Business Blog

How central is accuracy to the credit reporting system? It’s important enough that Congress mentioned it in the second line of the Fair Credit Reporting Act – and more than 70 times in the text of the statute. On December 10, 2019, the FTC and CFPB will host a public workshop to talk about issues affecting the accuracy of both traditional credit reports and background screening reports used by employers and landlords.

It’s the Business Blog equivalent of a Thanksgiving tradition: our annual reminder to share tips at your holiday gathering about avoiding those other kinds of turkeys – consumer scams. We’ve introduced you to the FTC’s interactive Age & Fraud Loss graphic on our Tableau Public page. As the green bean casserole bakes, take a moment to explore the page for advice tailored to family members of every generation.

Holmes & Watson. Crockett & Tubbs. Cagney & Lacey. The annals of fiction are replete with dynamic law enforcement duos. But their make-believe exploits can’t compare with the real-life efforts of law enforcers who work cooperatively to protect America’s consumers. The Criminal Liaison Unit of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection just honored one of those indispensable partners – United States Postal Inspector/Team Leader Lisa D.

As Veterans Day reminds us, no one knows better than members of the military why it’s critical to maintain a vigilant defense. The more than 2.5 million veterans who own small businesses can apply that principle at their companies, too. Hackers are looking to exploit weaknesses in data perimeters, and business owners can’t afford to lose time, money, and customer goodwill to a compromised network. Knowing some cybersecurity basics and putting them in practice will help you protect sensitive employee and consumer information and reduce the risk of a cyber attack.

Sometimes FTC cases affirm important legal principles in the courtroom. In other cases, we’re able to get money back for consumers injured by a company’s illegal conduct. The FTC’s action against AT&T for allegedly deceptive and unfair practices related to AT&T’s promises of “unlimited data” resulted in a key ruling last year about the FTC’s jurisdiction and will return $60 million to affected consumers.

In tribute to the baseball season that’s just ended, we’ll start this blog post about an alleged pyramid scheme and supposed miraculous dietary supplements with the words of the great Yogi Berra: “It's like déjà vu all over again.”

When it comes to fraud, there’s no such thing as a generation gap. According to reports in the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel database, fraud affects every generation. But that’s only half the story. What else the reports tell us is that fraud affects every generation differently. The FTC has a new interactive tool that demonstrates those differences graphically, giving users exactly the data they ask for.

There are perceptions some people seem to have about older consumers – and then there’s the data we see in fraud reports from consumers of that age group. Protecting Older Consumers 2018-2019: A Report of the Federal Trade Commission calls some common beliefs into question while offering concrete advice to help you, your employees, and others in your community protect older adults from fraud.

There isn’t a competition to find ways to use social media to mislead consumers. (At least we hope there isn’t.) But with apologies to fans of a certain British baking program, separate FTC actions just might qualify two companies as “Star Fakers” for fabricating followers and skewing reviews. The cases demonstrate why cooking up deceptive tactics could land your business on an episode of The Great American Fake-Off.