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NC DOJ presenter outlines scam trends, cites RealPage settlement and $84 million returned to consumers
Summary
Luke Parin of the North Carolina Department of Justice told a Southern Pines audience the DOJ recovered nearly $84 million from consumer cases last year, described a multistate action tied to RealPage pricing software and urged residents to report scams and avoid gift-card or crypto payments.
Luke Parin, speaking on behalf of the North Carolina Department of Justice, told attendees that the office is focused on consumer protection and legal work for the state and its agencies. "The department is led by the attorney general," Parin said, and noted that the consumer-protection division is the department's largest public-facing unit.
Parin said DOJ received about 19,000 consumer complaints last year and recovered nearly $84 million in judgments and settlements during that period. "Our division has won back more than $3 billion for consumers in North Carolina since 2017," he said, describing the recovery process and how the office decides when to pursue litigation on behalf of the state rather than individual complainants.
Providing a concrete example, Parin described multistate litigation involving a leasing-software company, RealPage. He said the office "received enough complaints" about an algorithm that the state alleged was being used to push rents, and that recent settlements included at least one large property owner agreeing to stop using the software. "As part of that settlement they're no longer using this software entirely," Parin said.
Parin also summarized the most common scam types reported to DOJ — phone calls, text messages and internet scams — and said sweepstakes and lottery fraud produce the largest monetary losses. He cited a DOJ case series that produced 91 reports with 24 verified losses and said the average loss in those cases was about $85,000 per affected person.
On practical prevention, Parin urged residents not to respond to unknown calls or texts, to avoid paying requested sums with gift cards, wire transfers or cryptocurrency, and to use credit cards rather than debit cards when possible. He recommended filing consumer complaints at ncdoj.gov, reporting impersonation calls to the FBI when appropriate, and using the Do-Not-Call registry as a tool for separating lawful solicitations from criminal robocalls.
The presentation closed with Parin offering handouts and local contact options for filing complaints and seeking guidance; he encouraged attendees to bring suspicious letters or messages to DOJ for review.
The session moved to local law-enforcement remarks and a register-of-deeds presentation on deed fraud after Parin finished.
