Two crooks who used hard sell “boiler room” techniques to defraud investors into paying large sums of money for worthless or grossly overpriced goods have been jailed for thirteen years each.

Dylan Creaven and Andrew Rowe sold worthless carbon credits and very low quality or non-existent diamonds from very smart offices in St James Square, London. Both were also involved in fraudulent land deals, Creaven with a company which sold land packages for 31 times their value and raked in £3.2 million before being closed down by the Insolvency Service, and Rowe with a firm that raked in £10 million selling overpriced land.

For those interested in how these scams work see two excellent and enjoyable films, Glengarry Glen Ross and Boiler Room.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is investigating car rental firms that advertise low prices on the internet and then stiff their customers with hidden fees when they collect the vehicles. The CMA says that if the deal is signed in the UK the customer should be covered by the Consumer Protection Act, which requires firms to clearly display their charges.

The CMA is happy to take evidence of wrongdoing – tel: 020 3738 6000.

Cex, purveyors of second-hand computer and office equipment and CD/DVDs may need to rethink their latest marketing.

Till earlier this year those ordering CDs or DVDs to be posted from the Cex shops where they were in stock paid a reasonable flat rate of £2.50 total postage and packing costs for up to 10 items, any size/weight sent, or 25 pence per item.

Now, however the price has soared to £1.50 per item, a rise of 500%, meaning that the cost of sending 10 items has climbed from £2.50 to £15.

Cex branch staff claim that their firm was “losing a fortune” on the old deal but the hike has left some customers wondering if a middle road couldn’t have been found, say a total of £5 or £7.50. After all Cex, who pay 1 pence for DVDs they sell for 50 pence are not exactly losing a fortune on the product itself.

Children eating more healthily could be a vain hope, given the number of ads for junk food they see.

This amounts to up to 1,000 every year, according to researchers in Australia. During peak viewing times the number of ads for healthy foods is half the number for junk stuff.

Liverpool University revealed last year that British children can see as many as 12 ads for junk food every hour during family shows like The Voice.

Lawyers are currently preparing what is claimed could be the largest legal action in UK history – a class action against Volkswagen and its marketeers on behalf of all VW owners.

This follows the latest allegations that VW duped British officials into believing that its 2014 diesel cars were much less polluting, and therefore safer than previous models. This was done by rigging one VW Beetle to produce negligible pollution and running it in a laboratory where ten monkeys were forced to inhale the exhaust fumes, to prove that VWs on the road were safe.

However in 2012 more than 70,000 people in Europe died prematurely because of nitrogen dioxide pollution, which comes primarily from diesel vehicles, and Volkswagen have already paid more than £17 billion in fines in the USA for its federal fraud and conspiracy.

The illegal and lethal actions of the car manufacturers echo those of Big Tobacco, which once lied that cigarettes were not addictive.

Those selling Malta for sunny Mediterranean holidays or incentive travel this season have a new challenge after a journalist who made accusations of corruption against Malta’s PM, Joseph Muscat, was murdered there in October.

Daphne Caruana Galizia, who alleged endemic corruption in Malta’s government was killed by a car bomb that blew her to bits on October 16. She had just filed her latest article attacking the government there which finished with “There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate”.

Other UK journalists have opined that Malta “looks increasingly like a gangster state: A haven for dirty money run by dodgy politicians, a corrupt judiciary and a partisan police force” with the rule of law “being systematically undermined”.

Automatic fines issued to 800,000 taxpayers every year by the HMRC computer for late filing of tax returns may be illegal, a judge has ruled.

A small property business, Khan Properties, appealed against its automatic fine for being late and won its case, judge Richard Thomas ruling that in his view the approach HMRC should have taken was to have a “flesh-and-blood human being who is an officer of HMRC make the assessment, that is to decide to impose the penalty and give instructions that may be executed by a computer”.

The ruling has not been appealed by HMRC, and a flood of claims for reimbursement of fines levied by the HMRC computer is expected.

MPs are preparing to debate new laws which could impose an outright ban on cold calls, something 85% of consumers would support.

The move follows revelations that 4,200 nuisance calls are sent every minute, totalling 2.2 billion a year, with most relating to bogus personal injury claims. Insurance claims, PPI and pensions. Nearly one third are targeted at those 65 or older.

Following concerns that high caffeine drinks such as Red Bull are responsible for bad behaviour of children in school, a number of supermarkets are banning their sale to under-sixteens.

These include Asda, Aldi and Waitrose, and more recently Morrisons, which are concerned that 10% of teachers cite the drinks as being a key cause of poor pupil behaviour.