Alarmed by a rise in credit-repair scams on the Internet, US state and federal regulators took aim on Monday against 16 companies that allegedly sold bad or illegal advice to consumers struggling to recover from bankruptcy and other credit problems.

All the companies used websites or unsolicited junk email to target individuals with credit problems, offering to sell them credit-repair "kits" that would erase their past financial problems, Federal Trade Commission officials said. The FTC is seeking injunctions to prevent the companies from selling the credit-repair kits. It also plans to impose civil fines, which would be used to make refunds to consumers.

Most of the kits - costing between $21.95 (€20.7) and $129.95 - instructed consumers to create new identities for themselves by changing their name and address, using fake Social Security numbers or obtaining federal taxpayer identification numbers and passing them off as Social Security numbers. But such actions violate state and federal laws and could put consumers at risk for criminal prosecution, regulators warned.