Senator Reverend Warnock is focused on lowering costs for Georgians and saving them money, and recently joined his colleagues in introducing the Consumer Protection Remedies Act of 2022
Democrats, including Senator Warnock, advanced the Consumer Protection Remedies Act out of the Commerce Committee last week, potentially setting up a Senate-wide vote
In 2021, Georgia consumers lost $113 M to fraud and scams; the state led the nation in fraud complaints per capita
In April 2021, Supreme Court overturned longstanding precedent for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to return money to Americans who were victim to illegal scams
Senator Reverend Warnock: “I’m focused on lowering costs for Georgians and saving them money. The Consumer Protection Remedies Act is a common-sense solution that will help people, help communities, and help small businesses. As American families, small businesses, and communities recover, we must ensure they have the resources they need to thrive”
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA), a member of the Senate Banking and Commerce committees, introduced new legislation earlier this month that would restore the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) longstanding authority to return money to consumers victimized by illegal scams, fraud and other deceptive practices. In 2021, Georgia led the nation in the number of consumer fraud complaints reported to the FTC totaling over $113 million in losses. Last week, Senator Warnock and his Democratic colleagues voted to advance the Consumer Protection Remedies Act of 2022 out of the Commerce Committee.
“I’m focused on lowering costs for Georgians and saving them money. The Consumer Protection Remedies Act is a common-sense solution that will help people, help communities, and help small businesses. As American families, small businesses, and communities recover, we must ensure they have the resources they need to thrive,” said Senator Reverend Warnock.
For over 40 years, the FTC relied on a provision of the Federal Trade Commission Act known as Section13(b), to return money to consumers who had been scammed and to honest businesses denied fair markets by anticompetitive behavior. This is commonly known as “monetary redress,” and has traditionally enabled the FTC to provide relief to individuals and businesses. Section 13(b) provided a fair and impartial way for the FTC to work through the federal courts to compensate victims and hold bad actors accountable. In April 2021, the Supreme Court overturned this long-standing precedent. Since then, the FTC can no longer go straight to court to seek refunds for consumers. They also cannot ask the judge to order refunds even after they prove in court that consumers were victimized by unfair or deceptive practices. A report by the Senate Commerce Committee emphasized that in the five years prior to Court’s decision, the FTC returned over $11.2 billion to consumers and small businesses, including over $40 million refunded to more than 300 thousand Georgians who were victimized.
The Consumer Protection Remedies Act of 2022 fully restores the FTC’s ability to obtain monetary and other relief for consumers under Section 13(b) of the FTC Act by going directly to federal court. The legislation:
Protects consumers and fosters a fair marketplace by:
- Allowing the FTC to go to court and ask the judge to order scammers and law breakers to return the money they unlawfully took from consumers and give up their ill-gotten gains so that it is not profitable to break the law.
- Permitting the FTC to go to court to seek monetary remedies for consumers who were harmed because of anticompetitive conduct, in addition to unfair and deceptive or other unlawful conduct.
- Confirming that the FTC may sue for injunctions and consumer redress for prior conduct, not just ongoing conduct, to stop law breakers from reverting back to their unlawful conduct.
Affirms 13(b)’s due process protections with impartial court-ordered redress 13(b) by:
- Ensuring that the FTC must argue its case in front of a neutral federal judge, with opportunity to appeal contested decisions through the federal judiciary.
- Requiring that refunds or other relief be “in the public interest,” as determined by the judge.
Previously, the Commerce Committee released a report outlining the implications of the Supreme Court’s April 2021 decision in AMG Capital Management LLC v. FTC that gutted the commission’s enforcement authority under Section 13(b) of the FTC Act. For more than 40 years, the FTC relied on this enforcement power to refund money illegally taken from consumers and small business owners through unlawful and unfair business practices including telemarketing fraud, pyramid schemes, and data security and privacy scams. It had been especially critical in cases involving technology and pharmaceutical companies including Amazon, Uber, AT&T, Teva and Tracfone, which returned millions of dollars to victims of illegal conduct. Immediately following the Supreme Court action, even FTC cases that had been decided in favor of consumers were halted, allowing corporations to keep hundreds of millions of dollars in redress owed to victims.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, consumer complaints to the FTC of fraud, identity theft and deceptive practices skyrocketed as scammers peddled offers of fake cures, counterfeit masks and bogus opportunities to earn money working from home. In 2020, consumer complaints rose more than 45% over 2019. Complaints continued to grow in 2021, and reported losses hit a record $5.9 million.
View the Consumer Protection Remedies Act of 2022 legislation here.
View the Committee report here. View the report state-by-state section here.
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