Category: Scams & Your Rights
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Settlement checks mailed August 31 become worthless on November 30
A round of settlement checks tied to a 2022 corporate data breach went into the mail on August 31, 2026, and for anyone who has not yet deposited theirs, the clock is now running. The administrator overseeing the payout says any check still sitting uncashed after Monday, November 30, 2026 becomes void, turning real money…
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A Missouri caregiver admitted stealing more than $320,000 from the veteran whose groceries she was buying
A caregiver in Dent County, Missouri pleaded guilty this month to stealing more than $320,000 from a client who had handed her his debit cards for one simple errand: buying groceries. Loretta Pyeatt, 52, admitted the theft played out over roughly two years while the man she cared for lived on his monthly Social Security…
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The Federal Trade Commission is weighing whether a store may quietly show one shopper a higher price than another
A gallon of milk, a mattress, or a plane ticket could carry two different price tags for two different shoppers looking at the same website, and neither shopper would ever know it happened. The Federal Trade Commission has opened a formal review of exactly that possibility, asking whether a retailer that uses a customer’s personal…
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A tax preparer cannot get a client’s identity protection number, and anyone offering to is not a preparer
Every tax season, someone tries to file a return in another person’s name and collect the refund before the real taxpayer ever gets to the mailbox. The Internal Revenue Service’s core defense against that is a free, six-digit Identity Protection PIN that only the taxpayer and the agency are supposed to know. In early September,…
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Tax preparers are now required by federal rule to use two-step login before opening a client’s file
When a paid tax preparer sits down to open a client’s return this season, a federal security rule now stands between that preparer and the file. Under the Federal Trade Commission’s Safeguards Rule, tax preparation firms must use a second layer of login verification, not just a password, before anyone on staff can view a…
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The Internal Revenue Service stopped about 19,000 stolen-identity returns and held back $138.5 million
The Internal Revenue Service caught nearly three times as many fraudulent tax returns filed under stolen identities this filing season as it did the year before, according to a government watchdog’s audit released in June. The agency confirmed about 19,000 returns as identity theft and kept $138.5 million in refunds from reaching thieves, as of…
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The Federal Trade Commission says Amazon hid a surcharge in its ad auctions and shoppers paid for it
When the Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general from 22 states sued Amazon on August 31, 2026, they described a pricing scheme that never showed up on any receipt. The lawsuit alleges that for more than seven years, Amazon quietly charged advertisers more than its own auction rules promised, and that those extra advertising costs…
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An Indiana insurance agent drew 70 months for writing more than 2,000 life insurance policies in other people’s names
A federal judge in Hammond, Indiana, sentenced a longtime local insurance agent to nearly six years in prison this month for building a fraud scheme on top of his own clients’ identities. Thomas J. Lemmen, 51, of Schererville, held a state insurance license for more than a decade before prosecutors say he used it to…
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Paul Richard Randall drew 30 years and owes $178,746,556.22 for billing California’s Medicaid program for pain cream and vitamins
A federal court sentenced Paul Richard Randall, 67, of Orange, California, to 30 years in federal prison this month for running a pharmacy billing scheme that drained nearly $270 million from Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program. Over an eleven-month stretch, Randall’s operation billed the program for prescription pain creams and an over-the-counter vitamin dressed up as…
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A 75-year-old founder is charged with taking $450 million from 13,000 investors
A federal grand jury indictment unsealed in Manhattan this month accuses the founder of a “pre-IPO” investment platform of running a five-year pricing scheme that drew more than $450 million from thousands of ordinary investors. The case, brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, lays out in detail how…