consumer fraud

Just as the annual holiday season of shopping and celebrating nears, a major federal financial regulator released new research detailing how communities of color not only are targeted by well-known types of predatory lenders, but new forms of fraud seek to exploit consumers in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The pandemic has accelerated identity theft — and the impact on regular people is significant. In fact, Americans have lost more than $382 million to scams related to stimulus checks and unemployment benefits, fake treatments for COVID-19 and more, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). 

There seems to be no end to the schemes bad actors concoct to prey on ordinary people, and the methods they use to reach, persuade and even threaten them in order to take their hard-earned money.