The L.A County Department of Consumer and Business Affairs Center for Financial Empowerment (CFE) have launched a campaign called “Get Ahead L.A. ” aimed at helping residents access financial resources.
“As LA County’s economy is making positive steps toward recovery, there are still many residents struggling to get by,” said Rafael Carbajal, Director of the Los Angeles County Department of Consumer and Business Affairs. “That’s why we have launched Get Ahead LA, delivering free financial resources at your fingertips.”
Through Get Ahead, residents can connect to financial resources such as rental and food assistance, counseling, health services or help finding a job.
They also topped the lists of worst, fastest-growing and new complaints.
“COVID-19 generated complaints about everything from appliance repairs to childcare, trash pick-up to towing,” said Susan Grant, CFA’s Director of Consumer Protection and Privacy. “Business closings, job lay-offs, supply chain disruptions, social-distancing requirements and travel restrictions put huge strains consumers and businesses, as the survey shows.”
State and local consumer agencies also dealt with a deluge of complaints last year about price-gouging and pandemic-related scams.
Thirty-four city, county and state consumer agencies, including the
L.A. County Department of Consumer and Business Affairs, from 18 states participated in the survey, which asked about the complaints they received last year, their biggest achievements, and new consumer protection laws enacted in their jurisdictions.
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In February 2017, an undercover investigation shook the Los Angeles acting community. Criminal charges were filed against 28 defendants linked to five casting workshops over alleged pay-to-play schemes.
A yearlong effort by the Los Angeles city attorney’s office found that these workshops had violated the
Krekorian Talent Scam Prevention Act when they charged aspiring actors to participate in auditions. Among those charged were several well-known casting professionals with credits in shows on Netflix, ABC and CBS.
That’s just one high-profile example of the scams that target people in the entertainment industry. If you’re just starting out or it’s early in your career, you need to be careful about upfront fees, guarantees of employment and really anything that feels too good to be true.
The L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to extend the county s eviction moratorium through February 28. The motion, proposed by supervisors Sheila Kuehl and Hilda Solis, also strengthens and clarifies protections for renters facing intimidation or harassment from landlords. We recognize that this could be a real tsunami of evictions if the county did not step up and protect our renters in a responsible way, said Kuehl. No one should be threatened with eviction or made homeless by the pandemic.
The county first passed an eviction moratorium in March last year, which was later extended through the end of January 2021. In September, California also enacted its own statewide eviction moratorium for tenants unable to pay rent during the pandemic, which is currently set to expire at the end of this month.