The two most recent news releases on our Web site involve businesses as the victims in consumer cases.

The first involves a company that leased credit card processing machines to small businesses, then charged them exorbitant fees for what should have been an inexpensive machine.

In the second case, farmers teamed up with a company to buy and help market their crops, but the farmers said the company never paid them. So AG Nixon filed suit, and the marketing company will have to pay up.

There are numerous examples of this: businesses buy those "employees must wash hands" posters, when they are available for free from various government offices; businesses cash $2 checks sent to them, only to find out that by doing so, they have signed up for some online yellow pages listing; and farmers buy cattle that turn out to be virtually worthless.

So small businesses owners need to be doubly careful about fraud - against themselves personally and against their businesses. Either way, consumer complaints can be filed with our office.