Category: Scams & Your Rights
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Nearly 30 percent of people who lost money to a scam last year say it started on social media, adding up to $2.1 billion.
New federal data single out one channel as the costliest way scammers reach people’s wallets: social media. The Federal Trade Commission reported that in 2025, nearly 30% of people who told the agency they lost money to a scam said it started on a social media platform, with total reported losses of $2.1 billion, an…
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Losses above $100,000 were 68 percent of older adults’ reported fraud.
A new Federal Trade Commission report on fraud against older Americans found that a small share of cases is doing almost all of the financial damage. In its December 2025 report to Congress, the agency said that in 2024, reports of losses of $100,000 or more made up only 5% of the fraud-loss reports filed…
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Consumers filed 3 million fraud reports last year and put their losses at $15.9 billion, against about $12 billion the year before.
Federal regulators have a fresh number for how expensive scams got last year, and it isn’t small. The Federal Trade Commission told Congress this year that consumers filed 3 million fraud reports in 2025 and put their combined losses at $15.9 billion, up from 2.6 million reports and more than $12 billion in losses the…
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People over 50 accounted for $302 million of the money Americans fed into crypto ATMs at a scammer’s direction last year.
Crypto ATM kiosks look like ordinary cash machines, but the FBI says scammers have turned them into one of the fastest-growing ways to move a victim’s money out of reach for good. In its newly released 2025 Internet Crime Report, the bureau’s Internet Crime Complaint Center found that people 50 and older accounted for $302…
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More than 3,100 complaints from older Americans named artificial intelligence last year, and those cases alone topped $352 million in losses.
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center gave artificial intelligence its own fraud category for the first time in the bureau’s nearly 25-year history of tracking online crime, and the toll on older Americans is already substantial. In its newly published 2025 Internet Crime Report, IC3 recorded more than 3,100 complaints from people age 60 and…
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A Texas supplier billed Medicare about $5.5 million for orthotic braces, and six patients told investigators they never wanted them.
A Texas-based durable medical equipment supplier submitted roughly $5.5 million in claims to Medicare for orthotic braces, and federal investigators say the company may never have delivered what it billed for. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services disclosed the case this week as part of a broader crackdown on medical-equipment fraud, and it stands…
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A used-car buyer in California also gets written disclosure of condition, warranties and fees from October 1.
Starting October 1, 2026, a California used-car dealer has to put a lot more of what it tells a shopper into writing. A new state law replaces a patchwork of loosely enforced sales practices with specific, written disclosure duties covering price, optional add-ons and the condition of a vehicle that gets returned. For a household…
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Medicare barred 11 medical-supply companies over $3.4 billion in suspect billing, including charges filed for patients who had already died.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said this week it is cutting off future Medicare Advantage and Part D payments to 11 medical equipment suppliers tied to more than $3.4 billion in suspected fraudulent billing. The agency says all 11 companies billed for equipment supposedly provided to Medicare beneficiaries who had already died, among…
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Prosecutors say a Utah woman housed homeless Medicaid patients in unsupervised homes and billed $4 million for therapy
A federal grand jury in Salt Lake City indicted a Salt Lake City woman on health care fraud charges last month, accusing her of billing Utah Medicaid more than $4 million for substance-abuse therapy that prosecutors say was often never provided at all. Jazzamin Tashay Clark, 43, allegedly recruited people experiencing homelessness into “sober living”…
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Federal enforcement of the hospital price posting rules began in April
Hospitals were required to start following a new, stricter set of federal price-posting rules on January 1 of this year. But the government didn’t start enforcing those specific new requirements right away. Enforcement of the updated rules didn’t begin until three months later, on April 1, and that gap was deliberate. A Rule Change Tracing…
