Main Street Dollars

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A federal judge in White Plains sentenced Jordan Trought, a 31-year-old Jamaican national, to eight years in prison this week for leading part of an international sweepstakes fraud ring that took more than $9 million from more than 200 elderly victims across the United States. The Southern District of New York’s announcement, dated September 10,…

Prime refunds are going out by check, PayPal or Venmo, and Amazon has not published a mailing date

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A $2.5 billion settlement ranks among the largest the Federal Trade Commission has ever announced, yet the agency’s own page for the case currently gives no delivery date for a large share of the money still owed. Amazon has already paid out one round of Prime refunds tied to the case, but a second round…

A Grubhub settlement check dies if it is not cashed within 90 days

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More than 640,000 checks and electronic payments are moving through the mail and inboxes of Grubhub drivers and diners right now, and each one comes with an expiration date attached. The Federal Trade Commission is distributing more than $23.8 million to people it says were harmed by the delivery platform’s business practices, and the agency…

Cash App users are getting refund checks under a $75 million CFPB order

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Brian Lund

Some Cash App users are opening their mailboxes this year to find a paper check they never asked for, sent by a company most of them have never heard of. The checks trace back to a January 2025 order from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau against Block, Inc., the parent company of Cash App, over…

Former AT&T customers who never cashed a 2024 refund check are getting the money by Zelle instead

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Brian Lund

The Federal Trade Commission has reopened a refund case that most people assumed was closed two years ago. Former AT&T customers who were mailed a check or offered a PayPal payment in 2024 and never completed either one are now getting that money delivered by Zelle instead. The switch is clearing out a pocket of…

Prosecutors restrained $52 million of scam money in one day and seized the Xinbi marketplace behind it

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Federal prosecutors in Washington pulled off an unusually large one-day haul this week, restraining roughly $52 million in cryptocurrency tied to a Chinese-language marketplace that functioned less like an underground criminal network and more like a supplier catalog for scam operators. The Department of Justice’s Scam Center Strike Force says the seizure pushes its running…

The IRS wants taxpayers to lock down a six-digit PIN before someone else files a return in their name

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The Internal Revenue Service and its Security Summit partners used the fourth entry in a summer awareness campaign to push a blunt message at taxpayers and the professionals who file for them: a stolen Social Security number is often all a criminal needs to file a bogus return, and a free six-digit code from the…

California buyers get three days to return a used car to the dealer starting October 1, with new disclosure rules attached.

Sep 9, 2026

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in Consumer Rights

California is about to give used-car buyers something almost no other state offers: a real, no-questions-required window to change their mind. Starting October 1, 2026, a buyer who drives home in a used vehicle priced at $50,000 or less gets three calendar days to bring it back to the dealer and cancel the deal. For…

An identity protection PIN shuts a stolen Social Security number out of a fake tax return, and the IRS pushed it again on September 4.

Sep 9, 2026

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The IRS and its partners in the Security Summit are once again steering taxpayers toward a simple tool that can stop identity thieves from filing a tax return in someone else’s name. On September 4, 2026, the agency issued IR-2026-106, the fourth release in its “Protect Your Clients; Protect Yourself” summer series, urging both tax…

Seniors filed 42,271 crypto complaints last year, losing $4.35 billion.

Sep 9, 2026

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