Consumer Alerts

Sometimes being the “Home of . . .” is an honorific to be proud of. Kudos, Cleveland, for rock ‘n’ roll, and thank you, Buffalo, for your contribution to chicken wings. But the Birthplace of Frauds

Scammers are hiding in plain sight on social media platforms and reports to the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel Network point to huge profits. One in four people who reported losing money to fraud since 2021

Over the last several years, artificial intelligence (AI)—a term which can refer to a broad variety of technologies, as a previous FTC blog notes—has attracted an enormous amount of market and media

Preparing for an emergency used to be an easier task for small businesses. Coastal companies could plan for hurricane season and northern businesses could expect a blizzard or two every winter. But

Businesses, platforms, social media influencers, and others who advertise or promote products to children online all have a role to play in ensuring that the boundary between advertising and

There’s a scam targeting doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals, but you could be a part of the cure.

We’ve all heard the adage “Proper preparation prevents poor performance.” It’s been attributed to everyone from Vince Lombardi to Secretary of State James Baker. As we’ve discussed in the first four

The INFORM Consumers Act took effect on June 27, 2023. The FTC has issued staff guidance for online marketplaces and now we have advice for online sellers whose businesses may be affected by the new

You’ve heard about scammers impersonating government agencies, global retailers, and even members of your family. The latest variation on the scheme targets business professionals, luring them in with

You think a franchise may be for you. You can’t wait to cut that ribbon and get your business up and running. But to avoid a false start, it makes sense to spend more time in the starting block. This

Generative AI has the potential to rapidly transform the way we live, work, and interact. Within just a few months, generative AI chatbots and applications have launched and scaled across industries

Every company knows it’s usually best to “get it in writing,” and a lot of time is spent negotiating contracts in the ordinary course of business. But some of those contracts contain provisions that

There’s a new scheme that involves imposters preying on people who are grieving the loss of a loved one. The imposters pretend to be from the funeral home and say that, unless the family pays more

What you say in your home, what you do in your home. It doesn’t get more private than that. But, according to two recent FTC complaints, Amazon and Ring used this highly private data – voice

According to reports in the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel database, text message scams took consumers for $330 million in 2022. The latest Consumer Protection Data Spotlight focuses on this form of fraud

Texting is cheap and easy, and scammers are counting on the ding of an incoming text being hard to ignore. [1] In 2022, they were right to the tune of $330 million in losses to text scams, as reported

Care About COPPA Compliance may not be the coolest Xbox gamertag, but an FTC action against Microsoft for alleged violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule suggests it might be a

“Stop it!” Moms and Dads may have to repeat that instruction to their kids, but when parents said it to Amazon in an effort to get the company to delete children’s voice data obtained through its

Love at first sight may (or may not) be a real thing, but when it comes to investing your money, it’s unwise to fall for a franchise without first subjecting it to tough-minded scrutiny. The third in

Educational technology hasn’t totally overtaken chalk dust and penmanship, but ed tech certainly has found its way into schools. A proposed settlement with Edmodo, LLC, alleges the ed tech company