Tag: Consumer Protection

As the song goes, “A house is not a home.” And as alleged in an FTC lawsuit against the operators of rental listing websites, sometimes an apartment isn’t an apartment. Steven Shayan, Kevin Shayan...

The FTC just announced a Made in USA hat trick: two proposed settlements and a final order arising from allegedly deceptive claims by a New York hockey puck seller, a California-based backpack...

Court orders against 13 related corporate and individual defendants involved in a Georgia-based debt collection operation bring to mind the 1980s chart-topping group from Australia, Crowded House...

Where do people go when considering careers in the military? Online, of course. Based on the search terms they selected, they often found themselves on sites like army.com, armyenlist.com, and similar...

When an emergency strikes, your business’s most vulnerable asset may not be in the stockroom or warehouse. It could be the data that has been central to your success. September is National...

Thinking about replacing a company car or truck? Unless you take some security steps before selling the vehicle, you could be leaving behind a water bottle or two, some change under the seat – and a...

Food experts don’t recommend it for your ground chuck or pork shoulder, but starting September 21, 2018, there’s something consumers can safely freeze, unfreeze, and then freeze again. It’s their...

Whether it’s a slimmer waist or an imaginary yacht superimposed in the background, we’re all familiar with the dramatic changes that retouching can make to a photo. A lawsuit the FTC has filed against...

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. But the same can’t be said for a mailer that looks like an official invoice. It could be an “o- fishy-al” offer that deceptively...

This will be the day That you will hear me say Read the F-R-N Without delay. That’s not quite how Prince opened his 1991 classic “Diamonds and Pearls.” But if your company sells diamonds and pearls –...

There isn’t an actual procedure called an honest-ectomy. But when you hear allegations about scammers who solicit donations for veterans’ charities and then pocket the contributions, you’ve got to...

So we went used car shopping recently – the FTC and 12 other law enforcement agencies. We visited 94 dealerships in 20 cities across the country. Yes, we saw some low-mileage cream puffs, but that’s...

When the legendary Patti Page sang, “How much is that doggie in the window?” she couldn’t have guessed that six decades later, the answer might depend on whether a consumer buys or leases a pet. Today...

The scheme started with a Craigslist ad for a rental property and ended with a $5.2 million judgment for violations of the FTC Act, the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act, the Fair Credit...

Like the three sides of a triangle, ROSCA – the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act – has three basic compliance requirements for online sellers who enroll consumers in continuity plans, often...

About 1.3 million Americans are active duty servicemembers. Another 800,000 are in the Reserves and nearly 20 million are military veterans. That means most companies are very likely to employ or do...

A proposed FTC settlement with California-based employee training company ReadyTech Corporation reminds businesses that if you make claims about EU-U.S. Privacy Shield participation, you have an...

The FTC has been issuing warnings to industry members for years to stay miles away from phantom debt collection – the practice of pressuring people to pay debts they don’t owe. Don’t collect phantom...

The Cubs are in Los Angeles and the White Sox have the day off, but there’s still a lot happening in Chicago today. The FTC’s workshop Decrypting Cryptocurrency Scams is set to start at 1:00 PM...

If you’re in a small business, you probably need a way for people to pay you – and ways to lower your costs. Scammers have been working both of those angles, promising businesses that they can save on...