Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D.-N.Y., is proposing legislation that would require banks to warn consumers when debit card transactions would overdraw their accounts.  Her legislation would also ban banks from the common practice of crediting expensive transactions to customers’ accounts first, which can lead to more overdraft fees.

Seems rational but banks are, of course, resisting. The Times quotes Michael Moebs, an economist who advises banks, to explain why: Moebs says that Maloney’s legislation would cause as many as 2,000 banks and credit unions to fail within the next two years. By Moebs’ calculation, about 45 percent of the nation’s banks would be unprofitable if they weren’t able to charge those overdraft fees.

The Afflicter questions whether the failure of these banks would be an entirely bad thing. We speculate that their business would just be taken over by competitors who are able to make money without misleading their customers.

Last month the FTC got a court order to at least temporarily to shut down web sites affiliated with companies including Grant Connect LLC of Reno, Nev., and individuals including Rachel Cook, James Gray, Steven Henriksen, and Juliette Kimoto. A court hearing for the FTC’s lawsuit against the group is set for next month.

As described in the FTC’s complaint, Grant Connect web sites including grantconnectoffer.com were set up similarly to other government grant sites that we’ve written about before, including usagovernmentgrants.org and neverpayitback.com.

All have claimed to offer easy access to government grant programs as a money-making scheme. In reality government grant programs are usually highly competitive and available mainly to universities, non-profits and others in a position to achieve a public policy goal.

Ordering the grantconnector service also subjected people to charges of up to $70 a month that were only disclosed in small print. Like the other sites, the prominently displayed pricing would lead one to believe that they were only paying a couple of dollars for access to grantconnector’s information.

At first glance, usagovernmentgrants might not look like a scam. Its home page even includes a warning to “beware of other websites selling outdated information and old CDs for over $30.00.”

But try to apply for the “free” information usagovernmentgrants claims to offer on how to win government grants, and you will find your self routed through a series of forms, asking for more and more personal information, that ultimately leads to a credit card form for a $39.95-a-month membership service plus an ID protection service for $9.95 and a program called “Craigslist Income Secrets” for $11.95.

The site in fact looks like Neverpayitback.com, which we’ve written about previously.

So, we’ll repeat. The Federal Trade Commission has warned that there’s no reason ever to pay for information about government grant programs. Information about all of them is available for free at government web sites including grants.gov.

Applying for government grants also is not a good plan to earn extra money. They’re generally available to fund social programs, academic studies, etc., and winning the application process is competitive.

So it’s worth recalling, although it’s been a long time, how car dealers used to try to rip us off.

A recent post on the scam.com forum was a nice reminder:

The author of a blog called dealersecrets.com suggested in the scam.com post that when examining a car you might want, you should remove the engine oil cap. If the oil the there is milky, it could indicate that there is water or coolant in the oil and that may mean that the head gasket is leaking. That repair may cost up to $500.

But be even more wary, the post suggests, if the oil is sticky. That could indicate that an additive is being used to quiet engine noise. And replacing an engine can cost you several thousand.

In many cases, nothing has happened to their credit: The Journal reported a number of apparent instances of abrupt cancellations of cards belonging to people who appear to have had very good credit. Many such people are having cards canceled anyway, as the card companies reduce their risk because of the economy.

This practice has apparently always been legal, but card companies may be canceling without warning more often today because of the current economic situation.

The Federal Reserve is imposing new rules for credit cards that take effect Aug. 20. They will require advance notice when card issuers change terms. But the new rules don’t speak to when cards are canceled, according to the Journal.

People are desperate for opportunities for career advancement right now, helping out professional networking web sites like LinkedIn.

But older than LinkedIn, Twitter and the other Internet properties that professionals are using to promote themselves are ink-and-paper Who’s Who directories, that are supposed to list accomplished people in different walks of life.

With everyone looking for a leg up on their professional rivals, the opportunity to be listed in “Who’s Who in —-” may be more attractive than ever. Or at least that’s what scammers are betting.

CSOonline.com writer Ben Roethke recounted his experience the other day with “Heritage Who’s Who.”

Now, the Afflicter has his own vague memory of having his name listed about 20 years ago in a Who’s Who directly for high school students with decent grades. As we recall, it cost about $10.

That’s a far cry from Roethke’s experience with Heritage Online and its press to get Roethke to pay for a listing in the “2009-2010 Heritage Who’s Who Business Leaders Honors Edition.” Aggressive telemarketers pushed him to pay as much as $699 for entry into Heritage’s “Platinum Program,” where along with the directory listing, he supposedly would have received decorative wall plaques proclaiming his admission into the Who’s Who, and press releases announcing his accomplishment.

Their sales pitch tried to appeal both to Roethke’s ego and to apply pressure, as the saleman cited a looming deadline for the new Who’s Who to be admitted to the Library of Congress.  (There is, of course, no such deadline.)

Roethke reports that no one holds a copyright on the term “Who’s Who,” so anyone can purport to be publishing an official Who’s Who directory.

And an informal poll he conducted of people who’ve paid for admission to Who’s Who directories, found no one who said that they received any benefit from their listing.

Still, distributors of acai berry products are able to sell wine bottle sized containers of juice for more than $30 each.

That looks to us like it should provide a pretty good profit margin. But the people at Acaiburn appear to have found a way to improve on it.

Acaiburn promotes 14-day free trial offer to the Acaiburn diet system — requiring a credit card, of course, for the $4.85 shipping and handling fee.

If you decline to cancel, the company bills at a rate of $79.95 a month to continue supplying its supplement, which it ships in three-month quantities.

And then there’s also Acaiburn’s diet literature. Along with the 14-day free trial of acai berry, Acaiburn starts a 14-day free subscription to its “Insider Secret Tips” package and a 28-day free trial to its “Comprehensive Weight Loss eBook” material. Failing the cancel those on time starts a $6.95-a-month billing cycle for the secret tips and $8.95 a month for the ebook package.

Accounts in various online forums say that canceling Acaiburn is extremely difficult.

But maybe that’s the secret. The weight-loss benefits of acai berry are questionable. But  a personal cash shortage can definitely help you limit your food intake.

Here’s a testimonial, posted on Youtube, purportedly by a satisfied customers:

That is why law enforcement has been warning since late last week that people should be alert to cash for clunkers scams.

Several state attorneys general and the Federal Trade Commission have issued statements warning about web sites that claim to allow consumers to pre-register for the cash for clunkers program. The registration forms on some of these sites ask for Social Security numbers and other personal information.

Cars.gov, operated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, is the only web site affiliated with the cash for clunkers program. And no pre-registration is required for consumers to participate.

The other sites, that claim to be taking pre-registration, are likely to be controlled by identity thieves and other fraudsters, according to the FTC.

The Afflicter did a quick search for some scam cash for clunkers sites and didn’t immediately find any. They appear not to be ranking highly in Google search results.

In case anyone is still confused by one of these sites, it’s worth noting that Cash for Clunkers is not the official name of the program. Cars.gov refers to the program as the Car Allowance Rebate System, or CARS.

For those who haven’t been following it, CARS or cash for clunkers, is providing credits of up to $4,500 for consumers who trade in gas guzzling cars for more fuel efficient ones. The program, which started last month, is on pace to soon burn through its initial $1 billion in funding. The Senate is debating adding another $2 billion.

The Spadester rep, who identified himself as Neal Holdsworth, said that the company pays out “100% of the winnings to 100% of our players.”

Holdsworth said that the total number of dissatisfied customers who are posting comments about Spadester are fewer than 12 and that the site has more than 400,000 registered users.

Half of those 12 are fraudsters themselves, Holdsworth claims. He accuses Spadester’s critics of trying to extort money from the company with threats that they would flood the Internet with negative comments about Spadester.

Holdsworth also accuses Spadester’s competitors of participating in the smearing.

Afflicter has no way of confirming whose allegations are true. But we’ll continue to do what little gambling we do ourselves offline, in the state of Nevada, where casino operators are inspected by state regulators. That way, we can at least be reasonably sure that we’re losing a game that isn’t rigged.

There are 60,500 searches a month on the keywords “spades online,” according to estimates from research tools that Google offers. Another 18,100 are estimated to be searching the term “internet spades.”

So one would think that people who run Spadester.com should be able to do a good honest business, offering games of spades online. Especially with the opportunity to wager. (The site purports to be based in Cyprus.)

But many people who say they are former customers of Spadester.com are warning others away. There are discussion threads in numerous forums and posts in a number of blogs, going back for months, warning that Spadester is a scam.

Many of these warnings describe similar experiences with Spadester: Upon signing up, the customer plays some spades, wins a little and cashes out their winnings; Their initial experience gives them confidence that the site is not a scam.

They then play more aggressively, win and end up with hundreds or thousands of dollars in their account. But this time, when they request to cash out, Spadester is unresponsive, citing technical reasons for not being able to immediately make the payout.

Then Spadester tells the customer that they can have their money if they make a new deposit, of a couple hundred bucks or so, in the Spadester account.

Sometimes, Spadester staff become aggressive and threaten to close customers’ accounts and not pay them at all.

Customers who decline to make a new deposit may eventually be told that they can have their payout but they first must verify their identities by providing a Social Security number.

This last tactic has lead some to speculate that Spadester is not only ripping off its customers by refusing to pay winners, but that it also may be harvesting personal information to sell to identity thieves:

To see some of the discussions of this check out: World Law Direct, Rip-off Report and Scam.com.

Afflicter believes that there are some online gambling sites that are offering honest games, but we recommend that you should be very careful of who you’re dealing with if you gamble online.

In the offline gambling world, casino operators are heavily regulated. In major gambling destinations like Nevada and Atlantic City, N.J., casino operators who cheat run the risk of losing their operating licenses or being charged by regulators with heavy fines.

But on the Internet, a casino operator may be very hard to find or identify, and may not bear any consequence for cheating.

You should also be skeptical of reviews you read of gambling sites. Many of them are likely to be posted by affiliate marketers who earn commissions for bringing new gamblers. We suspect for example that it was an affiliate marketer who posted this: