The line is staffed by counselors from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., Eastern time, Monday through Friday. It makes the agency more accessible to consumers who want to report a fraud, and it makes their valuable complaint data available to law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and Canada. Consumer fraud complaints to the FTC are entered into a database that is available to nearly 200 law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and Canada. Obviously, the FTC can't intervene in individual disputes, but consumer complaint information is crucial to the enforcement of consumer protection laws. The information that consumers get on a particular issue also lessens the likelihood that they'll be scammed again.
Education is a powerful consumer protection.
The FTC works for the consumer to prevent fraudulent, deceptive and unfair business practices in the marketplace and to provide information to help consumers spot, stop and avoid them. The FTC enters Internet, telemarketing, identity theft and other fraud-related complaints into Consumer Sentinel , a secure, online database available to hundreds of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies U.S. and abroad.