illustration by Mike Austin

BTW

Spam-flation

Signs of the faltering economy? Spam is up—both the canned meat and the unsolicited (in this case, fraudulent) e-mail. After three years of decline, sales of Hormel Foods' Spam products grew 5.3% in the past 12 months, helping to boost Hormel's second-quarter revenues 6% from a year ago. At $2.62 for a 12-oz. can, "Spam plays well" in today’s climate, writes RBC Wealth Management analyst Michael Hamilton in a May 23 report. As for scams delivered via electronic spam, the Internet Crime Complaint Center, an FBI-National White Collar Crime Center partnership, has gotten roughly 400 complaints about bogus e-mails (purportedly from the IRS) aimed at citizens' stimulus checks. FBI spokeswoman Cathy Milhoan says this type of spam started months ago and "picked up" once the checks started arriving.
—Tara Kalwarski