It's disheartening how many hustlers are masquerading as legitimate businesses.
Never mind Enron, WorldCom, and all the other major league business scandals from several years ago. Big shots are going to jail, accounting reforms have been enacted, and there's reason to believe big corporations are behaving better, if only because of more intense scrutiny.
What largely escapes the media's attention, however, is a disturbing array of smaller scale hustles masquerading as legitimate businesses. They come in below the radar because they are for the most part legal enterprises involving esoteric services, or the illusion thereof. Some entail relatively trivial sums of money but victimize many people. Collectively, they attest to the fact that too many people are earning livings as modern day snake oil peddlers.