrader.com, Craigslist,and newspaper online classified ads, showing pictures and VIN numbers for cars the scammers don't own. The price usually sounds too good to be true. It is.

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Past surveys have shown that approximately 25% of credit reports contain errors serious enough to lead to a denial of credit.

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Essentially, Martin confirms all our worst fears about “Road Show” jewelry-buying operations: they’re not going to give you the amount of money you should be getting for your gold, jewelry, or collectible currency. Eventually, Martin gets to the mechanics of just how these companies tend to work:

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Consumers who are behind on mortgage payments are at risk of being taken advantage of by unscrupulous "loan modification specialists" or "mortgage foreclosure consultants." BBB can help you find legitimate advice and information and avoid being ripped off.

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Charlie Mattingly

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Consumers frequently complain to the Better Business Bureau after accepting a "free trial offer" and finding monthly charges on their credit card bill. This happens when the "free trial" includes a negative option feature, meaning the consumer is automatically enrolled as a paying customer unless the enrollment is cancelled soon after accepting the "free trial"

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Bad debt, especially mortgages that involved monthly payments that are even less than the accrued interest, continue to but a burden on the American economy.

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How did the credit crisis come about? Many errors by many people. But what is likely to have been the biggest error was covered by 60 Minutes in a story that aired last night, named "Financial WMDs"

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A gang of Eastern Europeans that stole money from numerous business owners last year by impersonating organizations that ranged from the Better Business Bureau, the IRS, the Federal Trade Commission and even the FBI, appears to be back in operation.

The Washington Post has an article that deserves the attention of every business owner or manager, at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/06/spear-phishing_gang_resurfaces.html?wprss=securityfix.

These scammers use "Trojan" software, meaning they trick the recipient of an e-mail into opening an attachment or link that installs key-tracking software on their computer and then enables the scammers to steal bank login information the next time a customer goes to their online account.

The best protections:  1) be very cautious about opening links in e-mails, even ones that appear to come from a trusted organization like the Better Business Bureau or a government agency; and, 2) always be sure that your anti-virus, firewall and anti-spyware software is up to date and running. 

Today's New York Times has an article entitled "Finding Financial Advice in an Age of Bad Behavior." The article talks about financial planners "gone bad," including some that are members of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA). Even a former president of this organization has turned up among those accused of wrongdoing.

As the reporter notes in the article, NAPFA is a membership organization.  The article says (although many in the organization would disagree) that being an NAPFA member is "not a credential."  However, NAPFA has strong "Standards of Membership and Affiliation" displayed on the organization's website, much as BBB does. 

I have no reason to doubt that NAPFA works diligently, as BBB does, to promote its mission and hold members to standards. Despite the problems that the reporter knows (and has personally experienced) with NAPFA member planners, he writes, "I still believe that a Napfa planner should be among the first people you see when shopping for financial assistance."

What implications does this article have for the Better Business Bureau? 

The “bottom line” is that any self-regulatory organization can only reduce the risk – and can never remove the risk – that a customer will end up dealing with a business that doesn’t do things correctly.

“Start With Trust” by picking a BBB Accredited business is good advice, and always a good ides.  But a potential customer should never put caution aside.  Rather, each customer should do as much research as possible and take all reasonable and appropriate steps to protect him/herself from being “ripped off.”  No matter how well BBB does our job, the BBB can never assure that every BBB Accredited business is completely trustworthy. 

We have to be realistic.  Despite the fact that some “bad apples” (or apples that go bad) will get into the barrel, a NAPFA member or a BBB Accredited business is a good place to start when looking for a financial planner.  But that can never mean that there are not some financial planners and other businesses in the NAPFA ranks and in BBB ranks that will not be highly trustworthy or will not engage in inappropriate behavior.  

Most of us know someone we thought we knew well, and thought was a good person, but who has done bad things.  Failure is part of the human condition.  Even those who fail severely can, at their core, be “good people.” 

BBB helps businesses be better.  We help connect consumers to businesses that, more likely than not, will be trustworthy and customer oriented.  But we’ll never eliminate risk or the need for consumers to “trust but verify” when shopping for any service or product.  BBB is the place to start your search.  But that never means a person should stop searching for more information and better information and doing other things to protect themselves and their money.

The Better Business Bureau is receiving dozens of calls each day from consumers and business people who are receiving "robo calls" to their cell phone numbers, primarily from companies trying to sell extended service contracts for automobiles.  These companies appear to be playing on consumer concerns about manufacturer warranties due to financial difficulties facing some automobile manufacturers.

The "good news" is that these telemarketing appear to have called the wrong people -- Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and Senator Mark Warner of Virginia both report calls to their cell phones, and both Senators have called on the Federal Trade Commission to crack down on these calls.  Earlier this week, the Federal Trade Commission announced that lawsuits will be filed shortly against several companies.

The use of automatic dialers and recorded messages to cell phones is illegal under existing Federal Communication Commission regulations, so the BBB recommends that consumers receiving such calls file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission at www.ftc.gov whether or not their cell phone number is registered on the federal Do Not Call Registry.

To further deter future calls of this nature, the BBB is also recommending that consumers register their cell telephone numbers on the Do Not Call Registry.  This can be done online at www.donotcall.gov or by calling toll-free 1-888-382-1222.  Complaints about violations of the Do Not Call Registry law can also be filed through this website or toll-free telephone number.

John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, has a reputation for integrity that seems well-earned.  His column in Monday's Wall Street Journal, aptly entitled "A Crisis of Ethic Proportions," offers important thoughts on what he considers "a broad deterioration of traditional ethical standards" and the need for what he calls "a fiduciary society." 

Frankly, I am not sure that I agree about "a broad deterioration" in ethical standards.  There have always been less ethical and more ethical people, and there have always been "pendulum swings" in the value that society attaches to adherence to high ethical standards.

There can be little question, however, but that recent years saw a rise in the tendency to measure success "in monetary terms." Too frequently, managers have been willing to separate "success" from principled behavior and adherence to traditional standards of professional conduct.  This has been especially the case with those charged with responsibility for managing other people's money and, I fear, in the legal and accounting professions, where adherence to standards and principles has an especially important role in upholding societal values.

The result has been what Mr. Bogle recognizes as "a failure of capitalism," which is no small statement.  Or, as Alan Greenspan said in his testimony before Congress last October, "a flaw in the model that I perceived as the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works."  Mr. Bogle quotes an unnamed journalist as noting, "that's a hell of a big thing to find a flaw in." It's also a "hell of a big...flaw" stated in the convoluted way that is uniquely Alan Greenspan.

As Mr. Bogle wrote, "The managers of our public corporations came to place their interests ahead of the interests of their company's owners."  Too often, short term profits (and this year's "bonus') seem to have ranked ahead of what should have been foreseeable longer-term interests of the corporation.

Mr. Bogle says that we need to create "a 'fiduciary society,' where manager/agents entrusted with managing other people's money are required -- by federal statute -- to place front and center the interests of the owners they are duty-bound to serve."  In other words, tomorrow's managers must do what most "old school" managers would have seen as their duty, their professional responsibility. 

What Mr. Bogle recognizes, and what Alan Greenspan came to recognize to a point I think, is that markets are not always "self-correcting." Laissez faire economics, where greed is "too unchecked" by either social norms or government regulations, doesn't lead to long-term economic success.  Instead, it led to a bubble economy and a credit crisis of epic (and ethic) proportions.

The Better Business Bureau, in our promotion of martketplace trust, knows that trust and ethics are the foundation of free enterprise and capitalism.  We have a special role in helping maintain the right balance between regulation, self-regulation and free markets.  I'd call the 'free markets' part of this equation 'greed' in the good sense, that capitalism and free enterprise depend on people operating in their own interest.  But this self-interest must be constrained or 'checked' by recognition of the public welfare, the 'common good,' and especially, as Mr. Bogle notes, by recognition of duty to others, especially to those whose money it is that managers are entrusted to manage.

A well-functioning economy, as with a well-functioning society, must have a high regard for ethics.  Sometimes people forget this.  In this case, it appears to have taken a major economic event to bring us back to reality...and to a recognition of important principles.