Updated: February 2021

Serving Spanish-speaking consumers

True to its mission of helping all consumers assert their rights in the marketplace and make informed choices, Consumer Action serves the Hispanic/Latino community through multilingual educational materials, timely consumer alerts, train-the-trainer workshops, community presentations, one-on-one consumer hotline counseling, media outreach and more.

Spanish headline news

Consumer Action’s website features daily news in Spanish from around the country to keep individuals and agencies informed on the latest market trends and issues affecting consumers.

Spanish educational materials

Covering a wide range of topics, from banking basics, to finding the right job training school, to having adequate disaster insurance coverage, Consumer Action provides over 100 free educational publications in English, Spanish and three Asian languages. Nonprofit organizations across the country serving the Latino community have found our materials to be valuable resources for educating their clients. To view a list of our free publications available in Spanish, click here.

Consumer alerts

To warn consumers about new scams and to provide them with timely information for protecting and advancing their financial wellbeing, Consumer Action regularly issues consumer alerts and makes many of these available in Spanish. One recent Spanish language alert warned consumers about aggressive callers falsely claiming to be utility company employees and demanding payment. Another warned about a fake Netflix scam, that reemerged in Spanish, attempting to capture consumers' sensitive personal and financial information. And consumers fed up with their bank's fees found tips for switching banks—and for avoiding binding mandatory arbitration clauses, whenever possible—in another of our alerts.

COVID-19 Era alerts

Spanish consumer alerts are among the materials created under Consumer Action's COVID-19 Educational Project. We published the original "Resources for consumers impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak" alert, in English and Spanish, soon after local governments began the COVID-related shutdowns around the country. The resource guide is regularly updated in English, Spanish and Chinese.

Another one of our COVID Era bilingual consumer alerts was prompted by a Spanish-speaking consumer who contacted our hotline about an employer failing to comply with the pandemic's earliest non-essential-business shutdown orders. Several days after we provided the consumer with local resources and information, he reported that his employer had finally complied with the law by temporarily closing. Although this helped ensure employee safety, the consumer then faced a harsh financial reality: There was little to no financial assistance available for undocumented workers impacted by COVID-19-related income losses. To help point consumers to the few resources available, our staff swiftly created a bilingual alert focused on financial relief for undocumented workers. Shortly after, the alert was adapted to fact sheet format, under our COVID-19 Educational Project. "Coping with COVID: Financial assistance for undocumented workers" is available in five languages here.

Train-the-trainer program

With the support of cy pres, corporate and foundation grants, Consumer Action has trained thousands of community-based organizations that provide services to underserved consumers, including Spanish-speaking immigrants. Our outreach and training staff has conducted trainings in just about every region of the country—and in every region, we have reached organizations serving the Latino community.

The multilingual educational materials that our training staff presents cover a wide range of topics relevant to Latinos, including building good credit, saving to build wealth, dealing with debt collectors, avoiding scams, staying safe online, even being adequately insured when participating in the gig economy. Some of our projects have helped bolster the educational efforts of the agencies we train by providing mini-grants of up to $5,000. Many of these agencies work with limited funding to financially empower the communities they serve, including Spanish-speaking families and individuals.

Community presentations

Consumer Action's outreach staff is regularly invited to provide presentations for clients of local community organizations. Spanish language presentations over the years have covered topics that include avoiding scams and identity theft, building credit, sending money to loved ones abroad, and more. Organizations hosting presentations have included senior housing facilities, libraries, the Mexican Consulate, and other community groups working to empower underserved consumers. One of Consumer Action's projects allowed us to educate hundreds of consumers in South Florida, including new immigrants from Cuba, on topics related to internet safety, scams, identity theft and VOIP communications technology.

Hotline counseling

Since its inception, Consumer Action has directly assisted consumers who contact our information and referral hotline. Hotline staff help consumers connect to investigative, regulatory, mediation, and legal resources that can help them resolve their complaints. Spanish-speaking consumers regularly contact our office about problems with new and used car sales, telecommunications services, consumer credit, debt collection, identity theft, insurance, travel, health services and scams. Most recently we've received inquiries related to COVID Era issues such as price gouging, financial relief for renters, workplace safety, and more.

Our staff helps Spanish-speaking consumers by phone and by email, making an extra effort to help them understand the U.S. complaint process and some of the unfamiliar concepts involved with common recommendations such as checking a credit report, contacting state and federal regulators, or, for example, signing up for low-cost internet service. We regularly inform consumers of the multilingual publications we have available to help them through the complaint process and inform them of their rights. These publications include our ever-popular How to Complain booklet and brochures related to identity theft, the California lemon law, and more.

Media outreach

Consumer Action’s press releases and news alerts are sent to an extensive list of media outlets preferred by Latino consumers, including national and local television stations, newspaper publishers and radio stations across the country. Our staff regularly participates in media interviews to alert consumers about potential frauds and to provide commentary on issues affecting Latino consumers nationwide.

Recently, as part of a collaborative media outreach campaign with Americans for Financial Reform's Language Access Task Force and other groups, we reached Spanish-speaking homeowners with vital information about mortgage assistance during COVID (through an Orange County Spanish weekly). Also during COVID, the Spanish edition of the Los Angeles Times ran a story on our fact sheet on financial assistance for undocumented workers. We also recently delivered timely income tax information to readers of La Voz, a local bilingual newspaper in Northern California's wine country. La Voz invited Consumer Action to regularly submit articles, in English and Spanish, for publication in the paper.

For more information on our commitment to serve all consumers equally, contact Consumer Action’s Outreach and Training team. (Note: The terms Latino and Hispanic have been used interchangeably.)