{"id":48811,"date":"2022-05-27T19:20:07","date_gmt":"2022-05-28T02:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=48811"},"modified":"2022-05-27T19:20:07","modified_gmt":"2022-05-28T02:20:07","slug":"ftc-to-minnesotans-everyone-has-a-scam-story-nows-the-time-to-tell-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=48811","title":{"rendered":"FTC to Minnesotans: Everyone Has a Scam Story \u2014 Now\u2019s the Time to Tell It"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By<\/span>Khalil Abdullah<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Moises\u2019s salaried graphic production work in Minneapolis was earning him enough money to finally afford the opportunity to buy a good used car. As a favor, a friend at work offered him an introduction to a used car dealer who spoke Spanish.<\/p>\n

A first-time buyer, Moises concedes that having someone who spoke Spanish to guide him through the transaction \u201cmade me feel more comfortable,\u201d even as Moises raised questions about the chosen vehicle\u2019s condition and reliability.<\/p>\n

He accepted the dealer\u2019s assurances, but within months, the car began shaking and made strange grinding noises. Moises soon felt it was unsafe to drive, especially with his mom or child on board, but the short-term warranty was not going to cover repair costs.<\/p>\n

The entire transaction went downhill faster than the car could run, and if not for the intervention of Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid, Moises would have had 25 percent of his paycheck garnished to pay off the sale price debt incurred with the dealer.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Goodell, supervising attorney at Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid, appeared with Moises at a\u00a0forum on consumer fraud for ethnic media<\/a>\u00a0in Minneapolis. The briefing, sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission and hosted by Ethnic Media Services, featured a panel of fraud-busting experts from the FTC, the state Attorney General\u2019s office, and non-profit entities.<\/p>\n

Goodell said her primary focus is on consumer fraud writ large but, with a small staff, car fraud cases consume most of the office\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cClients who have purchased a used car and the car stops working, and the car is repossessed, and then the client is sued for the rest of the debt owed on the car,\u201d is a regular occurrence, Goodell explained.<\/p>\n

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A briefing sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission and hosted by Ethnic Media Services featured a panel of fraud-busting experts from the FTC, the state Attorney General\u2019s office, and non-profit entities. \u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The staggering toll of fraud in the U.S.<\/h2>\n

The scale of consumer fraud in the United States is staggering. Ted Kossow, Regional Director, USFTC, Midwest Region, said the amount of fraud reported in 2021 was $5.8 billion, a significant increase from the $3.2 billion from the previous year. COVID-19 scams for PPE, personal protection equipment, were partly to blame. \u00a0\u201cWebsites popped up, take your credit card and don\u2019t deliver anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everyone has a story to share about scams, said Joannie Wei, Assistant Regional Director, FTC Midwest Region, recalling how on a recent cab ride her driver received two scam calls on his cell phone. \u201cThe first one was someone selling him an extended auto warranty. Ten minutes later, the second one was from \u2018Amazon\u2019 telling him that his account had unauthorized charges on it and they needed his account information to wire or send money back to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wei observed that scammers bombard the public through every available medium\u2014social media, phone calls, and cellphone texts\u2014to lure, entice, or coerce unsuspecting consumers. However, she added that the preponderance of the types of scams varies depending on the ethnic make-up of a community. Reporting fraud varies as well. \u201cLatino communities don\u2019t report fraud as much as Back or White communities,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Wei noted that the FTC, as the federal government\u2019s primary consumer protection agency, also investigates other activities that though non-fraudulent\u2014like a data breach or errors on a consumer\u2019s credit record\u2014can still wreak havoc on an individual\u2019s financial status.<\/p>\n

\u201cTell everybody you got scammed\u201d<\/h2>\n

Bao Vang, Vice President, Better Business Bureau, provided a list of the top 10 scams plaguing Minnesota, the state where the BBB was founded 100 years ago. Imposter scams led the list, followed by identity theft and cryptocurrency scams.<\/p>\n

During the give and take with the audience, Hmong community members discussed scams targeting legacy investments and the cultural barriers to reporting fraud, especially if that fraud was perpetrated by a member of the community.\u00a0 There were observations from Somali community leaders about fundraisers for burials that prey on grieving families facing exorbitant costs for burials that comply with religious custom.<\/p>\n

Also in attendance was Jessica Aliaga-Froelke, founder and president of Hispanic Solutions, LLC. A former debt collector and student loan counselor, Aliaga-Froelke established her company to focus on a Spanish-speaking clientele, including immigrants who, as she noted, are often the victims for the most egregious forms of predatory lending and interest rate inflation.<\/p>\n

Jennifer Leach, Director of Consumer and Business Education for the FTC, advised the media to encourage their audiences to be more aggressive in reporting fraud. Her office generates consumer fraud awareness materials and has blog alerts that now reach 400,000 e-mail addresses.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t know about it, we can\u2019t do anything about it,\u201d she remarked. \u201c\u201cThis is the beginning of a conversation. We want to hear what you\u2019re seeing. We want to be able to bring these cases,\u201d she said, referring to the FTC attorneys as \u201cthe lawyers who sue the bad guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Remarks by Kathryn Kelly, from Minnesota\u2019s Attorney General Office, echoed the call to action to report fraud.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur number one tip for the public,\u201d Kelly said, \u201cis talk about what you\u2019re seeing and talk about what\u2019s happening to you because people feel a lot of shame when they get scammed. They shouldn\u2019t, but we do. It\u2019s natural. You feel like, I made a mistake. I don\u2019t want to tell my family. I don\u2019t want to tell my kids or my neighbor or my faith leader. But do. Tell everybody you got scammed. They might be able to help you, but even if they can\u2019t, you can help them not get scammed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ByKhalil Abdullah May 27, 2022 EMS...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48811"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48812,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48811\/revisions\/48812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}