The Federal Trade Commission today announced a law enforcement crackdown on scammers trying to take advantage of the economic downturn to bilk vulnerable consumers through a variety of schemes, such as promising non-existent jobs; promoting overhyped get-rich-quick plans, bogus government grants, and phony debt-reduction services; or putting unauthorized charges on consumers’ credit or debit cards.

The article lists eight (8) early enforcement actions against some high-profile players across a broad range of get-rich-quick niches. Included in the early enforcement actions was TV infomercial regular John Beck/Mentoring of America, which produces “John Beck’s Free & Clear Real Estate System,” “John Alexander’s Real Estate Riches in 14 Days,” and “Jeff Paul’s Shortcuts to Internet Millions.”

Also named was Google Money Tree, for allegedly misrepresenting that they were affiliated with Google and failing to disclose their continuity fee billing.

It’s highly likely that this is just the first of many actions across the get-rich-quick universe, designed to gain some early publicity by tackling a few big hitters. I would not be surprised to see this enforcement trickle down the food chain. Fraud is nothing new, but bad economic times tend to increase the potential market for schemes. Lousy, unethical practices make it harder for legitimate small businesses to use good internet marketing. So I say good riddance to bad practices and let’s see who the FTC focuses on next.

Here’s a video the FTC put together to warn consumers about get-rich-quick fraud:

I don’t think the clients in that last video would enjoy negotiating with Harlan…

How many times have you been on one side or the other of these conversations…

I went to Startup Riot in Atlanta this week and one of the more interesting startups was a company called ShoutNow — a rapid voice messaging company. The idea is that you record a short message using your own phone, then ShoutNow broadcasts that message simultaneously to a list of numbes you enter into their website.

The uses they suggest are more personal — coach notifying the youth soccer team that practice is canceled, pastor notifying the congregation in emergencies, etc. But a really good use of this technology for entrepreneurs is creating a voice reminder for registered attendees for your event.

You can’t be too proactive in making sure people remember to attend an event for which they’ve registered, and most people won’t mind a short voice message if it’s something they really don’t want to miss. Email is good, but it’s not reliable for time-sensitive events.

You could also use this as a follow-up reminder after the event to encourage people to get in touch if they have questions. You don’t want to bug people, but I can see a number of ways this could be used effectively to reach people who can’t reliably be reached online.

Thanks to Jim McGee for the link.

Although this woman speaks much better English than anyone I dealt with.