When’s the last time you checked out online reviews to decide whether to buy something? Or where to buy it? Many of us use reviews to see the honest opinions of other buyers — but how do we know the reviews really are honest? Or from real buyers? Read on for ideas about handling fake reviews.

Sorry to burst your bubble. That unexpected text from the Postal Service (USPS), Costco, or The Home Depot telling you about an unclaimed package or a survey you can complete to claim a freebie is NOT from them. It’s a scam.

Student loan forgiveness announcement catches notice of scammers.

Back-to-school season can be stressful for many kids and their parents — especially when scammers are back to work with online school shopping scams. But there are ways to get your school shopping done while avoiding scams that cost you valuable time and money.

If you got a call from ICE, you’re not alone. (And, for the record, it wasn’t them.) Scammers are pretending to be from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Like other government impersonators, they want to trick you into giving them your money or personal information.

Mobile payment apps can be a convenient way to send and receive money with your smartphone. These apps have become very popular — and scammers may try to use them to steal your money. Find out how mobile payment apps work and how to avoid sending money to a scammer.

It’s Pride Month and maybe you’re trying to meet someone on an LGBTQ+ dating app. The FTC is hearing about scams targeting people on LGBTQ+ dating apps, like Grindr and Feeld. And they aren’t your typical I-love-you, please-send-money romance scams. They’re extortion scams.

Are you looking for a job, housing, or insurance? Did you know your credit affects your ability to get them— and how much you’ll pay? For Pride Month, the FTC wants the LGBTQ+ community to know about some of the rights related to credit and discrimination.

Last year, the FTC got almost a million reports about impersonation scammers — fake government agents, pretend grandkids, bogus sweethearts, and others who took almost $2.3 billion from people across the country. So far this year, impersonation scams are still the most-reported fraud.

When people encounter scams or bad business practices, they report them to the FTC. And what we’ve learned is interesting. Young adults report losing money to scammers more often than older people do, but when people age 70+ had a loss, the reported median loss was much higher.