Main Street Dollars

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Chrysler is recalling about 1.27 million Ram 1500 pickups over seat-belt anchors that may have been improperly installed, and the inspection and any needed repair are free to every owner. The defect involves the second-row seat-belt buckle anchors, which could reduce the belt’s ability to protect passengers in a crash. Federal recall law means the…

Parents can claim part of Google’s $8.25 million settlement over children’s data, no receipts, by September 14

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Parents may be owed a share of an $8.25 million settlement over allegations that Google collected children’s data through apps in the Google Play store — and filing takes no receipts, just a signed claim by September 14, 2026. The money is modest per family, estimated in the range of tens of dollars, but the…

Government-impersonation scams jumped 40 percent, driven by fake toll-road texts — never pay from a text link

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Scam texts claiming you owe money for an unpaid toll have exploded, helping drive government-impersonation scams up about 40 percent over the past year. The messages look official, threaten late fees or license consequences, and include a link to “pay now.” They are fake, and the rule that defeats them is absolute: no real toll…

Seniors lost nearly $8 billion to scams, the average victim out $40,000

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Older Americans lost close to $8 billion to scams in the most recent federal tally, with the average senior victim out around $40,000 — a devastating sum for anyone, and often a retirement’s worth of savings for someone on a fixed income. The losses are driven by a handful of predictable schemes, and the single…

Truist customers can claim up to $1,000 from a $240 million overdraft-fee settlement before September 14

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A $240 million settlement over overdraft fees is paying eligible bank customers up to $1,000 each, but the claim window closes September 14, 2026. The case dates back to fees charged by SunTrust Bank, which merged into what is now Truist, and the money is real — but it goes only to people who file…

Prosecutors say a man cashed his dead mother-in-law’s Social Security checks for nine years, then moved online

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A federal grand jury returned an indictment on June 18. An arraignment followed the next month in Binghamton, New York, before a magistrate judge, and on July 28 the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York announced the charges. Zvonko Klapan, 68, of Liverpool, New York, faces multiple counts of wire fraud,…

Government impersonators took $920 million last year, and the FTC says it will never ask you to move money

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About $920 million. That is what people reported losing to government impersonators during 2025, according to data the Federal Trade Commission published on June 15 of this year, up from roughly $789 million the year before. The figure sits inside a larger one: $3.5 billion reported lost last year to imposter scams of every kind,…

Skimmers can drain an EBT card with no federal replacement, and no state issues chip cards yet

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Nothing puts the money back. When a skimmer copies a SNAP EBT card and the account is drained, no federal authority exists to replace what was taken, and the card in the household’s pocket still carries the same magnetic stripe the thief read. Both of those gaps are stated plainly on the agency’s own page,…

The FTC says a bill-pay site posed as your utility and charged extra, and it will pay $2.1 million

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Federal regulators sued the online bill-payment company Doxo in April 2024. A federal court later found, at the agency’s request, that the company had violated a law governing online subscriptions, and on August 17 the Federal Trade Commission announced a proposed order requiring Doxo and two co-founders to pay $2.1 million, all of it earmarked…

The FTC is mailing 640,038 Grubhub refunds, and each check expires after 90 days

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