Consumer Alerts

On Veterans Day, we celebrate our veterans — more than 18 million strong. We thank you for your service and sacrifice. It’s also a good time to arm yourself with some tips to avoid fraud. We know that

Scams come in many forms: texts, emails, letters, and lots of calls. Scammers plot schemes from tech support scams to fake check scams to try to knock us off balance just long enough to take advantage

If you don’t usually file a tax return, or didn’t file a return for 2018 or 2019, you might not know you could qualify for an economic impact payment. You might be one of the nine million people

Scammers follow the headlines. They take advantage of what’s happening in the news to find new ways to get people to part with their money. During the COVID pandemic, cleaning supplies have been in

During Medicare’s Open Enrollment Period (OEP), which ends December 7, Medicare beneficiaries can choose the plans that are best for them. You can get help comparing Medicare plans from the State

In September, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a temporary order to stop evictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That moratorium ended on August 26, 2021 for renters in

As we told you about in this recent post , Online Trading Academy (OTA) is sending letters and email notices to people who are eligible for debt forgiveness. These notices are real, so don’t delete or

There are thousands of trials underway as companies race to find effective vaccines and treatments for COVID-19. Many of these research studies are legitimate, but some are not. So, if you’re thinking

You get a robocall saying you paid too much on a utility bill. To make up for this mistake, they say, you’ll get a cash refund and a discount on your future bills. All you have to do is press a number

You can help the FTC and its partners fight fraud in your community — and you don’t even need to wear a superhero cape (unless you want to). Your story is your superpower. When you tell the FTC about

If you don’t usually file a tax return, or didn’t file a return for 2018 or 2019, you might not know you could qualify for an economic impact payment. You might be one of the nine million people

Did you get a letter in the mail from Online Trading Academy (OTA) saying that you’re eligible to have your debt forgiven? Unfortunately, OTA’s letter gave you the wrong email address to use. That

Nobody likes getting debt collection calls. But have you ever gotten one for a debt you already paid — or you know isn’t yours? Or have you been threatened and harassed by a debt collector until you

Refund checks worth about $147 million are going out to almost 33,000 people who sent money to scammers through Western Union wire transfers. The $147 million is a portion of the money Western Union

Getting free stuff is cool…until it isn’t free. It is decidedly uncool when, after luring you in with “free trials” for products you might like, a company hits you with surprise charges during the

More than 85 large wildfires are ripping across the West Coast, from California to Oregon and Washington. In the Southeast, people are just beginning to recover from Hurricane Sally, while more storms

If someone you don’t know sends you a check and asks for money back, that’s a scam. But what if you’re a small business owner and someone “overpays” you and asks you to refund the balance? That’s

Wildfires raging out West. The hurricane season. Civil unrest. And all of this happening during a global pandemic that has claimed its own devastating share of deaths and cost people their livelihoods

People who are homeless or transient may not know they qualify for the $1,200 Economic Impact Payments (EIP) — also called “stimulus checks" — that went out last Spring. They might also get an

Back in February, we wrote about Online Trading Academy (OTA), a company that peddled a “patented” training program promising to help people earn big money by paying big money to OTA for trainings