Blog

Gift cards are an easy way to give. Reports to the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel show they’re also an easy way to take. About one in four people who report losing money to fraud say it happened when a scammer tricked them into giving the numbers on the back of a gift card. 1 Gift cards are far more frequently reported than any other payment method for fraud, 2 and the numbers have reached staggering new highs compared to past years. 3 In the first nine...

As the holidays – and the end of the tax year – draw near, people are likely to approach small business owners with requests for charitable contributions. But scammers are hard at work with their own holiday rush. To protect your business from fraud and to amplify the impact of your donations on the charities that matter to you, these simple steps can help ensure that Giving Tuesday isn’t followed by Regretful Wednesday. A standard list of...

If recent headlines about ransomware attacks on companies have you worried, your concerns are well-founded. Earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency – you may know them as CISA – issued a Fact Sheet on Rising Ransomware Threat to Operational Technology Assets. The computer criminals who traffic in ransomware try to exploit vulnerabilities in technology and soft spots in human nature...

The Federal Trade Commission is aggressively hiring Technologists to help drive the agency’s work, ensure a vibrant technology marketplace, conduct investigations, and hold companies and people who violate the law accountable. If you’re a technology researcher, engineer, UX designer, content strategist, or product manager and are thinking about joining us in this new approach to our work, you may have some questions about working for the federal...

The FTC has been warning consumers for years about impersonation scams – calls that falsely claim to come from the IRS, the Social Security Administration, or other offices or businesses. The messages try to coerce people into making immediate payments or turning over sensitive personal information. The FTC’s latest Data Spotlight focuses on the rampant rise of Amazon impersonation scams that have already bilked consumers out of millions of...

Scammers impersonate all sorts of businesses, but reports to the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel point to Amazon as a runaway favorite for scammers. From July 2020 through June 2021, about one in three people who reported a business impersonator said the scammer claimed to be Amazon. Reports about Amazon impersonators increased more than fivefold during this period. 1 About 96,000 people reported being targeted, and nearly 6,000 said they lost money...

Given the recent surge in merger filings and the Commission’s obligation to protect Americans from illegal transactions, the Bureau of Competition is instituting new process reforms to best use its limited resources. These reforms build on other enhancements the Bureau announced in an August blog post. The Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act requires that companies provide the FTC and Department of Justice with advance notice of certain transactions...

The FTC was created to act as a guardian of fair markets, armed with broad authority to ensure our economy is one in which consumers, workers, and honest businesses can thrive. Chair Khan is committed to realizing that vision of an agency that takes on problems holistically, rather than from a consumer protection or competition lens alone. This means ensuring that the Commission’s two enforcement bureaus – the Bureau of Competition and the Bureau...

The FTC is committed to policing gasoline and diesel markets to protect the American public against illegal acts. Given high prices at the pump these days, the Bureau of Competition is redoubling its commitment to police unfair methods of competition in wholesale and retail gasoline and diesel sales. Chair Khan recently sent a letter outlining the ways in which the FTC is stepping up its investigative efforts in gasoline markets. First, the...

If your company is facing the fall-out from Hurricane Ida, flooding in Tennessee, western wildfires, or any other natural disaster, your employees are looking for help in the recovery process – and you’re looking to make a safe return to business. But as flood waters recede, dangerous predators can spring to the surface: scammers targeting people and small businesses trying to get back on their feet. Here are ways to avoid common post-disaster...