It’s fitting that I had dinner with Michele Ruiz and our spouses just a few weeks after New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo began investigating debt settlement companies. Michele and I met 6 years ago when she was an unstoppable investigative reporter for KNBC and I was Deputy Corporations Commissioner for the State of California. She had come across a unscrupulous “credit counselor”:

In the past, overextended consumers have had two choices: bankruptcy or credit counseling. Now, a new option, debt negotiation companies tell financially strapped customers that if they can’t repay their bills they may be able to negotiate.

Annette Applewhite, a former council member in Monticello, Miss., told NBC4, “It just made me ashamed to live…I was going down the drain. I had a good position, a good job.”

Catherine Wendling is a yoga instructor in Santa Monica, Calif. Wendling told NBC4, “I had debts on two cards.”

The two women are no different than millions of Americans who are saddled with credit card debt, but they have something else in common.

They both got a phone call, then a letter. A pitch, from an organization based in Orange County, Calif., called the National Consumer Council or NCC.

Wendling told NBC4, “It gave me hope.”

Harvey Warren, the president of the NCC sat down for an interview with NBC4’s Michele Ruiz. Ruiz asked Warren, “What is the mission of the National Consumer Council?” Warren replied, “To return people to (a) debt free standard of living.”

Warren said he works with politicians, even presidents, to advocate for people in debt. Warren told Ruiz, “I’ve said, look someone needs to be a responsible voice out there. It needs to be a nonprofit organization speaking on (the) consumer’s behalf.”

Warren was a scam artist and Michele wanted someone to say it on TV. I was happy to comply.

Ruiz asked Pineda, “So you are saying no matter how you look at it they are violating the law?”

Pineda replied, “They are not just breaking it by a little but a lot.”

Thanks to Michele, the Department of Corporations began an investigation that ended up with the FTC securing a suspended monetary judgment of $84.3 million against Warren for the fees received from consumers. In their press release, the FTC wrote that Warren and his fellow swindlers “are permanently barred from making deceptive claims about debt-related services.”

Problem is, Harvey Warren is still around, peddling his wares on the web:

Andrew Cuomo has his work cut out for him. And consumers need to do their due diligence. Scam artists view this economy as an opportunity.

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