Dear Mr. Berko: Months ago you answered a question about a company called Clean Coal Technologies. Well, I bought 4,000 shares at $2.45 after it was highlighted in your column and its now $6.25. I can't find out any information about this company and was hoping you could give me an update. I would like to know what you think about selling the stock or buying more. Also, what can you tell me about ChargeSmart, which is a concept developed by MasterCard and Visa to let people make their mortgage payments and auto payments by credit card. So when we come up short at the end of the month, we can just put the mortgage or car payment on our credit card. What do you think of this novel idea? - W.R., Fort Walton Beach, Fla.

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 (CCTC-$6.25) than I did several months ago. The memorandum of understanding they 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 15-million-metric-ton capacity plant that will focus on gasification and the production of chemical byproducts. Sino-Mongolia will 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 member and Congressmen. It's even more risky because CCTC's 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. However, I suggest that you consider selling 1,600 shares at $6.25, a total of $10,000, and recover your basis and keep the remaining 3,400 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.info@cleancoaltechnologies.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. So 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?

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 ATM machines 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, FL 33429 or e-mail him at malber@comcast.net. To find out more about Malcolm Berko and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

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