AG Weiser Starts National Consumer Protection Week with Top Complaints for 2022

Attorney General Phil Weiser today kicked off National Consumer Protection Week by unveiling the list of the top 10 consumer complaints and inquiries his office received in 2022, which included retail sales, home services and repair schemes, and automotive sales and services.

Last year, consumers filed 17,941 complaints and inquiries with the Consumer Protection Section in the Colorado Department of Law, a 28% increase from 2021.

“At the Department of Law, our responsibility is to protect Colorado consumers. National Consumer Protection Week is an opportunity to provide resources, education, and knowledge so that Coloradans can continue to navigate and avoid scams, while also warning scammers and other bad actors that we are working to halt them and hold them accountable,” Weiser stated. “We also are committed to protecting Coloradans by pushing for pro-consumer legislation, as we did in enacting a law preventing deceptive auto-renewals and are doing this year pushing for new medical debt collection protections.”

National Consumer Protection Week, which this year runs March 5-11, is designated by the Federal Trade Commission as a time to help people understand their consumer rights and to make well-informed decisions about money. The attorney general’s office partners with the FTC to help raise awareness about Colorado scams and resources available.

The top 10 types of complaints and inquiries received in 2022 are:

Retail Sales:  Unauthorized memberships or subscriptions, service and delivery issues and cancellations and termination issues.

Home Services/Repair:  General contracting and remodeling, heating and cooling and handyman services.

Professional Services:  Product and service warranties, legal related services.

Automobile:  Service and repair and rentals

Gov’t Agencies:  General complaints regarding organizations, state representatives

Lending Companies:  Issues under the Uniform Consumer Credit Code, interest rates, credit reporting.

Real Estate:  Renting and leasing, property management.

Imposter Scams:  Fraud, business impersonation, phone calls, wire money transfers.

Debt Collection:  Issues under the Colorado Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, harassment, disputed debt, unlicensed collection.

Health Care:  Issues regarding hospitals and Urgent Care, insurance carriers, quality of care and billing.

These scams were the most common complaints the attorney general’s office received in 2022, but scams can differ based on where a person lives. For the first time, the attorney general’s office is providing an interactive map that shows the common scams for each county in Colorado: https://coag.gov/protecting-consumers/.