If  you've done business with iKitchen or Homebrands, or have received an unsolicited DVD in the mail recently, check your credit card records IMMEDIATELY. And warn your friends! Here's the full story.

I get books, CDs, and DVDs in the mail with some frequency. Publicists and others who feel our work might be a good venue for their clients send them along, sometimes with advance notice, sometimes not. But the DVD that arrived Friday seemed odd from the get-go.

First of all, there was nothing in the envelope but the CD itself. No press release; no publicist info.  My printed address had all the earmarks of junk or bulk mailing - the code above it, the lines of numbers.

When I saw the CD, I was confused even further. "Wanted: Babysitter" with Vic Morrow. Okay, Vic Morrow isn't exactly available for interviews; he's been dead for almost twenty years. And while I wasn't familiar with "Wanted: Babysitter", it didn't sound like a work of cinematic genius likely to be in re-release. Puzzling, but no alarms went off. I put it aside.

Today I came across it again while tidying. Always willing to avoid housework, I popped the movie title and the company name on the return address into Google. Yikes.

It turns out Comm-Services LLC out of New Jersey has a nasty habit of sending unsolicited DVDs in the mail, then charging them, unauthorized, to the victim's credit card.

Picture: identity-theft-faq.com

How could they have gotten my credit info? Let me count the ways. Nah, I won't bother - it's been done.  What mattered most at the moment was to shut down my card, which I did.

That turned out to be a learning experience, too. The card security service contracted by my credit union answered quickly and killed the debit/credit card with swift efficiency. But, although I'd started the call by saying my account had been hacked, the agent solicited no details on that. I suggested he might want them in case a pattern emerged, and at that point he took all the info with great interest. But I found it odd I had to push it on him. Maybe if the all the companies who have to clean up after these frauds were a tad more pro-active, this crap wouldn't have been going on for more than half a year now.

The point at hand, though, is to check your accounts immediately if you get one of these disks in the mail. Do NOT go to the Comm-Services website for information! At least one consumer reports there's malware there.

One last thought, in the "adding insult to injury" column: how come this guy gets a 1947 William Powell flick, and I get some straight-t0-video 1982 crap? As they say, if you're gonna screw me, at least kiss me first.

UPDATE: a little more sleuthing reveals this company is tied to several others that have defrauded clients, one of which I tried to order from last year. I kissed goodbye about fifty bucks when "Homebrands" never fulfilled my paid order for two solar gadgets. My efforts to get it back led me to "iKitchen" (again, I'm not providing links as I'm not sure their sites are safe, if they still exist).  And now I discover consumers defrauded by Comm-Services LLC have found evidence these are all linked.

Have you gotten caught up in the Homebrands/iKitchen/Comm-Services web? Help shut them down. Check out the second comment here , which reports that NJ authorities are collecting evidence against them.  I'll call them Monday and report back.

If you've already dealt with these scum, let's hear your experience in the comment section. And do warn your friends!