BOOKMARK EConsumer.Gov: 34-Nation Coalition Takes Online Complaints About Pyramid Schemes And Other Cross-Border Scams

Modern scams that use the Internet can mushroom, creating victims in huge numbers in multiple countries. Let today be the day you bookmark EConsumer.gov. The PP Blog has placed a link in the right sidebar.

The United States and 33 other countries are members of the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network or ICPEN.

From the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in a news release published Oct. 13, 2015, and titled, “FTC and Consumer Protection Agencies from 33 Other Countries Unveil Updated Econsumer.gov Website”:

“Increasingly, we live in a cross-border world in which consumers buy goods and services from around the globe, so the Econsumer.gov website is a valuable means of detecting and combating unlawful practices that are occurring across national boundaries,” said Nisha Arora, ICPEN president and senior director of the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority. “I encourage anyone who has encountered a problem that crosses national borders to send the details to econsumer.gov.”

ICPEN is hosting a meeting for member-nations in the United Kingdom Oct. 13-16. Manchester is the host city.

How big can the schemes get? The TelexFree scheme, for instance, allegedly generated more than $3 billion in transactions and potentially created more than 1 million victims globally in about two years of operation. (See Oct. 7 motion by court-appointed trustee Stephen B. Darr titled “MOTION BY CHAPTER 11 TRUSTEE FOR ENTRY OF ORDER FINDING THAT DEBTORS ENGAGED IN PONZI AND PYRAMID SCHEME AND RELATED RELIEF.”

“Consumer complaints filed through econsumer.gov are entered into Consumer Sentinel, a complaint database maintained by the FTC, and are made available to enforcers and regulators in countries with participating agencies,” the FTC said. “Those agencies may use the complaints to investigate cross-border issues, uncover new scams, pursue regulatory or enforcement actions, and spot consumer trends.”