In 2021, the FTC settled its claims against Career Education Corp. (CEC) and as a result is now sending refunds totaling thirty million dollars to victims of CEC’s scams.  CEC bought leads from companies that constructed bogus websites to attract people looking for information about jobs, how to enlist in the military and Medicaid information.  CEC would then use that information to contact them and made high-pressure sales calls to induce people to enroll in their schools that would not provide the services they desired.  According to the FTC, CEC  used telemarketers to make aggressive enrollment pitches to people who had signed up for the federal Do Not Call List.

The FTC first sent out refund checks to victims of the scam in 2021, but now due to the fact that there is money remaining from the penalty paid by CEC, the FTC is sending out a second round of refunds.

TIPS

Whenever you are searching online for information about jobs, the military or government benefits, you should be wary of scammers.  Merely because a search brings up a website high on a search does not mean that the website is legitimate.  The website may either have paid for that position or manipulated the algorithms used to rate websites to get a high position in a search.  Therefore, if you find an unfamiliar website that appears to have the information you are seeking, you should do an additional search putting in the name of the unfamiliar website with the words, “scam,” or “complaint” and see what comes up.

In regard to looking for a job, check out the Department of Labor’s American Job Centers for information about jobs in your state.  Here is their link https://www.careeronestop.org/localhelp/americanjobcenters/find-american-job-centers.aspx

For information about enlisting in the military services, a good place to get reliable information is this site of the Department of Defense. https://www.todaysmilitary.com/joining-eligibility/questions-ask-recruiter

For reliable information about Medicaid benefits go to https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/index.html

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