Business
Guest column: FTC cracks down on abusive debt-collection tactics
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act governs collection agencies and other third-party collectors.
Columnist
Randy Hutchinson is the President and CEO of the BBB of the Mid-South, serving 28 counties in Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas. He graduated from Western Maryland College and has an MBA from Wilmington College. He can be reached at rhutchinson@bbbmidsouth.org
There are 73 articles by Randy Hutchinson :
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act governs collection agencies and other third-party collectors.
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In an initiative called Operation CBDeceit, the FTC reached settlements with seven more companies it alleged were making unsubstantiated claims about their CBD products.
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Even if an MLM opportunity is legitimate, AARP and the FTC say most participants still make little or no money.
Some companies may have a short-term cash flow crunch that makes them vulnerable to deceptive lending practices.
You want to be sure that your credit information is accurate and current before you apply for a loan, buy insurance, apply for a job, or try to rent an apartment or other housing.
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RoboKiller predicts that scammers will design even smarter, more believable phone scams in the future. Spam calls could reach 70 billion and texts 90 billion by the end of 2021.
Nigerian letter scams now reap only $700,000 annually, but the same crooks get billions of dollars from more sophisticated scams: ‘That Nigerian prince has grown up, has gone to college, and has found a new, lucrative career,’ says an expert.
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The variety of COVID-19 scams we’ve seen since the beginning of the pandemic are overwhelming.
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Consumers who were exposed to a cryptocurrency scam were far more likely to fall for it and lost far more money than the average for all scams. The median loss in a cryptocurrency scam was $3,000 compared to $160 for all scams.
Famous, or infamous, people have peddled products they claimed could prevent or treat coronavirus.
The FBI issued an alert warning that with schools closed and other activities curtailed, children spending more time at home and online are at greater risk.
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