Consumer Fraud in the Era of COVID: Trends in the Central Valley and the Nation

CVIIC and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) co-hosted an informative webinar on Consumer Fraud in the Era of COVID: Trends in the Central Valley and the Nation. The webinar presentation was made on November 5, 2020 by Maricela Segura, Regional Director, Western Region Los Angeles Office, Federal Trade Commission. The webinar presentation to representatives of partner organization from the Central Valley and other parts of California was in response to the growing concerns of fraudulent activities taking place against young and older consumers in the region. Immigrants, low income individuals, young and old consumers are currently being victimized in multiple ways by scammers. The webinar presentations presents data on the consumer fraud trends that have been documented in 2019 and 2020.

Table of Contents of the Presentation:

FTC in brief
Complaint data
Central Valley metro areas and California
Age and Fraud Loss
CA & National COVID-19 complaints
COVID-19 fraud trends & FTC enforcement
FTC resources
Blogs, alerts, outreach materials
Reportfraud.ftc.gov

Sample Content:

Scammers Follow the Headlines

As headlines change, so will the scams
Help the FTC and law enforcement partners know what you’re seeing
Report scams to reportfraud.ftc.gov

Treatments and Cures

Vaccine offers
Test kit offers
Miracle cures
Medicare-related scams

Email/Text Scams and Malicious Websites

Phishing emails & texts
Get your money
Get your information
Links to malware sites
Malicious websites
Lots of domains including “Coronavirus”
Stick with known, trusted sites
Don’t click links from sources you don’t know

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37rqjEbVRR8[/embed]

Please share the link to this webinar on Consumer Fraud in the Era of Covid.

For more information on how to report fraud to the FTC go to: Reportfraud.ftc.gov To learn more about CVIIC's outreach and community education events, visit our sister website: ValleCentral.org To find nonprofit immigration legal services providers in the Central Valley, please go to our regional directory found here: https://cviic.org/immigration-services-directory/