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Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
Since 1914· Agency
Law or rule (2026)Set by statute, regulation or the agency; numbers change yearly.
The federal agency that fights deceptive business practices and fraud, and collects scam and identity-theft reports nationwide.
See it on the Personal Finance & Estate map →How it works
The Federal Trade Commission, created in 1914, polices deceptive and unfair business practices and enforces antitrust law. For families, its main tools are ReportFraud.ftc.gov, which feeds the Consumer Sentinel database used by police nationwide, and IdentityTheft.gov, which builds a recovery plan and an official report. A 2024 rule lets it seek penalties and refunds from impostors posing as government agencies or businesses. It rarely recovers one person's money, but it shuts down schemes.
Why it matters for you
Reporting scams helps investigators connect cases, and an FTC identity-theft report is what creditors and credit bureaus accept to clear fraudulent accounts.
Rules, limits and sources (2026)
Consumer Sentinel data show people reported losing $12.5 billion to fraud in 2024, up 25% from 2023; investment and impostor scams caused the largest losses.
Watch out for
Reported losses are a fraction of the real total; adjusting for unreported cases, the FTC estimated 2023 fraud losses at up to about $158 billion.
Connections (2)
▸Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is the fraud watchdog among Financial & consumer regulatorsLaw or rule (2026)
How they connect
The FTC covers what specialized regulators don't: deceptive business practices across the economy, from fake debt relief and timeshare-resale scams to impostor calls. Unlike the CFPB, it generally cannot police banks; it shares credit-reporting and debt-collection enforcement with the CFPB and gathers fraud reports for all agencies.
When it applies
Woodrow Wilson signed the FTC Act in 1914; the Consumer Sentinel fraud database began in 1997.
The rule
Section 5 of the FTC Act bans 'unfair or deceptive acts'; Consumer Sentinel reports and FTC lawsuits document its fraud work.
Watch out for
A 2021 Supreme Court ruling, AMG Capital v. FTC, stripped its main tool for winning money back for victims; Congress has not restored it.
▸Federal Trade Commission (FTC) takes reports of Identity theft & the IRS IP PINLaw or rule (2026)
How they connect
The FTC is the national clearinghouse for identity theft. A report at IdentityTheft.gov creates an official FTC report and a step-by-step recovery plan, and the data go to law enforcement through Consumer Sentinel. Victims use the report to dispute fraudulent debts and get extended fraud alerts.
When it applies
Since the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act of 1998 made the FTC the central collection point; IdentityTheft.gov added personal recovery plans in 2016.
The rule
Consumer Sentinel publishes yearly data, about 1.1 million identity-theft reports in 2024; the Fair Credit Reporting Act gives these reports weight with the bureaus.
Watch out for
The FTC does not investigate individual cases, and how often reports lead to prosecutions is unclear.