impersonation-scams
Every record this desk has filed under impersonation-scams, newest first, each with the number of sources it can still show you.
When someone else can click 'I agree' in your name, the record stops proving that you agreed. This week's federal records show who finds out last: the person named on it, often from a tax form.
On August 31 federal officials canceled about 315,000 HealthCare.gov marketplace policies covering more than 760,000 people. The rule that followed describes them this way: enrolled through an agent or broker, no verified citizenship or immigration documents, no claims, and nobody the insurer could reach. On September 24 a federal judge sentenced a man whose scheme filed more than 500 pandemic unemployment claims in 27 states under at least 375 stolen identities, and the FTC asked whether the ad tools that platforms sell help impersonators find people. These records share one shape. Someone acted in another's name without them, and the paperwork could not tell the difference. CMS says a victim may first learn of it from a Form 1095-A at tax time, and the Labor Department says the same of the 1099-G. Fixes keep arriving long after the harm, because the evidence that justifies them arrives late. The defense is to read your own records at the source before someone else's paperwork does. A checklist for before November 1 follows.
Also filed underconsentidentity-thefthealth-insuranceconsumer-protectionopen-enrollment
The FTC voted 2-0 to ask whether search engines, social media and other platforms whose ad tools optimize impersonation-scam ads should be held liable for furthering those scams, a narrower return of the 'means and instrumentalities' idea it set aside in December 2024; the 60-day comment clock has not started.
On September 24 the Federal Trade Commission announced a 2-0 vote to send the Federal Register an advance notice of proposed rulemaking asking whether search engines, social media and other digital marketplace platforms commit unfair or deceptive practices when their ad-optimization tools help scammers impersonate businesses and government agencies. The notice names Google.com, Facebook.com, Amazon.com, Apple App Store and LinkedIn.com as examples of such platforms. It floats requiring them to vet ads before posting, stop optimizing ads for impersonators, detect and investigate suspected impersonation ads, remove confirmed ones and discipline the advertiser, or offering those steps as a safe harbor instead. It returns, in narrower form, to a 'means and instrumentalities' provision the Commission set aside in December 2024. The FTC says it received more than 1 million imposter-scam reports in 2025, with nearly $3.5 billion in reported losses. Comments will be due 60 days after the notice appears in the Federal Register. As of September 27 it had not appeared, and the public-inspection lists posted September 24 and 25 did not include it. The notice contains no proposed rule text.
Also filed underftcconsumer-protectiononline-advertisingplatformsrulemakingsection-230
A record appears here because it carries impersonation-scams in its own frontmatter. If a record you expected is missing, it was filed under a different subject — the full list is on the topics index.