Author: Elizabeth Blessing
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Prescription drug prices did not move at all in August
The federal government’s monthly scorecard on retail prices logged no change at all for prescription drugs in August. Hospital care and physician visits were flat too, even as the broader cost of medical care in the United States kept drifting down on paper. For a household staring at a pharmacy receipt that moved anyway, the…
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Colorado approved an 8.6 percent natural gas increase that takes effect October 6, three weeks before the cold
Colorado’s Public Utilities Commission approved a settlement on September 4 that raises Xcel Energy’s natural gas rates starting October 6, even after cutting the utility’s original request by more than a third. Residential customers will see their monthly bill climb 8.6 percent, or $5.16, while small businesses take on a 9.2 percent increase of $22.76.…
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The federal consumer agency is holding a public session on Medicare open enrollment scams on September 29
The Federal Trade Commission has put a specific date on its next public warning about Medicare fraud. On September 29, the agency will host a one-hour virtual roundtable built entirely around the con artists who work the open enrollment calendar — the weeks before, during and after older adults and their families sort out next…
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A private collection agency working for the IRS cannot put a lien on a house or touch a bank account
A caller who says an old tax bill has been handed to a collection agency is not automatically lying. The IRS really has contracted with a small number of outside firms to work certain overdue accounts, and one of them may be the voice on the other end of the line. What that caller cannot…
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Nobody from the Federal Trade Commission or Amazon will ask for money to release a refund
A refund program touching millions of Amazon customers is entering a new phase, and fraud watchers expect the payout news itself to become the next scam script. On September 17, 2026, the Federal Trade Commission used its own announcement about expanded Amazon Prime settlement payments to add an unusual line: the agency does not contact…
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The Federal Trade Commission pulled its car dealer fee rule and its ban on non-compete agreements in the same action
One federal notice erased two very different protections on the same day. On February 12, 2026, the Federal Trade Commission published a single Federal Register action that withdrew its rule against hidden car-dealer fees and struck its ban on employer non-compete agreements from the federal code. Both rules had already spent more than a year…
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The rule requiring companies to make cancelling as easy as signing up is dead and has not come back
Subscription and membership plans that renew automatically got a lot harder to escape cleanly when a federal court threw out the rule meant to fix that problem. The Federal Trade Commission’s amended Negative Option Rule, which would have forced sellers to make cancelling at least as easy as signing up, never took effect. More than…
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Federal prosecutors say two lab executives billed Medicare $13.7 million for tests pitched at church health fairs and senior living communities
Federal prosecutors in Atlanta filed a civil fraud complaint on September 17, 2026, accusing two former executives of a Georgia clinical laboratory of causing Medicare to pay roughly $13.7 million for genetic and respiratory tests that were solicited at church health fairs, religious conferences and senior living communities rather than ordered by a treating doctor.…
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The IRS says a refund paid on a fake Tribal Tax Credit still has to be paid back
A federal scam warning issued on September 18, 2026 names a scheme built around a tax credit that does not exist. Promoters have been marketing a so-called “Tribal Tax Credit,” a “Native American Tax Credit,” or a “Sovereign Tribal Tax Credit” to taxpayers, tribal communities, and even tax professionals, claiming it can erase a tax…
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Taxpayers in federally declared disaster areas have until February 1, 2027, not October 15
Most taxpayers who requested extra time on their 2025 return are working toward the same date: October 15, 2026. For households living inside nine separate 2026 disaster declarations — an earthquake in Hawaii County, wildfires that have burned across Nebraska since March, a typhoon in the Northern Mariana Islands — that date does not apply…