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After conducting a survey of its staff and
external law enforcement members of the Consumer Sentinel Network (CSN), the
FTC is significantly upgrading CSN to respond to member suggestions. The objective of these upgrades, scheduled
for late spring, is to increase usage and value of CSN to its users. Key upgrades will include new analytical and visualization
tools, phrase cloud and phrase trending, and search results that will personalize
user experiences. Users interested in
participating in beta testing should please email sentinel@ftc.gov.
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In
December, the FTC issued the National Do Not
Call Registry Data Book for Fiscal Year 2016.
According to this report, at the end of FY 2016, the Do Not Call
Registry contained just over 226 million actively registered phone numbers, up
from the 223 million at the end of FY 2015. In addition, the number of consumer complaints
about unwanted telemarketing calls received increased from just under 3.6
million during FY 2015 to more than 5.3 million during FY 2016. The FTC’s comprehensive annual summary of
consumer fraud complaints for 2016 will be available by the end of February.
The
CSN team holds a monthly online training session for consumer protection
agencies. Want to learn how to get the
data in Sentinel to work for you? Email
sentinel@ftc.gov to participate in the next online training.
The
FTC is working on adding more data contributors to the CSN, such as AARP, Inc. If you have consumer complaint data, you can
help fellow CSN members boost their law enforcement capabilities by sharing it
in the CSN. Contact sentinel@ftc.gov for details.
The FTC classifies all of its complaints by
Product Service Codes, which describe the goods or services offered to the
consumer. There are more than 100 codes,
and a full list can be downloaded here, along with past
Data Books. The FTC plans to update
these codes to capture emerging consumer technology products.
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Law
enforcement officials in Dubuque, Iowa used CSN complaints in an investigation
that resulted in charging four local residents with wire fraud, conspiracy, and
money laundering. As part of its Elder
Justice Initiative, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a complaint in United
States District Court in Cedar Rapids, alleging that from January through
September 2016, the four defendants participated in a scheme to defraud people
throughout the country and primarily targeted older consumers. According to the
Justice Department, the participants in the fraud would initiate a telephone call
and assert that a relative of the call recipient was in jail, and then they
would ask the call recipient to wire bail money via Western Union or MoneyGram. The complaint alleges that, in fact, the victims
wired the money to various participants in the fraud who picked up the wire
transfers and sent the money overseas.
Have a similar CSN success story?
Please email us at sentinel@ftc.gov.
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The Western Union Company,
a global money services business, agreed to forfeit $586 million and enter into
agreements with the Federal Trade Commission, the Justice Department, and the
U.S. Attorneys’ Offices of the Middle District of Pennsylvania, the Central
District of California, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the Southern
District of Florida. In its agreement
with the Justice Department, Western Union admitted to criminal violations
including willfully failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering
program and aiding and abetting wire fraud.
Uber
Technologies, the San Francisco-based ride-hailing company, has agreed to pay
$20 million to resolve Federal Trade Commission charges that it misled
prospective drivers with exaggerated earning claims and claims about financing
through its Vehicle Solutions Program.
The $20 million will be used to provide refunds to affected drivers
across the country.
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In
December, the FTC hosted a workshop to explore changing consumer demographics. Researchers,
marketers, consumer groups, and law enforcement members discussed how predicted
demographic shifts will affect the marketplace and what the FTC and others can
do to combat fraud in the years ahead. A
recording of workshop highlights is here. Of particular note is research from the FTC’s
Bureau of Economics analyzing Consumer Sentinel data, entitled “What Determines
Consumer Complaining Behavior.”
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In
January, the FTC hosted its second PrivacyCon, a conference that brought
together a diverse group to discuss the latest research and trends related to
consumer privacy and data security.
PrivacyCon sought collaboration among leading researchers, academics,
industry representatives, consumer advocates, and the government to address the
privacy and security implications of emerging technologies. It attracted over 300 attendees, 1,500
virtual attendees via webcast, and participants who presented research across
the privacy spectrum – including on data security, online tracking, consumer
perceptions of privacy, privacy disclosures, big data, and the economics of
privacy. A recording of conference
highlights is here.
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Order free FTC materials at ftc.gov/bulkorder.
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