Consumer complaints to the Colorado Attorney General’s Office hit another record in 2024, as concerns about unauthorized subscriptions, junk fees and fraud grew to nearly 24,500, up 20% from 2023, a record year itself.
But the major increase wasn’t within the No. 1 complaint of “retail,” which includes unauthorized subscriptions and memberships or problems with canceling them. Retail held on to the top spot for the fourth year in a row but only increased by seven complaints to 1,673.
The more notable changes were in categories that moved up the charts by double and triple digits. Complaints related to debt collection and impostor scams rose 60% and 49%, respectively. But the biggest increase was real estate-related complaints, up 145%.
That wasn’t too surprising, said Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser at a Monday news conference to kick off National Consumer Protection Week.
Last year, the AG sued developer RealPage, a Texas company, for an alleged price-fixing scheme involving RealPage’s collection of “near real-time” data to provide competing landlords suggested rents. The suit alleged that landlords could keep properties off the market to drive up rents. The AG also settled with Four Star Realty, which manages 4,600 properties in Colorado, for $1 million after finding numerous instances of the landlord illegally charging tenants fees for routine repairs.
“We’re hearing more and more concerns about rental issues and property management,” Weiser said.
In January, his office sued corporate landlord Greystar, which manages about 45,000 rental units in Colorado. Greystar “has used junk fees, advertising one price but when people go to sign a lease, they’re told, ‘Oh, that didn’t include the package delivery free, protective maintenance fee and other fees,’” he said.
Impostor scams were another type of consumer pain that showed a big boost in complaints last year, to 1,205, from 808 in 2023. It’s part of an umbrella that includes what used to be the top complaint: fraudulent and unwanted telephone calls.
But now that there are so many iterations of similar fraud — via emails, text messages, social media — impostors have thrived and landed at No. 4 on the AG’s list. And that’s no thanks to the rise of generative artificial intelligence, which provides an easy-to-use tool to mimic someone’s voice or image. Impostor fraud has also grown because there have been so many data breaches that a consumer’s personal information may already be floating around the web so it’s even easier to trick people.
“Part of what makes imposter scams successful is when someone calls up and they have one piece of information about you that you know is true. ‘Hi, I’m calling from your local bank,’ and they mentioned the same bank that is your bank. They may have found out who your bank is or they may just be guessing,” Weiser said. “It gets really hard to know the difference between what’s real and what’s not. My advice is take your time. Do not act quickly, instead, make sure you go to the actual site or call the actual number.”
According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, the number of data breaches was flat last year, compared with 2023. But with 3,158 compromises, more than 1.3 billion notices were sent to people that their data had been compromised. And the top breaches were companies with a lot of consumers, including Ticketmaster, Change Healthcare (owned by UnitedHealth) and AT&T.
“The bad actors are more sophisticated, which means we have to be more on our toes,” said Danny Katz, executive director of CoPIRG, a consumer watchdog organization. “But a lot of people aren’t using the basic tools that exist to make it harder for those bad actors.”
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Changes to consumer protection laws made some of the tools free, such as a one-year credit freeze, which went into effect in 2018. A credit freeze restricts who can access a consumer’s credit file — and cuts down on impostors applying for credit under someone else’s identity.
Katz also pointed to tools from the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Consumers can research credit card companies, student loans or a number of financial products without “being marketed and advertised” by companies who pay to get ranked higher on those commercial sites, he said.
Visitors to CFPB’s homepage Monday were greeted with “404: Page not found,” since the Trump administration ordered the agency to cease operations last month. Some links were still working, including the trove of consumer complaints the agency has collected on companies. The agency was unpopular among corporations because of numerous rules and investigations. A CFPB lawsuit filed against Capital One bank for misleading customers in “high interest accounts” that a higher yield account was available, was dropped last week.
“As of today, there’s still a great tool on their website. There is still a consumer complaint database,” Katz said. “I hope our Congressional leaders will see the value for consumers and make sure those things continue to have an impact on our lives and don’t get shut down.”
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Digging into Colorado’s top consumer complaints, from the death of robocalls to incompetent contractors
Notably absent for the second year in a row were fraudulent and unwanted telephone calls.
Read moreThe AG’s office collects consumer complaints at StopFraudColorado.gov and monitors them for trends. If its system spots a sudden increase for a similar issue, those cases are elevated and AG staffers start calling people who made the complaint. The annual top-10 list helps Coloradans keep track of frequent types of cases.
In legal actions the Colorado AG’s office has taken since 2018, it’s “given back over $500 million to consumers that’s in the form of refunds, credits, restitution and debt relief,” Weiser said.
“Here’s my advice for consumers: Stay nervous,” Weiser said. “When someone contacts you by phone, by text, social media, don’t assume that what’s being said is real. This is a hard one for a lot of us who grew up in a world where we trusted that the person on the phone was telling the truth.”
File a complaint at StopFraudColorado.gov