WASHINGTON – In her ongoing effort to protect seniors from scam artists, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill on Wednesday questioned prepaid debit card companies and retail stores on their role in preventing consumers—particularly seniors—from falling victim to phone scams in a hearing in the Senate Special Committee on Aging.
While in the past the Committee and McCaskill’s Consumer Protection Subcommittee have heard from law enforcement, regulators, and phone companies, McCaskill used this hearing to shed light on the role of the private sector in stopping fraudsters from using prepaid debit products or wire transfer services to trick consumers into sending them money.
“The use of prepaid products to help scammers defraud customers is rising year to year,” McCaskill said. “So while the prepaid debit card companies aren’t the problem, because they are the front lines—interacting directly with the consumer—they are in an ideal position to be a part of the solution.”
McCaskill, Chairman of the Senate panel on Consumer Protection, pressed witnesses on the level of industry-wide coordination of best practices and standards to combat fraud at the point of sale, the degree to which private companies collaborate with law enforcement, and the extent to which consumers are protected from fraud when they buy prepaid products.
McCaskill previously chaired a hearing on phone scams—or “robocalls”—and next month plans to introduce legislation designed to combat robocalls by strengthening enforcement authorities, better preventing the falsification of caller ID information to commit fraud, and encouraging telecommunications providers to more aggressively implement technologies to stop fraudulent calls from reaching consumers in the first place.
As much as $649 million may have been lost to phone scams in 2013 alone and according to a study by Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America, nearly one in five seniors has been a victim of elder financial abuse.
Witnesses in Wednesday’s hearing included:
Steve Streit, CEO of Green Dot Corporation
Skeet Rolling, Chief Operating Officer of InComm
William Tauscher, CEO and Chairman of the Board for Blackhawk Network, Inc.
Lisa LaBruno, Senior Vice President of Retail Operations, Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA)