What does the FTC investigate? (2024)

What does the FTC investigate?

The FTC enforces federal consumer protection laws that prevent fraud, deception and unfair business practices. The Commission also enforces federal antitrust laws that prohibit anticompetitive mergers and other business practices that could lead to higher prices, fewer choices, or less innovation.

What triggers an FTC investigation?

What Violations Can Trigger an FTC Investigation? The FTC investigates violations of federal antitrust and consumer protection laws. This encompasses everything from anticompetitive mergers and acquisitions to consumer fraud and inadequate data security.

What does FTC focus on?

The basic statute enforced by the FTC, Section 5(a) of the FTC Act, empowers the agency to investigate and prevent unfair methods of competition, and unfair or deceptive acts or practices affecting commerce. This creates the Agency's two primary missions: protecting competition and protecting consumers.

What are the 3 things that the FTC consumer protection Bureau do?

The FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection stops unfair, deceptive and fraudulent business practices by collecting reports from consumers and conducting investigations, suing companies and people that break the law, developing rules to maintain a fair marketplace, and educating consumers and businesses about their rights ...

What can be reported to FTC?

The Federal Trade Commission, the nation's consumer protection agency, collects reports about companies, business practices, and identity theft under the FTC Act and other laws we enforce or administer.

What are the examples of FTC violations?

These cases can involve fraud, scams, identity theft, false advertising, privacy violations, anti-competitive behavior and more. The Legal Library has detailed information about cases we have brought in federal court or through our internal administrative process, called an adjudicative proceeding.

Can the FTC bring criminal charges?

The FTC, which is not authorized to bring criminal law enforcement actions, established the BCP CLU in 2002 to bring the “worst of the worst” offenders to the attention of prosecutors.

What are the 3 unfair business practices that concern the FTC the most?

Which of the five laws are enforced by the FTC?

Final answer: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) enforces several laws including the Dodd-Frank Act, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, and the Community Reinvestment Act.

What happens if you violate the FTC Act?

Companies that receive this Notice and nevertheless engage in prohibited practices can face civil penalties of up to $50,120 per violation.

When should you file a complaint with the FTC?

If you have been targeted by an illegal business practice or scam, report it at Reportfraud.ftc.gov. If you have a question or comment about an issue, please submit it to the appropriate Bureau by one of the methods below. To learn how we may use the information you provide, please read our Privacy Policy.

What are the 4 P's required by the FTC?

If there's any reason to suspect they're not, you need to correct it by adjusting the placement, proximity, prominence, and presentation order of the disclosures until everyone sees them before proceeding. If you don't correct the problem, you'll run into trouble if someone files a complaint with the FTC.

What are the 4 consumer credit laws?

The Truth in Lending Act ensures that creditors provide complete and honest information. The Fair Credit Reporting Act regulates credit reports. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act prevents creditors from discriminating against individuals. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act established rules for debt collectors.

Does filing a complaint with FTC help?

Telling the Federal Trade Commission helps us stop ripoffs, scams, and fraudsters. Your complaints matter here. To file a complaint, just go to ftc.gov/complaint, and answer the questions. Or call That's all there is to it.

What does the FTC prohibit?

Section 5(a) of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. Sec. 45(a), prohibits, inter alia, “unfair methods of competition.” Unfair methods of competition include any conduct that would violate the Sherman Antitrust Act or the Clayton Act.

Is it worth reporting a scammer?

REPORT THE SCAM.

Reporting helps protect others. While agencies can't always track down perpetrators of crimes against scammers, they can utilize the information gathered to record patterns of abuse which may lead to action being taken against a company or industry.

Can the FTC put you in jail?

That means that, while we can't put people in jail, many of our partners can and do, including the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Attorneys, and other federal, state, and local criminal law enforcers. When FTC cases include behavior that also violates criminal laws, we let criminal prosecutors know.

Is FTC civil or criminal?

While the FTC is a civil law enforcement agency, we have partnered with federal, state and local criminal law enforcers to alert them to behavior that also may violate criminal laws.

Are FTC cases civil or criminal?

The FTC's civil enforcement actions shut down fraud and get restitution for consumers or disgorgement to the U.S. Treasury. Examples of FTC fraud cases include: telemarketing scams.

Are FTC investigations public?

Generally, FTC investigations are non-public to protect both the investigation and the individuals and companies involved.

Can the FTC get your money back?

Whenever possible, the FTC uses the money it collects from defendants to provide refunds to injured consumers. If there is any money left in the settlement fund after the first distribution, the FTC may send a second round of payments. The FTC sends money that cannot be distributed to consumers to the U.S. Treasury.

What is an example of an unfair act?

Acts or practices that have the potential to be deceptive include: making misleading cost or price claims; using bait-and-switch techniques; offering to provide a product or service that is not in fact available; omitting material limitations or conditions from an offer; selling a product unfit for the purposes for ...

What are the examples of unfair practices?

What is an unfair or deceptive practice FTC?

FTC and other regulators to ensure that these standards are applied consistently. An act or practice is unfair where it (1) causes or is likely to cause substantial injury to consumers, (2) cannot be reasonably avoided by consumers, and (3) is not outweighed by countervailing ben- efits to consumers or to competition.

What is the FTC rule 2023?

On October 27, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC” or “Commission”) announced that it had finalized an amendment to the FTC's Standards for Safeguarding Consumer Information (“Safeguards Rule”), a regulation requiring financial institutions subject to FTC jurisdiction under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (“GLBA”) to ...