The financial news that actually matters
Covers financial scams, fraud cases, regulatory enforcement actions, and government crackdowns on illegal financial activity. It educates readers on financial safety and risk prevention.
Edwin Brant Frost IV, the founder and president of First Liberty Building & Loan LLC, faces a federal wire fraud charge for allegedly running a Ponzi scheme that solicited investor funds through purported short-term bridge loans. Prosecutors in the Northern District of Georgia say Frost used money from new investors to pay earlier ones, a…
Federal agents arrested Tricolor Auto founder and CEO Daniel Chu on fraud charges tied to the subprime auto lender’s sudden collapse into Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The filing, entered around September 10, 2025, exposed more than $1 billion in liabilities and triggered criminal indictments against three top executives. At least one major bank has already disclosed…
Misam M. Abidi, a 47-year-old resident of Nolensville, Tennessee, now faces 11 federal counts after a grand jury in the Western District of Tennessee returned an indictment tying him to a cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme operated through a company called Star Credit Holdings. The charges span wire fraud, running an unlicensed money transmitting business, assisting in…
Criminals posing as bank fraud departments have triggered more than 5,100 complaints and losses exceeding $262 million since January 2025, making fake security-alert texts the costliest form of account takeover this year. The scheme works the same way nearly every time: a text or call warns of suspicious activity, directs the target to a spoofed…
Consumers across the United States reported losing $3.5 billion to imposter scams in 2025, making it the single largest fraud category tracked by the Federal Trade Commission. Nearly one in three fraud reports filed last year involved someone pretending to be a trusted business or government agency. The scale of these losses raises hard questions…
Stolen-identity refund fraud has cost the U.S. Treasury billions of dollars, according to the Department of Justice, and the single most direct defense any taxpayer can deploy against it is free. The IRS offers a six-digit Identity Protection PIN that blocks anyone else from filing a federal tax return under a given Social Security number…
Americans lost $3.5 billion to imposter scams in 2025, a nearly 20 percent increase over the prior year, after the Federal Trade Commission recorded more than one million complaints. The losses stem from callers posing as government officials, tech-support agents, or trusted companies, then pressuring victims into sending money through channels that are almost impossible…
Scammers posing as federal employees are calling Americans, claiming their bank accounts are compromised, and directing them to wire money to so-called safe accounts held at the Federal Reserve or other government entities. Every major federal agency involved in consumer protection has now issued the same warning: no legitimate government office will ever phone someone…
Scammers posing as federal marshals and court officials are calling people across the country, claiming an arrest warrant has been issued for missed jury duty and demanding immediate payment through apps or cryptocurrency. The Federal Trade Commission issued a fresh consumer alert in June 2026 warning that these calls, texts, and emails are fraudulent. No…
Federal and state regulators across the country are telling consumers the same thing: no legitimate bank, utility, or government office will ever direct someone to deposit cash into a cryptocurrency ATM. The warning comes as the FTC reports that people aged 60 and older are more than three times as likely to lose money through…