You might not realize it, but you’ve probably been the target of someone’s scam, either on the phone, through email or some other electronic device.
Nevada ranks third in the nation for the number of fraud and identity theft reports with 56,753 reports resulting in a total loss of $108.4 million last year.
This time every year, as it’s National Consumer Protection Week, officials try to warn people about the numerous people out there trying to con you into giving them money.
Last year, Nevada’s Department of Consumer Affairs received over 3,400 complaints and inquiries. The top five complaint areas were product purchases, auto body and auto repair, home repairs, internet scams and timeshares.
Whitney Digesti is the senior deputy attorney general with Nevada Attorney General’s Office Bureau of Consumer Protection. She joined State of Nevada host Joe Schoenmann along with Maricela Segura from the Federal Trade Commission and Cris Williams from Nevada Consumer Affairs.
On what steps a Nevadan can take to report fraud
DIGESTI: So we always direct whoever has an allegation of fraud or, you know, a scam, or what we call a deceptive trade practice. And that's what we enforce in the Bureau of Consumer Protection, we always direct them to file a complaint with our office and they can do that online at ag.nv.gov. There's a place to file online. And then once it's there, it's routed to where it's best suited. So a lot of the time a different entity might have jurisdiction over the complaint. And so we would, we would route it there. But if it has to do with a deceptive trade practice or a scam, we will investigate it and do what we can to prosecute.
On what Nevada Consumer Affairs can do
WILLIAMS: When we get complaints, we often determine whether there's been some violations, we also take a good look at the money that the consumer has paid out or has lost. And that really raises our red flags. For example, we had a consumer that was from out of state and she was 86 years old. And she was just approached by someone and in Las Vegas, she was approached and they offered a free facials, which she did. And they continue to talk to her and they were very nice to her. She said there were very nice people. And next thing she knows, she goes home and her credit card had been ran up to over $12,000. So what we did at customer affairs, we call the company; we actually do have to write to them, and provide the information and explain that there's been a complaint against our business. We do give them the opportunity to respond and when they don't respond, we go knocking at the door, and just in this case, because they were adamant that they had done nothing wrong. So we had to go my investigator, we both went and knocked on their door twice. They finally … refunded the lady.
On how the FTC could get involved
SEGURA: I'm going to say scammers do not like the fact that we collaborate and we cooperate and share resources. So they should know that we work across states and divisions to share resources, but the FTC is the nation's consumer protection agency. So that means that's one main difference is that our work is national in scope. So when we get court or administrative orders against a company, let's say we settle with a scammer or a company that's crossing the line with their practices, that order will follow them in every state they operate. So that's one thing. Also, our database of fraud reports, we pull in from reports from across the country, different states, different divisions … our report database is a national report database. So it's pretty comprehensive, and we make those available to our law enforcement partners and law enforcement partners share their complaints with us. So that's another difference.
And in terms of our investigations, I suspect we all have kind of similar tools to do undercover investigations, and also request information from companies that we target. But one big differences that you just noted with with Cris is that Cris will actually communicate and contact the company on behalf of the consumers. So they mediate, the Nevada Department of Consumer Affairs mediates disputes. We don't mediate disputes, what we do is we look at complaint trends. We look at up-and-coming frauds and decide where to put our resources, decide who to investigate, sometimes undercover.
Warning from a listener
A few years ago, while vacationing in Europe my email got hacked. I didn't think much of it and changed my password. When I got back, I found out that someone was trying to take money out of my 401K! Luckily, I was able to freeze it. Apparently, the caller had used a TTD line (It appears people with foreign accents use that - a very common practice in fraud) and the stupid company was ready to send the check to the fraudster (with a different name!). When I asked the company, why they would send to another person, their answer was "not everyone has a bank account"! I said I am a doctor in Las Vegas, and don't you think I have an account? Any way, I had to file a complaint with FTC etc., but one has to be very careful! The latest trend is crypto fraud by individuals who reach out to you via LinkedIn.
- Shanker Dixit, MD, FAAN
Guests: Cris Williams, chief compliance/audit investigator, Nevada Consumer Affairs; Maricela Segura, regional director, Federal Trade Commission - Western Region Los Angeles; Whitney Digesti, senior deputy attorney general, Nevada Attorney General’s Office Bureau of Consumer Protection
