Consumer alert!

Does your pooch puke each time it goes for a ride in the family car?

The Food and Drug Administration today okayed new drugs to turn barfing back into arf-arfing. Read about it here.

The current issue of AARP magazine has a wonderful article about guerilla consumerism and how to make your point with companies or businesses that might have wronged you.

It’s a must read for anyone who’s felt cheated and powerless to deal with it.

The stock market’s big tumble Tuesday will probably produce a new flurry of faxes, phone calls or e-mails to investors hyping get-rich-quick stocks.

Before biting on the “now’s the time to buy” bait, check out advice on ways to sort through the hype and hot air from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The typical American driver will pay less for auto insurance this year than last, according to the Insurance Information Institute. It’s the first reduction in auto insurance premiums in the past eight years. The average annual cost for car insurance is expected to be $847, down from $851 in 2006. One of the keys to auto insurance costs is crash-worthiness as well as other safety factors.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety rates the safest cars on the market and has other facts and figures about which cars are the safest in certain crash situations. Check out its statistic-filled Web site.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is warning banks and other financial institutions of a fraudulent e-mail that has the appearance of being sent by the FDIC. The e-mail is purportedly from “FDIC Legal Information Technology” (sometimes FDIC Information Security) and asks the institution to run a script on its servers to improve security. The e-mail includes an attached script (a file ending in .php) and detailed instructions for installing the script on Unix/Linux and Windows systems.

The FDIC said financial institutions should not open the attached file because it’s believed to be an attempt to install a virus or malware on the institution’s network.

Investors considering investing in the Iraqi dinar (the Iraqi form of money) should think twice.

The national Council of Better Business Bureaus reports that it’s received 77 complaints from 33 states and eight countries concerning the marketing efforts of United World Exchange, a company purported based in the Chicago area that is trying to convince people to invest in the Iraqi dinar on the prospect that the value of the currency will increase as that country stabilizes and there will be money to be made.

The company has a pretty sophisticated Web site and dresses it up with a seal of the U.S. Department of Treasury to make it look authentic. But apparently it doesn’t deliver dinars nor does it refund money.

Learn more about the issue here.

New this year on federal income tax returns is a line that allows most people to take a one-time tax deduction for the federal excise taxes they’ve paid on phone bills over the past few years.

The amount ranges from $30 to $60 depending on the size or your family, or it can be for the actual amount you were charged if you want to go through about three years of past phone bills and add it up.

The government has been trying to tell people about the one-time deduction, but apparently the word hasn’t gotten out. The IRS says about 10 million early filers didn’t take the deduction on their returns. About half of those returns were filed by professional tax preparers.

That could amount to a minimum of $300 million that taxpayers are passing by – and that’s just based on the returns filed through Feb. 16.

Here’s the IRS’ alert.

A reader of the earlier post on phishing scams involving Chase Bank asked as pertinent question. What’s the best response to such a scam attempt?

Many companies — but by no means all — have a place on their Web sites where you can report scam or forward a bogus message you’ve received.

Here’s also some good advice from a consortium of government fraud-fighting agencies:

Forward spam that is phishing for information to spam@uce.gov and to the company, bank, or organization impersonated in the phishing email. Most organizations have information on their websites about where to report problems. You also may report phishing email to reportphishing@antiphishing.org. The Anti-Phishing Working Group, a consortium of ISPs, security vendors, financial institutions and law enforcement agencies, uses these reports to fight phishing.

Here’s another take on the new ADHD drug warnings from the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a watchdog group that’s concerned about the increasing use of psychiatric drugs in America: