Con artists are not colorblind when it comes to consumer fraud
They often target ZIP codes with high levels of non-white people, looking to take advantage of Latino, Black, Asian or Native American people who may face language barriers or challenging circumstances, the latest research from the Federal Trade Commission said.
“What has become abundantly clear based on research and experience is that fraud, as well as certain other business practices, have a disproportionately negative impact on communities of color, as compared to white communities,” said a recent FTC report that lists some of the most common scams targeting nonwhite consumers.
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The report cites examples of nonwhite consumer fraud encountered by the agency’s investigators, among them:
Help learning English — Scammers posing as government agents make unsolicited calls, typically in Spanish, offering English-language training at a discount. Victims learn only after paying that the training doesn’t exist.
Inmate services — Because of racial disparities in U.S rates of incarceration, minority neighborhoods are targeted with fake offers for phone-calling plans or magazine subscriptions for inmates.
Affordable housing — Scammers charge a fee for a list of landlords that accept Section 8 housing vouchers, but the list is bogus.
Immigration help — Phony websites charge up to $300 in “filing fees” for immigration paperwork.
Auto buying — “Research indicates that consumers of color experience discrimination in the sale and financing of cars, and often pay higher prices as a result,” the report said. It lists cases in which car dealers falsified contracts and paperwork for members of the Navajo Nation and targeted Latinos with deceptive ads in Spanish.
For-profit colleges — Latinos and Black communities are often targeted with misleading ads about job opportunities after graduation and with false promises of student loan forgiveness, the report said. In some cases, students were asked to pay “illegal, upfront fees” for loan forgiveness.
Black and Latino consumers who complained to the FTC reported more often than whites that they were contacted by scammers through social media, the report said. “This trend raises concerns about how bad actors may use social media to target certain communities,” it said.
The federal agency has responded to the trend by creating public education materials in different languages, and by establishing a Spanish-language version of its website at www.consumidor.ftc.gov.
To file a consumer fraud complaint online, go to reportfraud@ftc.gov or, in Spanish, reportefraude@ftc.gov
