Skip to main content
A recent FTC staff report shows what we’ve known for some time — that different communities report to the FTC about different concerns. Yesterday, we told you about how fraud affects the Latino community. Today, we’re highlighting some of the scams and other consumer problems that affect people living in majority Black communities.
  • The top report to the FTC was about credit bureaus, such as people in majority Black communities having trouble correcting inaccurate information on their credit reports.
  • Auto sales are a big concern. People living in majority Black communities filed a significantly higher percentage of reports about used auto sales than majority Latino and White communities did.
  • People living in majority Black communities also filed a larger percentage of their reports about issues with banks, lenders, and debt collection than people living in White communities.
  • Similar to reports from the Latino community, people living in majority Black communities reported paying scammers with payment methods that have little or no fraud protections — such as cash, cryptocurrency, money orders, and debit cards. People living in majority Black communities also filed more reports about payment apps or services and gift card or reload cards than people living in the other communities.
FTC cases also show some of the scams and unfair practices targeting or negatively affecting Black communities — cases involving money-making opportunities, for-profit schools, payday lending, and student debt relief programs. Check out the Serving Communities of Color Report to find out more.
 
It’s important for the FTC and other law enforcement agencies to know how fraud and other consumer problems affect different communities. That information helps us focus our work to bring more cases to combat those problems. It also helps us learn what topics we should cover in our outreach campaigns to help people avoid losing money.
 
Everyone can help by talking about fraud and sharing information in their communities. You can also help by reporting the scams you see. Tell us your story so the FTC knows how people are being affected and who is scamming people in your community. It’s easy to report at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
Search Terms

It is your choice whether to submit a comment. If you do, you must create a user name, or we will not post your comment. The Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes this information collection for purposes of managing online comments. Comments and user names are part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) public records system, and user names also are part of the FTC’s computer user records system. We may routinely use these records as described in the FTC’s Privacy Act system notices. For more information on how the FTC handles information that we collect, please read our privacy policy.

The purpose of this blog and its comments section is to inform readers about Federal Trade Commission activity, and share information to help them avoid, report, and recover from fraud, scams, and bad business practices. Your thoughts, ideas, and concerns are welcome, and we encourage comments. But keep in mind, this is a moderated blog. We review all comments before they are posted, and we won’t post comments that don’t comply with our commenting policy. We expect commenters to treat each other and the blog writers with respect.

  • We won’t post off-topic comments, repeated identical comments, or comments that include sales pitches or promotions.
  • We won’t post comments that include vulgar messages, personal attacks by name, or offensive terms that target specific people or groups.
  • We won’t post threats, defamatory statements, or suggestions or encouragement of illegal activity.
  • We won’t post comments that include personal information, like Social Security numbers, account numbers, home addresses, and email addresses. To file a detailed report about a scam, go to ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

We don't edit comments to remove objectionable content, so please ensure that your comment contains none of the above. The comments posted on this blog become part of the public domain. To protect your privacy and the privacy of other people, please do not include personal information. Opinions in comments that appear in this blog belong to the individuals who expressed them. They do not belong to or represent views of the Federal Trade Commission.

Ruben Sr
December 07, 2021
Nothing new, it is shameful to say that these unfair practices are older than the Civil War USA. Remedies have been extremely fragile.