United First Financial management has asked its agents to not participate on discussion forums, message boards, and blogs. Why? Because they’re having their hats handed to them. Simple math outdoes the UFF “factorial math” any time. Save the $3,500 and simply put your extra cash each month toward your debt with the highest interest rate. You’ll be out of debt faster than UFF will get you there, and you won’t waste hours each month goofing around with this near-worthless software.

Here’s the letter agents received, instructing them to not participate in discussions on the internet:

A child suffered for two weeks with a heart condition, while her father gave her large doses of Mannatech products in an attempt to “cure” her. The result? Her mouth was damaged, she’s confined to a wheelchair, and has cognitive (brain damage) problems.

The Australian reports:

If you watch television, read the newspaper, or surf news sites, you’re sure to have hears about the $50 billion Ponzi scheme masterminded by Bernard Madoff.

The $50 billion in losses is merely an estimate. Some experts (like me) think that the actual losses will be much higher.

Stockbroker Fraud Blog discusses several options victims have for recovery:

• Securities Industry Protection Corporation (SIPC) could provide up to $500,000 per account. (Although I think the customers of the “investment advisory” business which is allegedly where the Ponzi scheme occurred won’t qualify. Only regular brokerage accounts would qualify. And fraud doesn’t qualify either, only unauthorized trading or theft. It will be interesting to see how this one pans out.)
• Victims could go after Madoff personally, seeking to get their hands on his personal or company assets.
• There may be third parties that could be liable to the victims.
• Victims might be able to get some money back from the IRS for taxes paid on phantom capital gains in prior years. There’s also a possibility of claiming a theft loss on tax returns.

So there is some potential recovery for victims, but that wouldn’t make me feel all that good, however. Investors are sure to lose money no matter how you slice it. Now they’re waiting to see how much they will lose.

I talked about this fraud and Ponzi schemes in general on CNBC’s On the Money last night. Check out the videos here.

In case you missed it, I was on CNBC’s personal finance show On The Money on Friday.

You can watch the second Web Extra video here. I offered the following year-end tax tips to help consumers:

Lee Holloway, Chairman of the Milwaukee County Board, has a wonderful idea: Let’s let an organization that defrauded taxpayers off the hook, to the tune of about $50,000.

Last week, Barry Minkow and Fraud Discovery Institute announced that James Peterson, the CEO of Microsemi Corp (NASDAQ:MSCC) had neither the bachelor’s degree nor the master’s degree he claimed in numerous SEC filings.

That revelation was followed with more lies by Peterson, as well as a statement by Microsemi’s board of directors that they did not care if Peterson lied.

Oddly enough, conspiracy theorists are still blathering on about what they believe to be Governor Sarah Palin’s faked pregnancy with Trig Palin. They continue to believe that Sarah faked a pregnancy while her teenage daughter Bristol was pregnant with Trig.

There’s no real evidence that Sarah Palin faked a pregnancy. In fact, there’s a ton of evidence that she was in fact pregnant. The only thing her detractors rely upon is bad circumstantial evidence. They use faulty logic in attempting to prove their claims.

Yesterday Dozier Internet Law, experts in litigation related to intellectual property and protection of reputations online , published a list of common issues in the battle over using a competitor’s name to get traffic to your website.

This area of law is certainly contentious. I am sure there are lawyers who would argue with the advice given in this article by Dozier, but that does nothing to diminish what I see as the main point of their article: If you’re using a competitor’s name to bring traffic to your site, be careful. There are a ton of pitfalls, and you could quickly find yourself in court.

Corporate Governance 101: You need ethical people running your company. And that means ethical in all regards. Microsemi Corp. (NASDAQ:MSCC) doesn’t think honest executives are necessary.

On Wednesday, news stories broke about the fact that James J. Peterson, CEO of Microsemi lied about his credentials. Specifically, Peterson claimed he had a bachelor’s degree in business and a master’s of business administration, both from Brigham Young University. The school has confirmed that Peterson did take classes from 1978 to 1980, but he never received either degree.