(film reel clattering) - On behalf of the Federal Trade Commission, the leading federal agency charged with protecting consumers from fraud, welcome to today's news briefing for Native American News Media on the subject of how to spot and avoid scams in Indian country.

So, let us begin and welcome our first presenter, Monica Vaca, deputy director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection for the FTC.

Ms. Vaca, please begin.

- Thank you so much and thank you to everyone for joining us today.

This is so important for us to be here with you and I'm really delighted to have the opportunity to talk with you directly.

So, the FTC has long been dedicated to protecting demographically diverse communities across the country as part of what we call our Every Community Initiative.

But today, I want you to know that it is a priority at the FTC to reach out to Native American communities.

We wanna connect with you.

We wanna hear from you, and we'd love to work with you.

So, part of what we are doing today is trying to start a conversation about what fraud looks like, what we hear, how to report it, and to share with you what it is that we know.

In 2021, we had more than 2.9 million reports about fraud.

And, about one quarter of those people who reported fraud told us that they'd lost money.

And, those losses really added up.

It was $6.1 billion.

And, that's just what we heard about!

We know that fraud losses exceed that number.

We know that fraud losses are much higher, but just consider $6.1 billion is what people told us that they lost.

What does this mean to an individual person?

Well, to an individual who experiences fraud, that median loss-- the median loss reported to us was $500.

And, I don't need to tell you that's a lot of money to lose, $500.

So, we want people to be on the lookout for some of the scams that come along.

In 2021, that top scam, the number one scam that was reported to us was the imposter scam.

This is where someone contacts you and pretends to be somebody you trust.

Typically, a government agency or a business, a well-known business, or somebody else that you trust.

They might tell you that your social security number was used in a crime and that you have to pay some money to restore it.

Or they might tell you that they're from Amazon and they need your bank account to process a refund.

These scams are rampant and they cost people billions of dollars.

In 2021- and, I'm just talking about imposter scams, just on imposter scams- it was $2.4 billion that people reported losing.

And, on some of these imposter scams, the individual loss was much higher than what I told you a moment ago when you think of all the scams.

On imposter scams, the loss was more like a thousand dollars per person.

So, primarily, the Federal Trade Commission is a law enforcement agency.

We bring civil lawsuits to do two things.

First, to stop illegal practices and second, when it's possible, to get refunds back to people who've suffered financial losses.

And, how we do that is to identify law enforcement's targets.

These are businesses that are violating the laws that we enforce.

And, we have some hurdles to be able to do this, but it's our goal in every single case to try to return money to people who've lost money due to illegal practices.

So, I'm gonna give you an example of an important case.

It's a case that had a big impact on the Native American population in New Mexico and Arizona.

And, you know, I hope that by sharing this with you, you will see one reason why it's a good idea to share your reports of the bad business practices that you encounter with the FTC.

And, I'll repeat this later, but the way to do that is to report to us at reportfraud.ftc.gov, and I'll repeat that later.

So, I'm gonna talk about the Tate's Auto Group case.

In 2018, the FTC charged a group of four auto dealers operating in Arizona and New Mexico, near the border of the Navajo Nation.

We charged them with a range of illegal activities including falsifying consumers' income and down payment information on vehicle financing applications and misrepresenting important financial terms.

So, you know, buying a car is one of the biggest purchases consumers make and it's incredibly necessary for people.

It's their lifeline to be able to get from place to place.

When consumers go in and tell an auto dealer how much money they make and how much they can pay upfront, the dealer can't make up different numbers, right?

And, that is what we charged Tate's Auto Group with doing.

We charged the defendants in that case with a range of practices, [soft audio] including that they prevented people from reviewing the income [audio normal] and down payment information on their forms by doing things like rushing consumers through the process of reviewing and signing those financial applications, having the consumers fill out the forms over the phone which makes it very difficult, as you know, to review those forms.

And then, failing to give them the income and down payment portion of the application before they signed it.

In some other instances, we alleged that Tate's Auto altered financing documents after consumers had signed them and without the consumer's knowledge.

And, we noted in particular that many of the affected consumers were members of the Navajo Nation.

This was the first FTC action that alleged income falsification by an auto dealer.

So, this was a very significant case for us.

(coughs) Excuse me.

As a result of bringing this case, the FTC is sending back payments totaling more than $415,000 to 3,500 consumers who financed a car or truck at Tate's Auto dealership after January 1, 2013 and who later had that vehicle repossessed.

In addition, as part of the court-approved settlement, those auto dealerships had to cease business operations.

So, that is an example of the work that the FTC does, stopping the practice and trying to get money back for consumers.

I hope that, that gives you a sense of what the agency does and...encourages you to share information about illegal business practices with us (clears throat) at reportfraud.ftc.gov - Thank you, Ms. Vaca.

So, now we welcome Joannie Wei, assistant director for the FTC's Midwest Region.

Ms. Wei?

- Thank you, Sandy.

Thank you, Monica.

And, it's wonderful to see you all.

Thank you so much for being here.

I wanna talk about a few different things to follow on to what Monica discussed.

So, as she mentioned, this is a priority for our agency right now.

We have been having conversations-- oh, sorry!

My light!

(chuckles) Excuse me!

We have been having conversations with Native American and Alaskan Native communities throughout the country.

Just this year, we've talked to dozens of people and organizations, and we are learning so much from everyone we speak to.

And, we have some really amazing outreach opportunities have grown from these conversations.

There are too many to talk about right now, but I wanna highlight a couple just so you can see the kinds of things we can do to work together on these very serious consumer protection issues.

Sometimes, the collaboration is really simple.

It's just a matter of we share information with groups.

They take that information, they take these free resources and they take them back to their communities and share that information.

Sometimes, it's as simple as they sign up for our alerts and then they know about trending scams and frauds and they're able to take those alerts and share them.

Maybe through monthly newsletters.

Maybe through emails or other communications.

It's a simple way to get information out.

Sometimes, the outreach is-- involves partnerships, long-term wonderful partnerships that result in a lot of collaborative events.

So, I wanna just give an example.

Our Southwest region in Dallas has formed a partnership with an organization called Oklahoma Native Assets Coalition.

It's a network of tribal representatives that shares resources and opportunities with the communities and they host events.

And, we are having regular contact with this group.

And, recently, the FTC participated in a webinar for the coalition about identity theft.

And, it was a wonderful way to share really critical information about how to protect your identity, what to do if your identity is compromised or stolen.

And, this identity theft is a problem that plagues all communities and it can have some really serious consequences.

So, we were thrilled to have the opportunity to share this information via a webinar.

Here in Chicago, in our office here, we recently connected with the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council.

They represent 11 tribes in Minnesota and we learned that they have regular quarterly meetings.

So, we are attending the next one and we're going to introduce ourselves.

And we're gonna share information about what we do, our free resources, how communities can protect themselves.

Another great example of how our outreach has resulted in some concrete connections.

One last thing I wanna highlight is podcasts.

There's an organization called The Native Learning Center.

It's a wonderful-- it's a national organization that has a really wide network of community members.

They reach people through webinars and podcasts.

For example, their podcast has 7,000 downloads.

So, we are recording a series of podcasts with this group.

Again, such an incredible opportunity to share information.

(laughs) Hello, Krystal from Native Learning Center!

(laughs) So, what are people telling us in these conversations?

Monica covered some of the top national scams that we're seeing.

Community members are telling us about-- (chuckling) Community members are telling us about what is happening to them a lot.

We are hearing a lot about the similar, sort of Tate's Auto lending-- Tate's Auto issues with auto lending and financing.

We are hearing a lot about that.

We're also hearing from people about these phishing emails.

So, they are emails that include invoices that look very real.

I'm sure all of us here have received some of them.

They look real.

They try to lure people into clicking on them and share personal information.

Small businesses have told us that they are getting impacted by ransomware and other hacker's attacks.

And, companies are also offering debt relief services, but not really providing any real help.

Another one we've been hearing about is robocalls.

This is a problem everyone I think is familiar with, but we are getting bombarded by robocalls from people pretending to be the government.

Like Monica mentioned, these imposter scams: pretending to be the IRS, pretending to be social security, and so on.

We are hearing from our Native communities that tech support scams are popular, especially with older adults.

One thing people have been telling us about as well as gift cards.

They're being told to pay using gift cards and that is 100% a scam!

Always a scam, if somebody tells you to pay by a gift card.

We have heard these stories, there are many more, but those are just some highlights.

We are hearing them anecdotally, but we know these issues are impacting communities broadly.

So, what can people do to avoid these scams?

Just really quickly, there are a few key things that people can do.

I mean, the number one high level point that Sandy made when she opened is that information is power.

We need to talk, talk, talk and keep talking about these scams because the more we do this, the more we will help people spot them and avoid them.

But here are a few key things you can remember that will help you avoid many, many scams.

The first one is just don't give your personal or financial information in response to a request that you didn't expect.

You just have to guard this information aggressively and be suspicious.

I think my default is to be suspicious of these requests.

The second thing is resist the pressure to act immediately.

Scammers are always going to tell you, you have to do it right now.

They want to create this urgency.

So, you act without thinking.

And, the reality is that is a huge red flag and it's rarely going to be an emergency.

Do not ever pay somebody via a gift card, cryptocurrency, or a money transfer service like MoneyGram or Western Union.

If someone asks you to pay this way, it's likely a scam.

And then, the last piece of advice is just stop and talk to somebody, even just one person you trust before you give over your money or your information.

If it's something that sounds too good to be true, just pause for a minute and tell one person about it.

Chances are, this moment of pause will make all the difference and help you avoid these scams.

Before I finish, I just wanna flag a few simple ways that you could keep in touch with the FTC.

Consumer alerts.

Ftc.gov/consumeralerts.

This is a simple, easy way to get up-to-date information about trending scams and things to look out for.

If you sign up for them, then you'll get a wealth of information without having to do anything!

It'll just come to you.

Consumer.gov is a site where we have all the basics that you will need to know about money, credit, loans, debt, ID theft, scams, a bunch of different topics.

It's easy to digest.

It's-- It's an easy format for people to access and it's all available at consumer.gov.

We also have a campaign for older adults called Pass It On.

And, if you work with older adults in the community, I encourage you to check this out as well.

It's a wonderful campaign that helps older adults get empowered to get involved in scam prevention.

All of our materials are free.

You could order them in bulk online.

I wanna end with one last thought.

In all these conversations we've been having across the country, one common theme that we've been hearing is that Native American media is a really, really important and effective way to get messages out to the Native American and Alaskan Native communities about scam prevention.

So, you are a critical player in this and we just really appreciate you being here and helping us spread this message about scam prevention to the communities.

So, thank you.

Really; thank you for being here.

- Thank you, Ms. Wei.

There is one question before we move to Flagstaff that I'd like to ask from the chat for both Monica and Joannie.

And, it comes from Frank Blanquet.

Frank, do you wanna ask your question?

- How do you navigate the trust or I should say, distrust issues, that some Native communities have with federal or to a lot large extent local authorities?

How do you offer them help if they have been victims of fraud?

And, how do you navigate the distrust that they might have and let them know that you are really there to help them?

- Monica?

- Yeah.

That's such a great question and thank you for asking that.

You know, I think one of the things that we try to do is we make our reporting form available online.

And, people can put in as much or as little information as they want.

Sometimes, people, you know, are a little bit nervous about putting in any kind of demographic information.

We capture actually very little demographic information, but people should know that they can put in as much or as little as they want.

- I just wanna add that I really appreciate your question, Frank.

And, in my conversations with-- I've connected with a tribal elder from the Potawatomi tribe and she was telling me about this issue with distrust and how it's hard for them to welcome a federal agency onto their tribal lands to talk to them about fraud.

And, it's just not something that they've done historically or if they've done limited amounts.

And, I think the way we talked about addressing that is just to start conversations and start sharing.

And, I feel like my conversations with her have been about what the FTC, what we are doing here, why we are here, and that we're not here for any particular reason other than to spread this information.

And, I think the only way we can get past the distrust is to open these lines of communication and just show up... and form these relationships.

So-?

But, I do appreciate your question and I know it's a real issue.

- How-?

This is for Monica.

How does the FTC send its reimbursements or refunds?

Do you use a bank, say, if a victim was a member-- has an account with a specific bank, do you go through that bank or do you simply send out checks?

How does that work?

- Typically, we will send out checks to people in the mail.

Sometimes, we'll also make it possible for the person to get an electronic payment that they can download onto a PayPal, for instance.

For a lot of people, that's a little bit easier because they, you know, they might move around a lot and we might not have the most recent address for them.

But, those are both ways that we do it.

- Fine.

And, I think building on this whole notion of getting money back, and how difficult it is to get money back from a scammer- perhaps as a final note based on the questions in the chat- you or Joannie could talk about the challenge once you're scammed of being able to expect to get any sort of reimbursement, even if you do file a report.

Monica, maybe you could take that.

- Sure, absolutely.

So, you know, one thing that scammers are really good at doing is staying anonymous.

They want to be able to make it hard for you to find out who they are.

That's why they use somebody else's name when they scam you.

They wanna use a payment mechanism that has few protections because they're trying to make that payment irreversible.

This is why Joannie's point a moment ago is so critical.

Never send money via gift card, cryptocurrency.

Those are all ways that make it very-- or wire transfer!

Those are ways that make it very easy for scammers to stay anonymous.

So, to the extent that you can avoid that, that is the best way to avoid losing money.

- Thank you so much.

I'm now gonna turn to our speaker from Flagstaff, Michael Elliot, and his colleague, Sheri, a member of the Navajo Nation.

Michael, thank you for joining us and bringing us a storyteller for today's briefing.

- Glad to be here.

I'm gonna be speaking with Sheri.

I'm just gonna make some very brief opening remarks just so that we can provide some context.

Now DNA-People's Legal Services is a legal aid organization and we've been serving members of the Navajo community since 1967.

Consumer-related issues are a pretty big part of what we do.

It could be collections cases, it could be consumer matters, contract disputes, things of that nature.

And, it's probably the second largest category of cases we deal with.

And, it really does affect our clients living on the Navajo Nation, particularly around the question of buying and financing automobiles.

And, those-- If you understand sort of the circumstances, that there's some sort of background context that you should probably understand in order to understand why cars are so central to the Navajo and why they're so important.

And, why perhaps-- that's why they're vulnerable to these sorts of scams and fraud committed by predatory businesses operating in border towns.

So, border towns are any of the towns that are not on the reservation, but which serve, you know, have marketplaces that serve members or residents who live on the Navajo Nation.

This could be Flagstaff.

It could be Page.

It could be Holbrook, Winslow, Farmington, Gallup, all of these towns where there are Walmarts and car dealers, and things of that-- and businesses like that.

Which- (clears throat) Sheri had had an experience last year buying a car in Winslow.

What happened when you told the salesperson you needed to trade in your car if you were gonna buy a new car?

- Yes.

I did tell them that I needed to trade in my car and get a better vehicle.

- Okay.

And then, you left with a new car?

- Yes.

- You thought everything was done?

- Yes.

- Okay.

So...after that day, what happened?

Did you stop paying your old car payment?

- Yes.

I thought I did a trade-in and that's why I stopped paying it.

- Okay.

So, you kept getting billed.

- Yes.

- Did you go back to the dealer and ask them what's going on?

- I went back to the dealer and then I gave that mail to the salesperson that he helped me and-- (clears throat) I told him, "what's going on with this?"

And, he said that, "where's the car at?

It says abandoned vehicle, right here."

And then downtown in Winslow, there's a... (hesitates) - Like an impound watch?

- Yeah.

- Let me ask you a couple of questions to sum up.

The lender basically repossessed the car, right?

- Yes, after all this happened.

- Right.

And then, they ended up auctioning the car?

- Yes.

- When all was said and done, you owed 10 and a half thousand dollars, right?

- Yes.

- Okay.

And, you told the salesperson that you were getting calls, you know, from the lender that you had to still pay.

And, what did he tell you to do when you told him that you were getting calls, collection calls?

- He just said to ignore the phone call.

- Okay.

So, the salesperson told you just ignore it?

- Yes.

- Okay.

But in the end, you had 10 and a half thousand dollars that you owed on that car?

- Yes.

- In addition to the new car payment that you had to make?

- Yes.

- Okay.

And then, is that when you decided to seek legal help?

- Yes.

- Okay.

- That's when I decided to come over.

- Right, right.

And, we were able to get the dealer to pay off the 10 and half thousand dollars, right?

- Yes.

- Okay.

And, they were willing to talk to us and I think there is a public relations dynamic to it.

And, when you've got an egregious case like this where someone is willfully lying and there's evidence of it; you know?

The car was abandoned, the car was repo'd.

Why would they take her car and her car keys and have her take her stuff out of her car if she wasn't actually agreeing to trade it in, right?

So, there was a lot of evidence against the salesperson who was just lying blatantly to her.

- [Sandy] Right.

- [Michael] So, in that circumstance, it was far faster and more effective and cheaper to use the fraud reporting mechanism and it got us a great outcome.

- Thank you.

Your headline from today's briefing?

- I would say "know the process.

Don't ever rush into something, take your time."

And, if you're gonna sign something, know what it says.

And, don't trust anything that's said to you verbally unless you can confirm it in the written contract.

This is a question of consumer education, and we're actively engaged in that at DNA as much as, or more than, the litigation itself.

- Okay.

Thank you so much to the Federal Trade Commission.

I'm going to close out our meeting with a special thanks to Sheri for sharing her story.

(upbeat music)