Consumer Alert
This NCPW, help reach every community
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We know scammers target people everywhere. So this National Consumer Protection Week, we’re focusing on how fraud affects every community. In blog posts and events this week, we’ll highlight scams that affect some of those communities, including older adults, college students, servicemembers, and LGBTQ+ communities. Since scammers target every community, including yours, you can make a difference this NCPW: recruit your friends, family, and neighbors across all communities to report the scams they’re seeing to us.
The way fraud affects every community can look different across different demographic groups. For instance, the FTC’s Serving Communities of Color Report highlights some of the unique ways that people experience fraud in Black and Latino communities.
Here are just two examples of the differences we saw:
- Fraud and bad business practices play out differently in different communities. The FTC’s reporting data showed that the top percentage of reports by people living in majority White and majority Latino communities were about impersonator scams. In majority Black communities, the top percentage of reports were about credit bureaus.
- Scammers tell people to pay in different ways. Reports from majority Black and Latino communities show that people are more likely to end up paying scammers in ways that have few, if any, fraud protections ― so: cash, cryptocurrency, money orders, and debit cards. In contrast, reports from majority White communities show that people are more likely to pay scammers with credit cards.
Throughout the week, we’ll talk more about how fraud looks different across different communities. But today is about your community. Please remind your friends, family, and neighbors: if they see a scam, tell the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. And tune in for the rest of the week’s posts, and check out #NPCW2022 events at ftc.gov/ncpw. We hope to see you at some of them.
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The purpose of this blog and its comments section is to inform readers about Federal Trade Commission activity, and share information to help them avoid, report, and recover from fraud, scams, and bad business practices. Your thoughts, ideas, and concerns are welcome, and we encourage comments. But keep in mind, this is a moderated blog. We review all comments before they are posted, and we won’t post comments that don’t comply with our commenting policy. We expect commenters to treat each other and the blog writers with respect.
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