Consumer fraud and Latino immigrant consumers in the United States

Abstract

Disadvantaged consumers are often the victims of consumer fraud; low‐income Latinoa immigrants are especially likely to be victims due to their lack of English proficiency and inexperience in the local marketplace. A qualitative research study using purposeful sampling was conducted to identify areas of consumer fraud experienced by 45 Latino immigrants. Types of unscrupulous practices are identified, including sales of automobiles, prepaid telephone cards and counterfeit documents. Problems with fraud are discussed in terms of a model of disadvantaged consumers and implications for education are suggested to counteract the identified problems.

Children as vulnerable consumers: a first conceptualisation

“…Those with less formal education are viewed as more vulnerable than the highly schooled and trained (Mitra, Hastak, Ford and Ringold, 1999;Ringold, 2005;Smith & Cooper-Martin, 1997). In a US context, African American and Hispanic consumers are seen as more disadvantaged (D'Rozario & Williams, 2005;Marlowe & Atilies, 2005;Penaloza, 1995) as are those with poor native language skills (Barnhill 1972;Marlowe and Atilies, 2005). And, interestingly for our paper, most age-related research on disadvantaged consumers has concentrated on the particular vulnerability of the elderly (Andreasen, 1975(Andreasen, , 1976Barnhill, 1972;Morgan & Riordan, 1983).…”

Business and Consumer Economic Wellbeing

“…Types of unscrupulous practices identifi ed include sales of automobiles, prepaid telephone cards, and counterfeit documents (Marlowe and Atiles 2005 ). Friedman ( 1998 ) calls for a paradigm shift from studying victims of marketing frauds to consumers who successfully avoided marketing frauds.…”

Sociocultural Issues in Adult Financial Education

“…Education settings in the community "provide comfortable (and safe) financial education settings for many people . Marlowe and Atiles (2005) and the National Council of La Raza (2004) cite language issues as one of the primary factors in low financial literacy rates among Latinos, which surely carries over into other language groups as well. .…”