Many of today's consumer loans are legal but abusive. Payday lenders and used car sellers often steer customers into costly contracts they barely understand. Low-income borrowers with jobs, and therefore, dependable cash flow to siphon off, are favored targets.

Sure, there's a sucker born every minute, as P.T. Barnum allegedly said. But now we have a federal government that's gone backward in providing protection from predators just as they adopt sophisticated technology to ply their craft.

Criminals now use AI to generate fake images and scrub their pitches of misspellings and odd English usage that would give away their origins in Africa and Southeast Asia. They set up slick websites with glib text hawking their investment swindles. Amazingly, they convince Americans, especially older ones, to wire their life savings to someone they've never met.

And to top off the cruelty, they follow up with "recovery scams," portraying themselves as lawyers or even FBI agents able to get the money back. The dupes then wire money to the recovery scammers promising to recover the money they foolishly wired to the original crooks.

Lonely women lured online by potential romantic partners count among the saddest marks. Some stories are shocking: Women send thousands of dollars to help their phantom mates get out of legal trouble, pay for childcare or travel expenses — all sold as a means of furthering a meeting with the nonexistent lover. You know the end.

And we now have a Trump administration that's actually grooming suckers to fall for the president's investment offers. Shortly after leaving office in June 2021, Donald Trump was asked about Bitcoin, a type of cryptocurrency, on Fox Business Network.

"Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam," he responded.

Complaining about a "scam" seemed a good tactic for later getting elected to a second term. Trump cleverly tacked on a patriotic message: "I don't like it because it's another currency competing against the dollar," he said. The U.S. dollar should remain "the currency of the world" and Bitcoin should be regulated "very, very high."

As a master scammer himself — recall Trump University and his saddling fans with stock in bankrupt casinos — you wonder how the voice in his head might have shifted at the thought of crypto as a scam. Was it "this must be stopped" or "hmmm"? We now know the answer.

Five years later, Trump is back in office, and guess what? He promises to make America the "crypto capital of the world." And his family is up to their eyeballs in crypto while as president, he influences how it is regulated.

The latest reports have Trump vacuuming up $1.4 billion in crypto deals. His buyers are not doing so well. About two-thirds of the investors in his meme coins, $TRUMP and $MELANIA, have basically lost their shirts.

World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency company tied to the Trumps, was launched in 2024. One analysis found that 85% of investors who bought World Liberty's $WLFI token after it began trading publicly are underwater. Trump-controlled interests, however, made $520 million last year from token sales.

It would be inaccurate to call his crypto deals "scams." His lawyers' fine print protects him from suits. For example, the website for the $TRUMP token specifically calls it an expression of support "not intended to be ... an investment opportunity, investment contract, or security."

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created in 2010 to protect ordinary folk from unfair, deceptive and abusive practices in the financial industry. Trump in his second term has been shrinking the agency to mouse size, dramatically cutting the watchdog agency's power.

Americans, you're on your own. Our freedom to be scammed has never been greater.

Follow Froma Harrop on X @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Allef Vinicius at Unsplash