Category: Scams & Your Rights
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The home-commission settlement sets different claim periods by defendant and state, with the earliest reaching back to January 25, 2006 in Puerto Rico
Anyone who bought a home through a multiple listing service and paid a commission may sit inside the $120,334,500 homebuyer antitrust settlement, but the answer depends on two things: which brokerage was involved and which state the home was in. The settlement administrator’s FAQ lists separate class periods for the defendants, and they start on…
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A Michigan mother is accused of spending $30,000 of the Supplemental Security Income paid for her own disabled son
To keep receiving her son’s disability benefits after he left her custody, a Michigan mother lied to the Social Security Administration about where he lived, and even had another person impersonate him during an SSA review, according to the Justice Department. She is Keshaune Pace, also known as Keshaune Jenkins, and the department says she…
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The largest of 17 new Social Security theft cases accuses an Ohio woman of taking $170,166 in benefits
Seventeen people now face federal charges in a month-long Justice Department sweep of Social Security benefit theft, and the biggest case on the list belongs to Lizbeth A. Reinhard of the Northern District of Ohio, whose entry carries an intended loss of $170,166. The department announced the cases on September 29, 2026. Every one of…
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Amazon’s returns settlement covers purchases as far back as September 5, 2017, and pays unpaid amounts plus a share of prejudgment interest
Amazon has agreed to put $309.5 million into a non-reversionary common fund to settle a class action over how it handled returns and refunds, and the settlement reaches back to purchases made on or after September 5, 2017. Payments are built from the unpaid transaction amounts plus a share of prejudgment interest. Some class members…
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Amazon’s Prime refunds now reach people who used between 11 and 20 Prime benefits in a year, with payments starting October 1
“The revised order will ensure more consumers who were harmed by Amazon’s deceptive enrollment and cancellation practices benefit from the FTC’s historic settlement,” said Christopher Mufarrige, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, when the agency announced the change on September 17, 2026. Under the revised order, Amazon began issuing automatic payments on October…
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The Federal Trade Commission is sending Zelle payments to people who never cashed refund checks from AT&T, Ring, Amazon Flex and the University of Phoenix
Refund checks that sat uncashed for months are getting a second delivery route. On its refund pages, the Federal Trade Commission says it is now sending Zelle payments to people who did not cash a check or accept a PayPal payment in four separate cases: AT&T, Ring, Amazon Flex and the University of Phoenix. The…
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Federal prosecutors in Illinois charge a woman over $21,402 in alleged benefit losses, saying her mother’s body sat in a garage freezer for two years
The indictment, as the Justice Department describes it, starts with a deep freezer in a garage. Federal prosecutors in the Northern District of Illinois allege that Eva Bratcher concealed her mother’s body there for two years, taking on her mother’s identity and collecting her mother’s Social Security payments and SNAP benefits in the meantime. The…
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Prosecutors charged 17 people over more than $1.3 million in allegedly stolen Social Security benefits
Seventeen defendants, eleven federal districts and $1,326,330 in alleged intended loss to Social Security sit in one Justice Department tally released September 29. Prosecutors charged all 17 people between August 21 and September 18, 2026, and the department presented the group as a one-month takedown run with the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector…
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The FTC says Lens.com hid a fees line that routinely doubled the advertised lens price
The Federal Trade Commission says Lens.com, the online contact lens seller, advertised low prices and then added a mandatory “Taxes & fees” charge that it kept below the visible part of the checkout screen, so that its hidden fees routinely doubled the advertised price. The agency filed suit on October 2, 2026 alongside the attorneys…
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Amazon’s return-policy settlement pays one group of shoppers automatically and makes the other file a claim by December 1
Amazon’s return-policy class action has reached a settlement with two classes of shoppers and two different paths. Members of Subclass A are scheduled to receive a payment automatically, while members of Subclass B receive nothing unless they submit an eligible claim form, and the cutoff for that form is December 1, 2026. The U.S. District…