Consumer Corner Column

Every day, dozens of Kansans call our office to report scams or potential fraudulent activities. In the past few months, we have received an increasing number of complaints regarding debt collection scams.

Spring time storm damage can require quick clean-up and unscheduled home repairs. In addition, as the weather warms up, summer begs us to get started on home improvement projects that we neglected during the winter months.

Every year at about this time, the Kansas Attorney General’s Office Consumer Protection Division experiences an increase in complaints about home-improvement and home-repair scams.

Summer is a busy time for families to relocate. Often, this requires the assistance of a professional moving company. Most movers are legitimate and provide quality service, but a few unscrupulous operators seem to turn up at this time of the year trying to scam consumers. Whether you are a college student moving back home for the summer or a large family relocating across the country, you should expect and receive fair treatment from the company you hire to move your belongings.

Online auction sites have become popular in recent years as a way to connect buyers and sellers from across the country and around the world. These sites can be great places to find unique items – or to help us sell things we find collecting dust in our garages during spring cleaning.

Unfortunately, these sites can also be used by scammers offering items for sale that don’t exist.

Identity thieves are constantly looking for new ways to separate you from your hard-earned money.

You may know about the typical identity theft scheme that might involve someone stealing your credit card and racking-up thousands of dollars in fraudulent charges. But with income tax filing season upon us, we are seeing a new type of identity theft.

Email messages have become an important part of our daily routines, making communication easier and faster in both our personal and professional lives. But not all email messages are what they appear to be. Scammers are out to make a quick buck by distributing emails in which the sender purports to be someone known to the recipient and is asking for money to be sent to them.