Again, business continues as normal for the fraudulent company, its fraudulent customers, and the unwitting bank.

Under consumer law in many states, banks can be held liable if they act as business partners to fraudulent companies.

A good example I can think of is an owner running a fraudulent company, going bankrupt, and starting up a new one.

Yet they acknowledge that the agency can do little to curb the boom in fraudulent companies.

Other fraudulent companies provide nothing for the student's advance fee - not even a list of sources.

However, fraudulent companies often come and go quickly, so the absence of a complaint record is no guarantee that a company is legitimate.

There are ways of screening out fraudulent companies.

The financial crisis, he says, has done little to ensure that the regulators are any better at detecting either fraudulent or financially weak companies.

Ironically, these fraudulent companies quote EU law in order to intimidate their targets further.

Citizens see many areas where EU legislation impacts on their lives, and so they cannot understand why they are not protected from fraudulent companies.