February 1, 2024<\/p>\n
Media contact: National Consumers League \u2013 Melody Merin, melodym@nclnet.org, 202-207-2831<\/p>\n
Washington, DC \u2013 Highlighting the ongoing epidemic of fraud across the country, NCL Vice President of Public Policy, Telecommunications and Fraud John Breyault testified today before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Breyault advocated for stronger consumer protections alongside Carla Sanchez-Adams, a senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen NCL last testified before this committee in 2021, we warned that peer-to-peer payment platforms such as Zelle, Venmo, Cash App, and PayPal had become \u2018payment methods of choice for scammers.\u2019 Unfortunately, the problem has only worsened since then,\u201d Breyault told the committee. \u201cNo amount of consumer education, better disclosure, or \u2018friction\u2019 put into payment flows will solve this problem alone. The payment platforms where fraud occurs must have a bigger financial incentive to stop scams before they happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Federal Trade Commission, the primary federal agency for reporting fraud, continues to receive record numbers of complaints, with 5.4 million reports in 2022. Since the last time Vice President Breyault appeared before the Senate Banking Committee, median losses to scams nearly doubled, from $374 per incident to $650. The emergence of new and unregulated technologies, such as peer-to-peer payment apps and cryptocurrencies, has also facilitated staggering losses. Crypto-linked fraud losses exceeded $1 billion annually in 2022 and 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not winning the fight against fraud,\u201d said Breyault. \u201cWe need Congress to Act.\u201d<\/p>\n
Breyault urged the Banking Committee to swiftly pass bills like the Protecting Consumers From Payment Scams Act and Senator Elizabeth Warrens (D-MA) Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2023 to crack down on scams targeting peer-to-peer payment apps and cryptocurrencies, respectively.<\/p>\n
This was Breyault\u2019s fourth time speaking before Congress on policy solutions to address the incessant scams targeting Americans daily. Breyault\u2019s full written testimony can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n ###<\/p>\n About the National Consumers League (NCL)<\/strong><\/p>\n The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America\u2019s pioneer consumer organization.\u00a0 Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad.\u00a0 For more information, visit nclnet.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Highlighting the ongoing epidemic of fraud across the country, NCL Vice President of Public Policy, Telecommunications and Fraud John Breyault testified today before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs to advocate for stronger consumer protections alongside Carla Sanchez-Adams, a senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false},"categories":[14,269,315,268],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27200"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27200"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27209,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27200\/revisions\/27209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}