Autumn 2023
Volume 16 | Issue 4
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Found in Translation

The Sentinel Team is pleased to announce automatic language translations for most non-English reports in potentially over 200 languages.  You’ll now be able to see a consumer report in both its native language and an adjacent translation.  (It’s translated by computer, so the translation may not be exact.)  This feature enables you to search by a term in English and call up relevant complaints in other languages.  For example, a search for “house” will call up complaints with “casa.”  It's also possible to search by report language in Advanced Search (see Complaint Metadata after clicking “Show All Fields.”)  We’re also improving our capacity to accept non-English reports with precision.

Training and Outreach

The new translation features will be covered along with several other Sentinel aspects at the next Sentinel training session on Wednesday, September 28^th at 12:00 EST.  Please contact sentinel@ftc.gov to register or find out about future monthly sessions.  The Sentinel Team also looks forward to participating at the Annual National Association of Consumer Protection Investigators conference in Virginia Beach this month.

Sentinel Success Stories

We are pleased that Do Not Call complaints in Sentinel have aided law enforcement actions.  Specifically, the FTC and more than 100 federal and state law enforcement partners nationwide, including every attorney general’s office, announced a new crackdown on illegal telemarketing calls involving more than 180 actions targeting operations responsible for billions of calls to U.S. consumers.  We are also pleased to note that Sentinel data helped result in a recent settlement by an online seller for FTC Rule violations as well as the suppression of negative consumer reviews.

New Data Sources

The FTC welcomes two new sources of data: the employment platform LinkedIn and the shipping and receiving company United Parcel Service.  These entities are providing quality consumer reports in areas such as business impostors and unsolicited emails and texts to consumers. 

Did You Know?

As part of the Consumer Sentinel Network’s data retention policy, the complaint records older than five years are purged every six months. This purge process will take place again on October 6th.  Please click here to learn how to place litigation holds on complaints to exclude them from the purge. Also, upon request, the FTC now can provide the Internet Protocol addresses for identity theft complaints starting from March 2020 to present.  We can also search by IP address for that period.  Contact sentinel@ftc.gov for details.

Consumer Education

The FTC provides timely consumer education information on recovering money after a gift card scam and avoiding disaster relief scams.  See more consumer advice at consumer.ftc.gov.