Markets Wired

The Federal Trade Commission today issued a report to Congress describing the agency’s substantial work on fraud prevention, law enforcement, and consumer outreach and education in African American and Latino communities, and outlining a strategy to build on this prior work.

The report, Combating Fraud in African American and Latino Communities: The FTC’s Comprehensive Strategic Plan, sets forth the agency’s extensive efforts to combat fraud in not only African American and Latino communities, but every community with an emphasis on raising public awareness and encouraging more fraud reports.

“As our extensive law enforcement and outreach efforts demonstrate, we have made protecting consumers from every community a top priority,” FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez said. “As our population grows older and becomes more diverse, the agency will continue to develop strategies to ensure that our work benefits everyone, including the elderly, minorities, and low-income consumers.”

Under its plan, the FTC will expand efforts to encourage people to talk about fraud within their communities, and to help the FTC by reporting suspected fraud.  The FTC will continue to build networks with community organizations, visit areas with low rates of consumer fraud reporting, and further develop its law enforcement efforts to stop frauds affecting these communities.

The agency will also host a workshop on December 6, 2016 that will bring together researchers, legal services organizations, and other groups that serve the African American and Latino communities, and state and federal law enforcers to examine how the demographics of this country will continue to change and how these changes will continue to affect fraud prevention work. The workshop will examine prior research showing that African Americans and Hispanics were more likely than non-Hispanic whites to be fraud victims and yet research shows that there is serious underreporting of fraud from these communities.

For more information, read Every Community, 10 Ways to Avoid Fraud, Avoiding Online Scams and Common Online Scams.

The Commission vote to issue the report to the U.S. House and Senate Appropriations Committees was 3-0.

The Federal Trade Commission works to promote competition, and protect and educate consumers. You can learn more about consumer topics and file a consumer complaint online or by calling 1-877-FTC-HELP (382-4357).  Like the FTC on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, read our blogs and subscribe to press releases for the latest FTC news and resources.