Department of Consumer Affairs marks 50th anniversary, outlines complaint, enforcement and outreach work

Carrie Groovy Lybarger, administrator and consumer advocate for the Department of Consumer Affairs, opened a webinar marking the agency’s fiftieth anniversary and reviewed the agency’s history, services and plans for 2025.

Lybarger said the agency’s origins trace to the rise of consumer-credit regulation at the federal level in the 1960s and 1970s and the passage of the South Carolina Consumer Protection Code in 1974. “In 1974, our state passed the South Carolina Consumer Protection Code,” she said, adding that the code went into effect Jan. 1, 1975 and that the agency began operations Nov. 1, 1974.

The agency’s stated mission is to protect consumers through advocacy, mediation, enforcement and education; Lybarger said that mission will be revised as part of the anniversary activities. She also described the department’s structure: 9 commissioners serve as the policy-making body (four appointed by the General Assembly, four by the governor, and the secretary of state ex officio), plus an advisory council appointed by the governor.

Lybarger summarized the department’s core services and recent workload. She said the office has 47 full-time employees at a single Columbia office and administers statutes and accompanying regulations for multiple industries. The Department handles complaint intake and mediation, provides one-on-one guidance for identity-theft victims, takes scam reports, processes licensing/registration filings for regulated industries, and offers free educational presentations to consumers and businesses.

On recent volumes, Lybarger said the office received more than 5,800 consumer complaints in the last calendar year and that, over the department’s history, it has mediated roughly 225,000 complaints. She said the identity-theft unit has received more than 4,200 identity-theft reports since taking that responsibility in 2013 and that the agency has logged nearly 16,000 scam reports. The department also receives about 25,000 calls annually and reported more than 1.1 million website visits from 2019–2024.

Lybarger described the agency’s regulatory and enforcement authorities. She cited federal laws that helped spur state action — the Consumer Credit Protection Act, the Truth in Lending Act and the Fair Credit Reporting Act — and named the South Carolina Consumer Protection Code as the statute the department enforces. The department also enforces a range of industry-specific statutes (listed in its online licensing and registration tools) and may pursue administrative or judicial enforcement, including actions in administrative law court, state court or federal court. The office also participates at the Public Service Commission on utility matters affecting consumer rates and files comment letters to state and federal agencies on proposed rules and regulations.

Lybarger provided outcome figures for the department’s historic enforcement and advocacy work: she said that, in the first 40 years, the agency’s interventions and advocacy contributed to nearly $2.9 billion returned to consumers and that more recently the department obtained roughly $90 million in credits, refunds and adjustments in the last 10 years.

The department offers a public, searchable license/registration lookup and a searchable complaints database on its website; Lybarger encouraged users to check business registration and complaint responses before doing business. She described outreach tools including more than 50 publications, YouTube videos and weekly webinars, and said the department has given more than 1,200 presentations in the last decade to about 51,000 consumers and 10,000 business representatives.

As part of the fiftieth-anniversary observance, Lybarger said the department has a new logo, will publish a commemorative journal and a video, and plans to release a revised mission and vision statement. She closed the webinar by providing contact information and instructions for requesting free presentations or ordering publications via the agency website and email (scdca@scconsumer.gov).

Ending: Lybarger invited attendees to follow the department’s announcements and to contact the office for presentations, publications or help filing complaints.