New Federal Anti-Fraud and Scam Law
With more and more ways to communicate with people nowadays, it, unfortunately, gives thieves and scammers more access to vulnerable seniors.
The Seniors Fraud Prevention Act will hopefully help counter that. The bill was passed in March 2022 and signed into law by President Biden shortly thereafter.
Centers Health Care has a look at what the bill will do to help protect seniors from fraud.
Advisory Group Established
As a part of the new law, the Senior Scams Prevention Advisory Group has been established to help prevent seniors from being scammed.
As a part of their mission, the group will create educational materials that will be able to not only help individuals but also retailers, financial services, and wire-transfer companies to help prevent scams from taking place.
Additional Preventative Methods
The Act also calls for the creation of an office within the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. This office will monitor and help the bureau target new forms of scams through the mail, TV, internet, or phone.
The complaint tracking system at the Federal Trade Commission will also be strengthened to help track down scammers.
Experts say that prevention is the best thing people can do to protect themselves, as it’s very hard to trace or recover funds once they’re lost. If you are a victim of a scam, report it to the police, as even if they can’t recover what you lost, they will investigate and report it to the FTC, which may eventually lead to finding and arresting those responsible.
