Category: Scams & Your Rights
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Meta will pay up to $17.1 billion to 51 states, the biggest such settlement outside tobacco
Meta Platforms has agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion to resolve lawsuits filed by attorneys general across the country accusing the company of designing Instagram and Facebook to be addictive to children. The deal, announced August 26, is the largest state consumer-protection settlement on record outside the tobacco settlements of the 1990s, according to…
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The Villages Health will pay $541.5 million to settle claims it sent Medicare false diagnosis codes
The Villages Health System, the primary care network built to serve Florida’s sprawling retirement community, has agreed to pay $541.5 million to resolve allegations that it caused false diagnosis codes to be sent to Medicare Advantage insurers so it could collect bigger payments. The Department of Justice announced the deal on August 26, calling it…
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Seven agencies scrapped a 2022 statement that let lenders run credit programs aimed at underserved borrowers
Effective immediately, seven federal agencies have rescinded a four-year-old piece of federal guidance that gave banks and lenders legal comfort to run credit programs targeted at specific underserved groups. Seven federal agencies pulled their support for the 2022 statement in late August, arguing that parts of it no longer match the law it was interpreting.…
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The FTC is paying Amazon Flex drivers whose tips the company held back
The Federal Trade Commission is in the middle of another round of payments to Amazon Flex drivers whose tips the company secretly kept years ago. This time the money is arriving by Zelle rather than a paper check, aimed specifically at drivers who never cashed the check the agency mailed them the first time around.…
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Conair recalled 3.6 million Cuisinart grill brushes sold at Walmart, with a full refund for owners
A recall that started with roughly 1.7 million grill brushes in early July has more than doubled in size. Conair has now pulled over 3.6 million Cuisinart-brand wire bristle grill brushes from the market after dozens of reports of the brushes shedding metal bristles into food, including three people who swallowed bristles and needed medical…
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Health systems are warning patients about a fake MyChart email promising a Medicare kit
Impersonating the MyChart patient portal, a wave of near-identical emails and text messages has been landing in patients’ inboxes promising a free “MyChart Medicare Kit” that doesn’t exist. The messages carry the MyChart logo and promise a free “MyChart Medicare Kit” or “Senior Health Package,” and dozens of hospitals and health systems around the country…
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A Houston man got 95 months for laundering $3.1 million of scam money into cars shipped overseas
A Houston man’s sentencing this week closes out a case that shows exactly how far scam proceeds can travel before anyone gets them back. A federal judge ordered Oluwasegun Baiyewu to serve 95 months in prison for laundering more than $3.1 million taken from victims of business email compromise, romance, and unemployment insurance fraud schemes,…
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Prosecutors say five men laundered $7.4 million taken from 77 older victims through 21 shell companies
Five men were indicted on charges that they laundered more than $7.4 million in fraud proceeds taken from at least 77 victims through 21 shell companies and 44 bank accounts routed to Hong Kong and China, federal prosecutors in Seattle allege. Federal prosecutors in Seattle say five men laundered more than $7.4 million in proceeds…
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Checks from Navient’s $120 million student loan settlement are going out, and nobody has to file a claim
Borrowers who dealt with the student loan giant Navient during its years as one of the country’s largest federal loan servicers may already be part of a $120 million settlement that started paying out earlier this year. The money comes from a federal case accusing the company of steering struggling borrowers into a costly repayment…
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Victims aged 59 to 87 lost $7.5 million in cash and gold, prosecutors say
More than $7.5 million in cash and gold moved from nine elderly victims to a single alleged courier, according to federal prosecutors in Buffalo. Nine people in New York and New Jersey, ranging from 59 to 87 years old, were talked into converting their savings into cash and gold and then handing it to a…