January 2025

Today begins Identity Theft Awareness Week (IDTAW) 2025, and we hope you'll join us during some of the events planned for this week. IDTAW is an excellent opportunity to learn and talk about identity theft and raise awareness to help protect yourself, your family, and your friends.

An unexpected package from an unknown sender arrives in your name. You open it and find a note that says it’s a gift, but it doesn't say who sent it. The note also says to scan a QR code to find out who sent it — or to get instructions on how to return it. Did someone really send you a gift? Or is it an attempt to steal your personal information?

If it’s not scammers spamming your phone with texts or filling up your inbox with emails, it’s your mailbox crammed with ads and other mail you didn’t ask for. The junk messages and mail might seem endless, but there are some ways to help scale it back.

Whether you’ve driven through a toll recently or not, you might’ve gotten a text saying you owe money for unpaid tolls. It’s probably a scam. Scammers are pretending to be tolling agencies from coast to coast and sending texts demanding money. Learn how the scam works so you can avoid it.

If you don’t know what a loot box is, just ask any kid in your life to explain it. While you’re at it, ask them about the video game Genshin Impact. Then tell them about why the FTC just sued the game’s developer HoYoverse (Cognosphere Pte. Ltd and Cognosphere, LLC) for its confusing loot box system that costs players a LOT of money.

On Monday I leave the FTC after eight wonderful years, most recently leading the Bureau of Consumer Protection. I cannot imagine more fulfilling work. Consumer protection has been my passion since law school, when I advocated for families fighting to stay in their homes after the financial crisis. That experience taught me the importance of a muscular government – one ready to take on powerful interests to protect people from economic abuses. Fifteen years later, I’m proud to leave behind a Bureau that is stronger than ever in advancing that mission.

Have you ever joined a multi-level marketing program (MLM) where you sold products to consumers? Or recruited others to do the same? Maybe someone’s pitched you money-making opportunities like business coaching, or another type of business investment? Did they tell you how much money you’d earn — and did those claims add up? Want to tell us more? Here’s your chance (actually, three chances).

When, over many years, an agency finds itself repeatedly turning to the same person — to share ideas, to find out what’s going on in the community, to make connections — it seems overdue to give that person an award. And many thanks. Now, the thanks have come regularly: from the FTC’s offices in Cleveland and in D.C. But today is all about the award: specifically, the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection Partner Award for Sheryl Harris, Director of the Cuyahoga County Department of Consumer Affairs in Ohio.

Are you interested in learning more about how to protect yourself from identity theft? Check out Identity Theft Awareness Week. During the week, the FTC and its partners will host free webinars and other events to talk about how to spot, avoid, report, and recover from identity theft. Mark your calendars. Identity Theft Awareness Week starts Monday, January 27!

Say you’re looking for ways to make extra cash and see an ad for a gig doing lawn or handy work, house cleaning, or assembling furniture. What they promise you’ll make per hour sounds good. When you complete the work, you expect to make what you saw advertised, right? But the FTC says that’s not what happened for most people who signed up for gigs on the Handy Technologies platform.

What could be better than opening the mailbox or the front door and finding an unexpected package? Free gifts might seem like fun — but when an unexpected package lands on your doorstep, it may come with a higher cost than you expected.

If you’re thinking about upgrading your phone, here are four easy steps to remove your personal information from your phone before you trade it in.