Ever since I wrote last year about a trouble investment scheme called Advanced Health Scan, investors keep calling me, from all over the country. What happened to my money, they plead. What’s going on with this company?

I wish I could help. It probably doesn’t bode well for the future of Advanced Health Scan that one of its key figures, Daniel A. Caterino, this month pleaded guilty to a felony securities violation in Alabama. The business “opportunity” Caterino was peddling sounds suspiciously similar to Advanced Health Scan: he and others were purportedly raising money for a chain of body imaging clinics in Arizona, Texas and California. But neither Caterino nor the company, Lifeline Imaging Systems, were licensed to sell securities in Alabama. “It was alleged that investors’ money was used for personal or unrelated business expenses,” according to the Alabama Securities Commission.

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Leave it to our ever imaginative entrepreneurs to peddle cures for diseases that we don’t even understand yet. The Food and Drug Administration and Federal Trade Commission are warning consumers to be skeptical about companies that claim to have the magic bullet for H1N1.

“The last thing any consumer needs right now is to be conned by someone selling fraudulent flu remedies,” FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said in a statement. “The FTC will act swiftly against companies that resort to deceptive advertising.”

If any of you have seen these products advertised, Whistleblower would love to hear about it.

You’ve seen those ads with images of President Obama and Vice President Biden offering you cash from the stimulus bill. Whistleblower always admires the creativity of scammers who seize on the latest thing to bamboozle the desperate, the vulnerable or the stupid out of their money. This week, the Federal Trade Commission warned consumers about stimulus get-rich scams:

“Right now, on the Web and in e-mail, scammers are telling consumers they can help them qualify for a payment from President Obama’s economic stimulus package. All they have to do is provide a little information or a small payment.

E-mail messages may ask for bank account information so that the operators can deposit consumers’ share of the stimulus directly into their bank account. Instead, the scammers drain consumers’ accounts of money and disappear. Or bogus e-mail may appear to be from government agencies and ask for information to “verify” that you qualify for a payment. The scammers use that information to commit identity theft. Some e-mail scams don’t ask for information, but provide links to find out how to qualify for funds. By clicking on the links, consumers have downloaded malicious software or spyware that can be used to make them a victim of identity theft.”

A quick Google search on “Obama stimulus” quickly turns up a noisome collection of “free money” offers, dolled up with presidential imagery.

That’s not to say the stimulus law isn’t creating a scramble for real money. My colleague Rohan Preston reports how Minnesota arts groups are vying for a chunk of the extra $50 million in the National Endowment for the Arts. That’s happening at the same time museums are firing staff and cutting back on programs, my colleague Mary Abbe reports, another of those weird juxtapositions I blogged about Wednesday.

Juan Carlos Ruiz of Eden Prairie saw the 2004 Acura on a web site and wanted it bad enough to take money out of his 401(k) and wire it to Liverpool, England. But it’s not clear that the car ever existed. The report from WCCO’s Bill Hudson includes some tips on how to avoid falling victim to similar scams. Whistleblower’s advice: don’t buy a car that you’ve never seen. The story notes that Ruiz has filed complaints with the local police, Western Union, the attorney general and the Better Business Bureau. It sounds more like a job for Interpol.