Francine Giani, director of the Utah Division of Consumer Protection reported that it became aware of an unauthorized and deceptive spam e-mail to consumers titled "Fraud Alert." This e-mail, which requests personal information (i.e. social security number and credit card information), claims to come from the BestBuy.com Fraud Department. This message is NOT from Best Buy. Best Buy is working with appropriate authorities to quickly contain and resolve the situation.

Best Buy is alerting consumers to contact their banks or credit card companies immediately if they have replied to the fraudulent e-mail in any way.

The company stated it is actively monitoring the situation and doing everything in its power to alert consumers of this fraudulent act.

Best Buy added that to its knowledge, no systems have been compromised, and its online business is secure. If BestBuy.com customers want to check status of their online orders, they may contact Best Buy Customer Care at 1-888-BESTBUY.

2:56:50 PM    

KANAB, UTAH - The family entertainment and western movie lore will be hotter and come faster than John Wayne's shootin' iron Aug. 20-24 when this red rock-rimmed southern Utah town uncorks its fifth annual Western Legends Round-up, a festive tribute to its rich history as a movie setting that has earned it the title of  "Utah's Little Hollywood." 

Counting more than 100 western films and 200 stars among its "guests" dating to 1924, Kanab will pay homage this year to western movie hero and legend, the late John Wayne.  Wayne (Marion Michael Morrison) was born in 1907 in Winterset, Iowa.  His films, many of them westerns that were shot in southern Utah and the Kanab area, grossed more than $700 million.  During World War II he became a prominent face of patriotic America by starring in several inspirational war films.

Making personal appearances in Kanab will be western movie stars Clint Walker and Adrian Booth, as the round-up accents to its slogan: "Where the Old West Still Lives." 

Nationally renowned cowboy poet and "philosopher" Baxter Black is another major attraction on the 2003 program. Black, the best-selling cowboy poet in the world, says the annual Western Legends Round-up shines filmdom's spotlight on Kanab "where cowboys have been entertaining each other for a hundred years."  The multi-talented Black can shoe a horse, string a barbwire fence and bang out a Bob Willis classic on his flattop guitar.  The one-time veterinarian was raised in New Mexico and says he spent his working life in the mountain west "tormenting cows."  He lives in Arizona and since 1982 has been rhyming his way into the national spotlight, having appeared on "The Tonight Show" and on numerous National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting System (PBS) programs.

Other highlights of the five-day celebration include the west's only cowboy poetry rodeo, entertainment by the touted "Riders in the Sky", clogging demonstrations, quick draw and fiddle competitions, arts and crafts exhibits, a wild horse western parade, a wagon train trek, mountain man displays, western dress-up contests, sidewalk sales, daily stage shows, a Dutch oven cook-off and movie set tours.  New this year is a Western Film Festival featuring the screening of old-time silent and western movies, western movie star and stunt man panel discussions and a Kane County movie-making lecture.

Kanab's lore as a western film producer's paradise includes such notable movies as "Billy the Kid" (MGM-United Artists, 1941), "Broken Arrow" (Twentieth Century Fox, 1996), "Maverick" (Warner Bros., 1994), "Green Grass of Wyoming" (Twentieth Century Fox, 1948), the "Gunsmoke" television series (CBS/Paramount Television, 1955-1975), "The Outlaw Josey Wales (Warner Bros., l976), "The Rainmaker," (Paramount Pictures, 1956), "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon," (Argosy Pictures/RKO Pictures Inc., 1949), "Stagecoach" (Walter Wanger Productions Inc./United Artists, 1939), and "Westward the Women," (MGM-UA, 1951)

A tourist-friendly town near the Utah/Arizona border, Kanab is home for some 5,000 residents whose livelihoods rely primarily on farming and ranching.  It rests among the mother lode of America's scenic wonders.  It is 80 miles from the Grand Canyon, 40 miles from Zion National Park, 70 miles from Bryce Canyon National Park and 60 miles from Lake Powell National Recreation Area.

Leigh von der Esch, executive director of the Utah Film Commission, says Kanab's annual round-up serves as "an authentic reminder of the role southern Utah has played - and continues to play -- in the nation's motion picture industry."  She says "Utah's unique landscapes have been the backdrop for more than 600 films and television productions since the 1920s and today movie-making results in over $100 million a year in movie production dollars being left in the state. 

"The Utah Film Commission salutes Kanab for annually helping Utah residents and visitors remember our rich film-making heritage by staging the Western Legends Round-up, " she enthuses.  

Braid Hainsworth, long-time area resident, western author, member of the Kanab City Council and of the WLR governing board, says of the city's premiere celebration:  "The more the 19th Century recedes into the past, the more people want to return to it and in some ways experience it.  The round-up gives those who love the Old West an opportunity to do just that.  That's because it's all here - western movies and heroes, cattle drives, wagon trains, the best in rollicking cowboy poetry, old-time skills, toe-tappin' entertainment, fiddle and fast-draw competitions, even silent western movies."  Hainsworth knows of where he speaks.  He is author of  "One Wagon West," "Camp of the Saints," "End of the Rope" and a soon-to-be published "Glorieta."

More information about the Western Legends Round-up is available through the following means: on line at www.westernlegendsroundup.com, by phone, 1-800-733-5263; by e-mail, kane@westernlegends.com and by mail at 78 South 100 East, Kanab, Utah 84741.

9:17:57 AM