Consumer Protection

The Consumer Protection Division protects Mississippians from unfair, anticompetitive, and deceptive business practices that harm our community. The Division’s efforts include protecting consumer privacy and advocacy against illegal robocalls, and, following our 2012 National Mortgage Settlement, the Division has continued to serve as a liaison between mortgage companies and borrowers having difficulty with their mortgages. The Division partners with other attorneys general, the private bar, federal enforcers, and Mississippi businesses, and our attorneys civilly enforce the Mississippi Consumer Protection Act, Mississippi antitrust statutes, the Mississippi data breach notification statute, and other laws such as the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act in order to protect Mississippians. The Division also carries out the Attorney General’s statutory duties before the Mississippi Public Service Commission and monitors issues that come before the Commission, which may impact Mississippi consumers.

Being well-informed is your best defense against scammers, but even the most cautious consumer sometimes needs some assistance. If you need to talk to one of our consumer mediators for help, click here to fill out a consumer complaint form or click here to send an email to a mediator.

To increase the capacity of the Consumer Protection Division and to minimize the cost of litigation for the State of Mississippi, the Attorney General’s Office employs the assistance of private attorneys to address a fraction of cases, especially highly specialized or costly subjects and securities cases on behalf of the Public Employees Retirement System of Mississippi (PERS). The Attorney General’s Office maintains full control over such litigation, and all contracts between the Attorney General’s Office and private attorneys are freely available for inspection on this website and are a matter of public record. There may also be a small number of instances in which private counsel are retained because ethics rules create a conflict which prohibit a case from being handled internally.

The Attorney General’s Office reviews the hourly time sheets of the private attorneys and does not pay for hours or expenses the Office deems to be excessive. Private attorneys on contingency fee contracts are paid only in the event of a successful outcome for the State, eliminating any financial risk or impact to the State budget. The Attorney General’s Office standard contingency fee contract contains a fee schedule based in statute that is significantly below the rates paid by private clients and is also below established bar rates.

Before agreeing to a contingency fee contract, the Attorney General first determines whether the particular matter has merit and will benefit the State, whether the case can be handled internally, and, if not, whether private counsel has sufficient resources, knowledge, and skill to handle the litigation. The following contracts represent active contingency fee cases. This list will be updated periodically as cases are resolved and new cases are added. If you would like to speak to our attorneys about a case idea, please contact outsidecounsel@ago.ms.gov

Active contracts, including those brought on behalf of PERS, can be found below.