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Dear Mr. Berko:

Dear W.R.:

I’m glad you bought Clean Coal Technologies and thankful that you have a profit. As you know, profits are rare occurrences these days. However, I don’t know much more about Clean Coal Technologies Inc. (CCTC-$6.80) than I did several months ago. The memorandum of understanding the company signed with Sino-Mongolia International Railroad System of Inner Mongolia is still in effect. It requires specific conditions to be met by CCTC so Sino-Mongolia can determine if CCTC has the ability to enhance billions of tons of lignite coal.

When the tests are completed, and if the Sino-Mongolia people are confident that CCTC’s process is all that it claims to be, then the two parties will sign a binding joint-venture agreement in early November. CCTC would build a plant that would focus on gasification and the production of chemical byproducts. Sino-Mongolia would provide the coal and purchase and market the upgraded product. Funding for the plant construction is supposed to be provided by China.

My comments on CCTC earlier this year noted that it was an extremely risky play suitable for poker players, con artists, riverboat gamblers, grifters, Mafia members and congressmen. It’s even more risky because CCTC will be dependent on the Chinese government, whose bureaucracy is so muddled that by comparison the Pentagon is a model of efficiency. And except for General Tso’s chicken or Peking duck, there’s not much about China that pings my pong.

You had a lucky roll of the dice with your 4,000-share purchase at $2.45. I suggest that you consider selling 1,500 shares at $8, for a total of $10,000, to recover your basis, then keep the remaining 2,500 shares until one of two things happen: CCTC runs higher or goes toes-up. In my opinion, both scenarios are equally possible. Readers who want current information about CCTC and Sino-Mongolia will get a more detailed and quicker response if they visit www.cleancoaltechnologiesinc.com.

ChargeSmart is an online payment service that encourages consumers to use their credit cards — Visa, Discover, MasterCard — to charge their monthly auto, student loan, utility service, home-mortgage and home-equity loan payments. Rather than sending a check to GMAC, Wachovia, Washington Mutual, Chase, Citibank, HSBC or your electric, gas or water company, just charge it with plastic. Loverly, ain’t it?

However, for the convenience of charging your bills before you pay them, you get to pay ChargeSmart $4.95 per transaction plus a 2.9 percent commission fee. So, if you make a $1,250 mortgage payment it will cost you an extra $31.10 plus a host of other potential costs. If you are late paying your ChargeSmart account, you are going to get blindsided with penalties, late charges, interest expenses, posting fees, data entry costs, assessments and fines so egregious that they might close your carotid arteries.

Borrowers used their homes like ATMs during the real estate boom to pay down their credit cards, and now they’re using ChargeSmart with Visa, MasterCard and Discover to pay down those home loans. This reminds me of a dog chasing its tail. I think ChargeSmart will eventually be known as the biggest consumer fraud scheme of the 21st century. And the millions of consumers dumb enough to use ChargeSmart could be selling their souls into financial slavery.

Please address your financial questions to Malcolm Berko, P.O. Box 1416, Boca Raton, Fla. 33429 or e-mail him at malber@comcast.net. © 2008 Creators Syndicate Inc.