April 23, 2013

Contact: Carol McKay, (724) 799-5392, carolm@nclnet.org

Atlanta, GA—The student team from Paxon School for Advanced Studies in Jacksonville, FL was crowned national LifeSmarts champions in Atlanta on Tuesday, April 23. After a tough final match against the second-place team from Barrington High School in Rhode Island, the teens from the Florida outscored their opponents and did it with great sportsmanship. Teams from Tennessee and Pennsylvania placed third.

“We are so proud of these students from the sunshine state, who represented their state program with class and pride,” said LifeSmarts Program Director Lisa Hertzberg. “They played hard and demonstrated their consumer smarts throughout the four-day event. They are true LifeSmarts champions.”

LifeSmarts is a program run by the Washington, DC-based National Consumers League (NCL), the nation’s oldest consumer advocate. It competitively tests high school students’ knowledge of consumer awareness, with subjects including personal finance, health and safety, consumer rights and responsibility, technology, and the environment.

Teens from each of the 38 state champion teams represented at nationals competed as individuals, and the top five scorers received $500 scholarships from NCL. This year’s winners were:

• Environment: Jack Caljouw, MA
• Personal Finance: Steven Cotter, FL
• Health and Safety: Isaac Mades, WI
• Consumer Rights and Responsibilities: Gates Palissery, PA
• Technology: Ryan Jerue, RI

“NCL’s LifeSmarts program is allowing us to rear a generation of consumer-savvy teenagers who often outsmart their parents on issues related to avoiding fraud, credit and debt, and complicated health care decisions,” said NCL Executive Director Sally Greenberg. In the 19 years that LifeSmarts has been educating high school and middle school teens on consumer issues, it has grown dramatically, with more than 3 million consumer questions at www.lifesmarts.org in the online competition during the 2012-2013 academic year.

For team photos, event schedules, grid standings, and more, log on to www.facebook.com/LifeSmarts

All winners at the national LifeSmarts Competition received valuable prizes donated by sponsors to the National Consumers League, including scholarships, savings bonds, gift cards, and more. To learn more about the program, contact NCL’s Lisa Hertzberg at 202-835-3323. For a complete listing of this year’s prizes, visit www.lifesmarts.org.

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About LifeSmarts and the National Consumers League

LifeSmarts is a program of the National Consumers League. State coordinators run the programs on a volunteer basis. For more information, visit: www.lifesmarts.org, email lifesmarts@nclnet.org , or call the National Consumers League’s communications department at 202-835-3323. The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

April 18, 2013

Contact: Ben Klein, NCL Communications, (202) 835-3323, benk@nclnet.org 

Washington, DC—As the Obama Administration considers whom to nominate as the next chair of the Federal Communications Commission, NCL is urging the White House to nominate a chair with deep experience in public interest advocacy.

The following statement is attributable to Sally Greenberg, Executive Director of the National Consumers League:

“Any consumer who has opened their mobile phone or cable bill in recent years understands the importance of having an FCC chair that is on their side. While the Obama Administration will undoubtedly consider a number of worthy candidates, we believe that the next FCC chair should have significant experience in public interest advocacy.”

“Washington is filled with lobbyists who have deep backgrounds in telecommunications and technology policy. They play an important role in helping the Commission address the often complex issues that it faces on a daily basis. That said, the FCC’s mission is to defend the public interest, not corporate bottom lines. Having someone at the top of the agency’s leadership who comes out of the public interest community will ensure that the FCC’s decisions reflect that critical responsibility.”

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About the National Consumers League

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

April 9, 2013

Contact: Ben Klein, NCL Communications, (202) 835-3323, benk@nclnet.org

Washington, DC—The National Consumers League (NCL) today sent a letter to Dr. Margaret Hamburg, Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), requesting that the agency review the misleading product name on Martin’s “100% Whole Wheat Potato Bread,” manufactured by Martin’s Famous Pastry Shoppe, Inc.

“This product name is confusing and misleading to consumers, not to mention an oxymoron,” said NCL Executive Director Sally Greenberg. “Martin’s 100% Whole Wheat Potato Bread’ contains potato flour in addition to whole wheat flour and, therefore, should not be called 100 percent whole wheat. Whole wheat bread must be prepared in accordance with ingredient requirements set forth in FDA regulations And those regulations require that the only flour that can be used is whole wheat flour.”

Greenberg further stated that “while it is laudable that the primary ingredient in Martin’s ‘100% Whole Wheat Potato Bread’ is whole wheat flour, the 100 percent whole wheat designation is certainly misleading.” She urged the FDA to require the product label to state “potato bread made with whole wheat” whenever the name of the bread appears on the product label.

Government agencies and scientific communities have been widely promoting the consumption of whole grains, and manufacturers have responded by marketing a large variety of products with labels highlighting the presence of whole grains. FDA became so concerned about the proliferation of claims that may be misleading to consumers, that in 2011 it sought permission to conduct a study about consumer perceptions of whole grain claims.

“The wide array of whole wheat claims in the bread aisle is overwhelming to consumers trying to decide which breads are the healthiest,” said Greenberg. “All products making whole wheat or whole grain claims should be required to specify clearly and accurately the percentage of whole grains. We call on FDA to ensure that Martin’s no longer represents its product as ‘100% whole wheat.’”

Read the full letter here.

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About the National Consumers League

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

March 13, 2013

Contact: Carol McKay, NCL Communications (724) 799-5392, carolm@nclnet.org

Washington, DC–When an employer misclassifies an employee as an independent contractor, everyone suffers, from workers to taxpayers. By skirting their responsibility to pay taxes, employers pass a heavy tax burden onto workers. Additionally, workers lose crucial employment protections such as minimum wage, paid overtime, workers compensation, and unemployment insurance.

Today, the National Consumers League hosted a Senate briefing on Capitol Hill, featuring a panel of worker advocates, state agency staff, and industry experts to unveil new survey findings about consumers’ awareness of payroll fraud. The survey, conducted by ORC International and commissioned by the National Consumers League, found that most consumers are unaware of the existence of employee misclassification, but are near-unanimously opposed to the negative consequences misclassification creates for workers and tax payers.

“Honest businesses, employees, communities, states, and the federal government are all affected by payroll fraud, which is on the rise in states all across the country,” said Sally Greenberg, Executive Director of the National Consumers League (NCL), America’s pioneering consumer and worker advocacy organization.

A 2009 report by the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimated that payroll fraud decreased federal revenues by $2.72 billion in 2006. Certain industries including construction, real estate, home care, trucking, and janitorial services have disproportionally high rates of misclassification. These rates continue to rise according to numerous state studies. In California, for example, the number of unreported employees identified by the Economic Development Department increased by a third between 2006 and 2008. More recent studies are needed to understand the full effect of payroll fraud on federal revenues.

“Many consumers do not know how serious and widespread cases of misclassification are in the workplace. Once we educate people about this issue, however, nearly everyone agrees that employers are benefitting at the expense of hard working Americans. People lose valuable worker protections such as paid overtime and worker’s compensation, leaving them vulnerable and without any job security,” said Michell McIntyre, Project Director for NCL’s Special Project on Wage Theft.

Survey Highlights

Awareness of “employee misclassification” is low, described to respondents as “a form of payroll fraud in which an employer intentionally classifies workers as ‘independent contractors’ instead of ‘employees’ in order to deprive workers of their workplace protections and defraud state and federal treasuries out of income taxes”.

Two in three Americans (65%) have not heard of employee misclassification.

• Awareness of this term is substantially lower among females, 71% of whom have not heard of it versus 59% of males.
• Lack of awareness decreases with education:  72% of those with a high school education or less have never heard of the term, compared to 63% of respondents with some college education and 55% of college graduates.

Once familiarized with the concept of “employee misclassification,” respondents expressed strong views against it, including support for punishment of the companies that engage in this practice.

• Nine in ten consumers (90%) “strongly agree” or “agree” that it is important that companies do not misclassify workers as independent contractors in order to prevent workers from receiving minimum wage and paid overtime.
• Agreement is higher among women, with 93% agreeing with the statement versus 87% of men.

According to 93% of Americans who express agreement, companies that intentionally misclassify workers as independent contractors in order to dodge paying minimum wage, overtime, workers compensation and taxes should be fined or punished.

• Once again, females are more inclined to say they “strongly agree” or “agree” with fines or punishment (95% vs. 90% males).

Nearly all consumers (96%) are in agreement that workers should be clearly informed in writing that they have been classified as independent contractors at the beginning of employment.

• Agreement is universally high among all demographic subgroups.

See NCL’s full survey and results.

Methodology

These results are based on 1,024 telephone interviews among a random sample of US adults 18 years old and older. Interviews were conducted over the period December 13-16, 2012, utilizing both landline and cell telephones. Results among total sample have an error margin of +/- 3%. Interviewing was conducted on behalf of National Consumers League using ORC International’s CARAVAN® survey.

About the National Consumers League

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

February 20, 2013

Contact: Carol McKay, NCL Communications, (724) 799-5392, carolm@nclnet.org

Washington, DC–The nation’s pioneering consumer advocacy organization, the National Consumers League, today debuted the redesign of Fraud.org, its consumer fraud education Web site. For more than 15 years, Fraud.org has been the premier resource for consumers to learn about and report Internet and telemarketing scams. Since 1996, NCL has tracked trends in Internet and telemarketing scams to identify emerging scams.  NCL assists victims by relaying reports daily to more than 90 law enforcement agencies in the United States and Canada, including the Federal Trade Commission, state Attorneys General, and police departments.

Fraud remains a widespread problem costing tens of millions of consumers billions of dollars annually. Thanks to modern technology, fraudsters can easily find victims while remaining largely hidden from law enforcement. According to estimates from the Financial Fraud Research Center, the annual cost of consumer financial fraud in the U.S. is approximately $50 billion, on par with the annual gross output of the radio and television broadcasting industry.

“We are proud to debut the new and improved Fraud.org today,” said Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director. “Fraud.org has been an invaluable tool in the fight against fraud for more than a decade. Because we track data as provided to us directly from consumers, Fraud.org is able to identify trends in emerging scams, deliver crucial prevention information about them to consumer protection professionals and members of the media.  We also assist law enforcement agencies engaged to help them bring con artists to justice.”

More than 30 years ago, NCL established the Alliance Against Fraud, a coalition of organizations concerned with the proliferation of telemarketing and Internet-based fraud. The work of the Alliance led to the League’s long-term program, the National Fraud Information Center (and later Internet Fraud Watch / NCL’s Fraud Center), established in 1992 to assist consumers directly with telemarketing fraud inquiries.

“With new scams popping up every day, there is a greater need than ever for reliable information to help consumers spot the scams and avoid becoming a fraud victim statistic,“ said John Breyault, NCL Vice President for Telecommunications and Fraud Public Policy. “NCL’s Fraud.org has long been recognized as a leader in the consumer watchdog community, and this site overhaul will enable us to reach even more consumers to empower them with our anti-fraud messages.”

“The National Consumers League, an important data contributor to the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel complaint database, is one of the primary reasons for that database’s volume and diversity of data,” said FTC Commissioner Maureen K. Ohlhausen. “NCL’s Fraud.org is an important partner in the FTC’s fight to protect consumers from being victimized by fraud.”

Through a complete overhaul of its design, the new Fraud.org will make it even easier for consumers to find the information they need to avoid scams. The new user experience includes:

• An updated search function to help consumers search for scams in multiple ways, enabling them to go directly to a specific type of fraud or, using a more advanced search, identify the type of scam they’ve been exposed to if they aren’t sure;
• Content that is easily shareable via social networks so that consumers can quickly pass along fraud warnings to friends and loved ones in need;
• The ability to sign up for regular Fraud Alerts to help consumers stay abreast of emerging scams before they become victims; and
• As always, consumers who have been victims of fraud or been approached by scammers can file complaints through our secure online complaint form. These complaints are then shared with our network of law enforcement and consumer protection partners.

“We are looking forward to adding even more features in the coming months to further enhance the experience for visitors to Fraud.org,” said Breyault. “We aim to make Fraud.org a go-to resource for consumers so they can find the information they need to avoid the daily onslaught of fraudulent tricks and traps.” 

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About the National Consumers League

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.