The Federal Trade Commission and the Coupon Information Center yesterday announced the results of a Coupon Internet “Surf Day.” Fifty-one Internet advertisements were identified as potentially fraudulent coupon-related schemes. The advertisers were sent e-mail messages warning about the consequences of running such schemes.
The targeted sites fall into two categories of business opportunities. Some of the sites offer a work-at-home coupon clipping scam, where consumers are told that they can earn substantial amounts of money clipping coupons. Other sites advertise a business opportunity where consumers are told that they can make money by selling “coupon certificate booklets.”
Investigators from the FTC, along with industry members of the Coupon Information Center, a nonprofit that combats coupon fraud, conducted the “Surf Day” on May 20 and 21. The joint effort, FTC officials said, is part of a larger campaign to police fraud on the Internet.
“People are being mugged in their own homes on their computers,” Jodie Bernstein, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement.
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