​Commissioner Hal Valeche

Have you been victimized by an unscrupulous business or solicitor?  Are you tired of dealing with robo calls or spoofing calls, internet phishing and other attempts to trick you into giving away valuable personal information for fraudulent uses?  Palm Beach County's Consumer Affairs Division may be able to help you.

The Consumer Affairs Division is a county government agency under the Public Safety Department that administers our ordinances for consumer protections including Moving, Water Taxis, Towing, Vehicles for Hire, and Home Caregivers.  Their investigators and staff provide licenses, conduct investigations and informal mediations, and other activities to ensure compliance.  The Division works to help consumers make informed decisions about businesses and avoid unlawful, deceptive and unfair trade practices.

While the Division does not rate or recommend any product, service or company, they can look up a business you may be interested in hiring for any history of complaints, or to verify proper licensing or registration.  Additionally, a member of the public can also review business information reports about previous consumer disputes in the Division's database at www.pbcgov.com/consumer.  The telephone number is (561) 712-6600.

The Division investigates more than 500 cases annually and have recovered hundreds of thousands of dollars each year for consumers.

Towing services doing business Palm Beach County are required to obtain a license through Consumer Affairs.  The County has established maximum fees companies can charge for private property impounds and police-directed tows.  Vehicles for hire, water taxis and non-medical transport companies also must obtain licenses through Consumer Affairs.

Home Caregivers seeking an ID badge through Consumer Affairs must undergo a state and national fingerprint background check.  Information on caregivers holding valid ID badges is available at the above website, or by calling the office number.

Telemarketers must follow rules promulgated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that include a prohibition on spoofing.  Spoofing occurs when a caller deliberately falsifies the information transmitted to your caller ID display to disguise their identity.  This practice is often part of an attempt to trick someone into giving away personal information for fraudulent purposes.  Since you may not be able to tell right away if an incoming caller is spoofing, be careful about responding to any request for personal information.  If you suspect a caller has falsified caller ID information or you think someone is violating the rules for protecting the privacy of your telephone number, contact Consumer Affairs to assist you in filing a complaint with the FCC.

Phishing occurs when a scammer uses fraudulent emails or texts, or copycat websites to get you to share personal information such as account numbers, Social Security numbers, or your login IDs and passwords.  Scammers use your information to steal your money or your identity or both.  Scammers also use phishing emails to get access to your computer or network to install programs like Ransomware that can lock you out of important files on your computer.  These scammers lure their targets into a false sense of security by using the familiar, trusted logos of established, legitimate companies, or pretend to be a friend or family member.  They make it seem like they need your or someone else's information quickly, or something bad will happen, and they tell you lies to do this.

There are steps you can take to safeguard yourself from becoming a victim of phishing, including:

• Be cautious about opening attachments or clicking on links in emails.
• Do your own typing in your search engine rather than clicking on a suggested link.
• Turn on two-factor authentication for logging into your account.
• Back up your files to an external hard drive or cloud storage.
• Keep your security software up to date
  

If you become a victim, Consumer Affairs can assist you in reporting the incident and filing a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and other applicable enforcement agencies.

Should your HOA or neighborhood organization be interested in having Consumer Affairs provide a presentation on their services and more detailed information on how you can protect your property, identity and finances, please let me know or contact the Division's Investigator and Outreach Coordinator, Terry Newton at (561) 712-6548; tnewton@pbcgov.org.  

As always, please contact me if I can be of assistance at (561) 355-2201, or by email at hvaleche@pbcgov.org.