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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 11:25 pm
Time: 11:25 pm
Results for consumer fraud (u.s.)
3 results foundAuthor: Stiles, Margot L. Title: Bait and Switch: How Seafood Fraud Hurts Our Oceans, Our Wallets and Our Health Summary: Seafood is one of the most popular foods in the United States. Yet, consumers are routinely given little or no information about where and when seafood is harvested. Moreover, the information that is provided on seafood labels is frequently misleading or fraudulent. The government actively promotes the health benefits of dining on fish twice a week (USDA 2011) and global consumption is on the rise (FAO 2010). At the same time, overfishing continues to plague the world’s oceans, with more than three-quarters of fish stocks worldwide fully or overexploited. Partly in response to a decline in U.S. fisheries, most seafood eaten in the U.S. (84 percent) is imported, following an increasingly complex path from a fishing boat to our plates. Despite growing concern about where our food comes from, consumers are frequently served the wrong fish — a completely different species than the one they paid for. Recent studies have found that seafood may be mislabeled as often as 25 to 70 percent of the time for fish like red snapper, wild salmon, and Atlantic cod, disguising species that are less desirable, cheaper or more readily available. With about 1,700 different species of seafood from all over the world now available for sale in the U.S. (FDA 2009), it is unrealistic to expect the American consumer to be able to independently and accurately determine what fish is really being served. In the U.S., the consumer price index for seafood has risen more than 27 percent over the past ten years, remaining steadily higher than other foods and creating significant economic incentives for fraud and illegal fishing. Most seafood consumed in the U.S. is imported, yet only two percent is currently inspected. In addition to tracking systems, the U.S. needs to increase the frequency and scope of inspections to verify seafood’s safety and origin at each step along the way. Traceability requires recording comprehensive information about each fish as it moves through processing, packing and distribution. In order to prevent fraud, consumers need to know where seafood comes from and be able to trace it all the way back to the sea. Details: Washington, DC: Oceana, 2011. 40p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 14, 2011 at: http://na.oceana.org/sites/default/files/reports/SeafoodFraudReport_2011.pdf Year: 2011 Country: International URL: http://na.oceana.org/sites/default/files/reports/SeafoodFraudReport_2011.pdf Shelf Number: 122055 Keywords: Consumer Fraud (U.S.)Illegal Fishing |
Author: Cohen, Mark A. Title: Willingness to Pay to Reduce White Collar and Corporate Crime Summary: Consumer protection and financial regulatory agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) regulate various types of consumer, investor and financial frauds. Whether required or not, rulemaking proceedings oftentimes include some form of cost-benefit analysis. Thus, the benefits of proposed regulations - whether fully quantified or not - are an increasingly important component of rulemaking decisions. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the impact on victims in some cases include significant time and financial hardships and even pain, suffering and reduced quality of life. Further, the existence of these offenses causes non-victims to take costly precautionary behavior and might even inhibit legitimate business activities. Yet, little is known about the true costs of consumer and financial crimes other than the out-of-pocket monetary losses incurred by victims. To the extent society wishes to optimally deter such crimes, without better data on nonmonetary costs, any cost-benefit analyses of criminal justice or prevention programs designed to reduce these crimes will inevitably underestimate program benefits. This paper provides an initial framework and empirical estimates of the willingness-to-pay to reduce four types of white collar and corporate offenses - consumer fraud, financial fraud, corporate crime and corporate financial crime. Utilizing a contingent valuation survey approached that has been used to estimate the cost of street crimes, the average willingness to pay for a 10% reduction in each of these four offenses is estimated to range between $70 and $75 per household. In the case of consumer fraud and financial fraud - where estimates of prevalence are available, this translates into a willingness to pay of $2,700 per consumer fraud and $21,000 for financial fraud. In contrast, the out-of-pocket costs to victims of consumer fraud have been estimated to average about $100, and about $200 to $250 for various types of financial frauds. These figures also compare favorably to the willingness to pay for a reduced household burglary of $18,000. Details: Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University, 2014. 27p. Source: Internet Resource: Vanderbilt University - Owen Graduate School of Management; Vanderbilt University - Law School; Resources for the Future: Accessed September 12, 2014 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2486220 Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2486220 Shelf Number: 133299 Keywords: Consumer Fraud (U.S.)Consumer ProtectionCorporate CrimeFinancial CrimesFinancial FraudWhite-Collar Crime |
Author: Cheney, Julia Title: Consumer Use of Fraud Alerts and Credit Freezes: An Empirical Analysis Summary: Fraud alerts - initial fraud alerts, extended fraud alerts, and credit freezes - help protect consumers from the consequences of identity theft. At the same time, they may impose costs on lenders, credit bureaus, and, in some instances, consumers. We analyze a unique data set of anonymized credit bureau files to understand how consumers use these alerts. We document the frequency and persistence of fraud alerts and credit freezes. Using the experience of the data breach at the South Carolina Department of Revenue, we show that consumers who file initial fraud alerts or credit freezes likely do so out of precaution. Consumers who file extended alerts are more likely to be actual victims of identity theft. We find that consumers are heterogeneous in their choice of alerts and that their choices are correlated with important characteristics found in their credit bureau files. These facts are useful for interpreting consumer responses to data breaches and for policymakers. Details: Philadelphia: Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, 2014. 40p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 29, 2014 at: http://www.philadelphiafed.org/consumer-credit-and-payments/payment-cards-center/publications/discussion-papers/2014/D-2014-IdentityTheft.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: http://www.philadelphiafed.org/consumer-credit-and-payments/payment-cards-center/publications/discussion-papers/2014/D-2014-IdentityTheft.pdf Shelf Number: 133474 Keywords: Consumer Fraud (U.S.)Credit Card FraudIdentity Theft |