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Visit ftc.gov/languages for scam advice in 12 languages

Fraud affects every community, and it’s not unusual for scammers to run their scam in the language you speak at home. Now, the FTC has information in a dozen languages to help you spot and avoid those scams: ftc.gov/languages. You’ll find info in Amharic, Arabic, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), French, Hmong, Korean, Russian, Somali, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and Ukrainian. So, what will you find there?

At ftc.gov/languages, you’ll get all the basics on:

  • How to spot and avoid a scam. What are the signs to watch for? What do you do if you spot those signs?
  • What to do if you paid a scammer. Or if you think you did. There can be ways to recover your money — sometimes — if you act quickly. Here, you’ll learn what to do.
  • What to know if you’re newly arrived in the U.S. Unfortunately, scammers can target people new to U.S. systems and culture, so learn to spot some of the scams related to looking for a job, going through the immigration process, or just figuring out how things work.

You’ll also find graphics in each language to share on social media (please tag @FTC or @laFTC) to help others in your community know how to spot, avoid, and report fraud.

Use the free materials at ftc.gov/languages to spread the word and start conversations with your friends, family, and your community. And use ftc.gov/languages to help encourage the people you know to report the fraud and scams they see at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. And don’t forget to keep up with the latest from the FTC: Sign up to get Consumer Alerts.

It is your choice whether to submit a comment. If you do, you must create a user name, or we will not post your comment. The Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes this information collection for purposes of managing online comments. Comments and user names are part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) public records system, and user names also are part of the FTC’s computer user records system. We may routinely use these records as described in the FTC’s Privacy Act system notices. For more information on how the FTC handles information that we collect, please read our privacy policy.

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.

  • We won’t post off-topic comments, repeated identical comments, or comments that include sales pitches or promotions.
  • We won’t post comments that include vulgar messages, personal attacks by name, or offensive terms that target specific people or groups.
  • We won’t post threats, defamatory statements, or suggestions or encouragement of illegal activity.
  • We won’t post comments that include personal information, like Social Security numbers, account numbers, home addresses, and email addresses. To file a detailed report about a scam, go to ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

We don't edit comments to remove objectionable content, so please ensure that your comment contains none of the above. The comments posted on this blog become part of the public domain. To protect your privacy and the privacy of other people, please do not include personal information. Opinions in comments that appear in this blog belong to the individuals who expressed them. They do not belong to or represent views of the Federal Trade Commission.

Carol Metzger
February 03, 2023

If this is doable, I think that many of us would find it useful to have access to instructions as to how to interpret the headers in emails. I understand that the "from" information can be spoofed, however at some stage in the headers there must be indicators as to the actual source of the production. The IP address can reveal some information but usually not enough. In most cases, scam emails seem very lame--with "delete" without further action being the obvious remedy--but not always. Especially in the case of recurring attempts from the same source it would be helpful to know exactly what address to block to prevent re-occurrence in the future.

Marilyn Blum
February 03, 2023

I've been sucked in two times losing about$1300 and have been close to it other times. They are very clever and believable. Had one the other day from "Microsoft" and I called the phone # feeling very uneasy; luckily I closed iit down. As an 85 year old user, it is very scary.

Grad Student
March 27, 2023

I'm a native English speaker. When writing a paper on the FTC website, I discovered that only Spanish is linked at the top, even though the FTC provides information in twelve other languages. Considering how often immigrants are targeted by scammers, I feel like this could be changed into a dropdown menu or created as a banner with each language written in the target language. It should not live on the "Features" section of the website. How do you expect people who speak something like Amharic to find it? Please make this change to provide better access to our diverse population. This is an excellent website and great resource. Thank you so much.