About a week and a half ago, the FTC mailed out over 400,000 checks worth about $12 million to consumers who were victims of J.K. Publications' credit card billing scam.  The company and a few other participants made unauthorized charges for internet services on consumers' credit and debit cards and the checks issued by the FTC are the end result of a lawsuit filed back in 1999.  The reason it has taken about 10 years to get this money back is that J.K. Publications and their partners moved a lot of this fraudulant money overseas so it has taken the FTC awhile to track it all down.  You can check out the official FTC press release here.

The reason for this notification is that BBB is receiving inquiries as to the legitimacy of these FTC checks.  This is flattering because it means consumers are being more cautious when they receive things they are not expecting and they are turning to BBB for help.  The way you can tell if the checks are real is to look and see that there is no notice to make a payment in order to cash the check and you don't have to provide any additional information for the check to be valid.