MilConsumer Blog Feed

Personal finance app Bridge It – consumers may know the company as Brigit – promised that people could get cash advances of up to $250 “within seconds” and with no “hidden fees.” But the FTC alleges that for many consumers, Brigit was a bridge to false promises, extra charges, and dark patterns that made it easy to sign up for its $9.99 per month membership, but hard to cancel. In addition to an $18 million financial remedy, the proposed settlement will require the company to bridge the gap between its promises and its practices.

We’re ba-aack. Last year we offered our Top 10 “Nightmare on Main Street” consumer protection horror movies. Just in time for Halloween, the FTC Multiplex has reopened with ten more scary screens of deceptive practices.

October 2023 marks the 20th anniversary of the effective date of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Safeguards Rule. Its purpose then – and its purpose now – is to protect consumers by requiring entities covered by the Rule to “develop, implement, and maintain reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect the security, confidentiality, and integrity of customer information.” The FTC just announced an amendment to the Rule that will require non-banking financial institutions within the FTC’s jurisdiction to report data breaches affecting 500 or more people.

In the automotive world they’re called “add-ons.” But for many consumers, they really amount to junk fees on wheels that add to the cost of a car while subtracting from the transparency of the transaction. $1.1 million FTC and State of Wisconsin proposed settlements with Wisconsin dealership group Rhinelander Auto Center , its current and former owners, and its general manager allege the defendants deceptively tacked illegal junk fees onto what...

According to a proposed settlement and a complaint filed by the FTC , two corporations, their President, and their CEO pitched a product called 1Virus Buster Invisible Mask, claiming that wearing the badge-like gizmo around the neck would create a three-foot barrier against 99.99% of viruses and bacteria, including COVID-19. But from the FTC’s perspective, the only thing invisible about Invisible Mask was scientific evidence supporting its claims...

Gimme an F! Gimme an A! Gimme an L! Gimme an S! Gimme an E! What’s that spell? “False,” of course, which – along with deceptive and unsubstantiated – is how the FTC describes claims made by Sollers Education, also doing business as Sollers College.

We’ve warned professionals about online job scams involving phony “recruiters” who falsely claim to represent big-name businesses. Employment impersonators are still at it, but this time they’re approaching people with bogus offers to be “brand ambassadors” for well-known consumer products companies.

In the TV show "Star Trek: Voyager," Captain Janeway and crew headed to Delta Quadrant to take on wrongdoers that injured people by wielding a pernicious energy wave. In a twist on the story, the FTC has announced a proposed settlement with a cryptocurrency outfit called Voyager that injured people by wielding false claims that their accounts were “FDIC insured.” The agency is heading to court against Stephen Ehrlich, Voyager Digital’s CEO and founder.

Section 607(b) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act requires consumer reporting agencies to follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of consumer report information concerning the person in question. “Reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy” isn’t a wish, a hope, or a lofty aspiration. It’s the law. A proposed $15 million FTC-CFPB settlement with Trans Union and its subsidiary TransUnion Rental Screening Solutions underscores that fundamental legal principle.

Many consumers describe them as annoying, injurious, invisible, and all too common. They could be talking about pernicious pests and in some ways, junk fees – hidden or falsely advertised charges that some companies try to sneak past people in an effort to burrow their way into their wallets – bear a resemblance to their six-legged counterparts. In November 2022, the FTC published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking asking for your input about unfair or deceptive practices relating to fees. We received 12,000 comments from consumers, businesses, law enforcers, and others. Based on what you told us – as well as experience gained from decades of litigation challenging junk fees – the FTC is considering a proposed Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees and we’re asking for your comments again.