A guaranteed triple-digit return on an investment is possible if you ...

Bet on the No. 3 horse in the 3rd race on the 3rd day of the 3rd week of racing at Churchill Downs.

Mirror your portfolio after the investment portfolios of the world's elite banks.

Get a verbal guarantee from the seller.

Please, don't make me laugh. There's no such guarantee.

The best way to prevent buying a used-car with a rolled-back odometer is ...

Buy from a retail dealer.

Buy from a friend.

Buy a car with a digital odometer.

Bring the car to a mechanic.

An e-mail arrives offering you a portion of a fortune if you'll help a Nigerian banker get some money out of his country. What do you do?

You help the poor fellow out ... and help yourself to some badly needed cash in the process.

Delete, delete, delete.

You should not return a telephone call from a stranger with area code:

888

903

809

877

You read in a stock message board that an anonymous insider at IBM says the company is about to announce a huge deal with Microsoft, so you ...

Invest all of your available cash in IBM immediately.

Ignore the message.

Ask for the name of the insider.

It's word association time. When you hear ''Ponzi,'' you think of:

That cute guy from the '70s TV show, ''Happy Days.''

That pizza place on the corner.

Scheme.

To avoid falling victim to a living trust scam, you should:

Buy a trust that is endorsed by AARP.

Involve an attorney.

Buy a do-it-yourself kit.

A ''Bank Examiner'' asks you to withdraw your money and hand it over to the examiner to help with an "official" investigation of corrupt tellers. What do you do?

As a solid, upstanding citizen, you're honored to be asked to help fight crime, so you do as you are asked.

You hesitate at the unusual request, but the examiner persuades you to take part for the sake of your fellow bank customers.

You tell authorities as soon as the examiner is out of earshot.

Which of these is a common method used by con artists?

Telephone service fraud

Internet/e-mail fraud.

Identity theft (e.g. Social Security numbers)

Scholarship scams

All of the above

Your credit is not so hot, so the telephone sales person's offer sounds good. They guarantee they'll repair your credit. You:

Give the nice sales person your credit card number so you can get your credit cleaned up.

Write a check to the company. What can you lose?

Hang up. Being foolish with your money is a thing of the past.