Analysis

Monica spoke with Jeff Stein at The Washington Sun recently about his reporting that the FTC is looking into sports gambling practices. He ended his story with a quote from her: "In June, The Wall Street Journal reported that Polymarket had flooded social media with deceptive videos by paid creators who appear to be getting rich on the platform, when none of the winnings were real. Monica Vaca, a consumer protection attorney who practiced for more than two decades at the FTC,

Thank you to Bill Keep and Nancy Lasher for a great conversation on their podcast! Here's the description and a link to YouTube recording: "Scams are everywhere. Who is stopping them? Former FTC attorneys Monica Vaca and Kati Daffan explain how two Supreme Court decisions weakened the Federal Trade Commission: one cut off its main route to getting consumers' money back, and one ended its independence from the White House. On Profit, Power and Policy, Bill Keep and Nancy Lash

Kati spoke with Hunterbrook Media in connection with its illuminating report on the world of multilevel marketers selling insurance products. The piece states, "although Ethos doesn’t directly employ FFL, GFI, Equis, or other MLM agents, the company could still be responsible for their conduct, says Kati Daffan, a lawyer with consumer protection-focused firm Vaca Daffan and former Federal Trade Commission official. 'The law is clear. If an outsourced seller acts like your age

Congratulations to Wall Street Journal reporters Katherine Long, Caitlin Ostroff and Neil Mehta for yet another groundbreaking story about Polymarket today: https://www.wsj.com/business/polymarkets-fraud-regulators-coplan-5f418ab0. They describe mind-blowing levels of irresponsible practices that make one wonder — where were the adults? The reporting about Polymarket "paying influencers to promote videos of fake trades—and target U.S. users with advertisements of its offshor

This week's Anthropic news was rightly focused on AI safety, but we're pleased that members of the tech press also covered the consolidated complaint we filed, which alleges that Anthropic deceptively advertised its Claude subscriptions. For example, Hayden Field of The Verge called the lawsuit "a rare attempt to legally penalize AI companies for a widely held point of frustration: the industry’s growing money squeeze." Monica distilled our Anthropic lawsuit beautifully, as r

Round of applause to Shweta Watwe for her article about harms from the prediction market industry and how our firm’s favorite legal tools can play a role in addressing them. Monica boiled it down well: “When we talk about consumer protection, what we’re really talking about is what is the effect on everyday people?” We also think our friend Adam Teitelbaum is right on: consumer protection laws are important tools for addressing emerging industries because they’re flexible, a

by Kati and Monica We helped shine a spotlight on MLMs last week, and what it showed wasn’t pretty. On Thursday and Friday, Vaca Daffan Law hosted the 6th annual conference regarding “Multi-Level Marketing: The Consumer Protection Challenge,” which is organized by an inspiring group of consumer advocates. We were proud to have our firm listed as one of five event sponsors for 2026 and also take part in the conversation. Our high-level overview here will also point you to some

Video 4.8.2026 A highly educated woman called me one evening, terrified. She had spoken with her bank, which had told her she needed to withdraw thousands of dollars to keep her money secure. The bank kindly provided step by step instructions on how to keep it safe, even staying on the phone with her as she took the cash to a cryptocurrency ATM. The bank rep confirmed receipt once she deposited it. She called me because she worried she was in some kind of trouble. You know th