This Spring, we welcome the warmer weather and the growing number of Sentinel users that we have seen this year. Spring also brings seasonal scams: the FTC has information available on IRS impostor scams and tax identity theft; it has also challenged TurboTax’s free tax filing claims as deceptive. The agency has a wealth of other consumer education resources, including information for Financial Literacy Month, which commences in April.
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Social media is a gold mine for scammers, and so we have an FTC Data Spotlight that digs deeper into this deceptive trend happening across social media platforms. The Spotlight notes that social media was far more profitable to scammers in 2021 than any other method of reaching people.
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The Sentinel Team is working on several projects this Spring. We are improving the scope and quality of the International Association of Better Business Bureaus data feed, restoring the Los Angeles Department of Consumer and Business Affairs data feed, and writing an addendum to the Confidentiality and Data Security Agreement to cover new developments. The addendum will appear at a future point when you log onto Sentinel; it will update the terms and conditions of Sentinel use.
This Winter, the Sentinel Team completed nine Sentinel outreach sessions for over 100 people. These sessions included outreach to military consumer protection partners as well as the international consumer protection authorities of Brazil, Israel, and Poland. The next training session is April 20th at noon EST via Zoom (email sentinel@ftc.gov for details). Also, we’ll be at the National Cybercrime Conference in Massachusetts later this month.
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You can search complaints by Consumer Payment Method. Simply log onto Advanced Search and find Payment Method under the Complaint Data section. You can search by cryptocurrency, gift card, or payment app. Simply use the Control key to select more than one option.
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Earlier this year, the FTC released its 2021 Data Book, which contains important information learned from a review of last year’s data.
Be sure to check out the FTC’s data analysis site, ftc.gov/exploredata, for all the ways that our in-house information aces have sliced and diced the statistics by state, metropolitan area, and other relevant variables. You can even create custom visuals for your next industry webinar or community event.
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