how come hundreds of thousands of veterans electronically no longer existed? that should be the question. retaliation exists because its culture. this culture retaliation, that is really the cancer to the veteran administration. most physicians and nurses and people working, morale is extremely low. people come up and say did that have been here? people care. when i heard some of the testimony i heard from the phoenix va, it was gutwrenching. i couldn't sleep. and i believe a lot of people within the va system feel the same way. but there exists a cancer within leadership, a few individuals that perpetuate this idea, that we should be silent, that we shouldn't stand up and do the right thing and be honest.

everyone makes mistakes, but when you make a mistake and you try to conceal it, that is really the question we should be asking. who are these individuals who would alter data and hide the truth and prevent patient care? >> and that is a brief portion of our special looking into veteran health care issues. you can see the program in its entirety tonight at 8:00 eastern on our companion network, c-span. >> here are some of the highlights for this weekend.

>> senate aging committee recently look in the phone scams targeting seniors. the focus was on skimmers to call pretending to be a family member or loved one to get the thick into buyer money. americans lost over $73 million to phone scams last year according to the federal trade commission. ftc and fbi officials testify about what they phone scam victim. this is just under an hour.

>> good afternoon. i've asked all of you to join the table instead of two panels because we have a boat that is being called at around 2:20. so i want to take the advantage of going ahead and getting all of your testimony. this hearing is the latest in a series of investigations the committee has conducted on the devastating impact that fraud and scams have on senior citizens. over the last two years, we have asked lord the rise of jamaican lottery scams, tax refund schemes and social security and

medicare fraud. so today we are going to examine what is now making a comeback in the scam world and it is called the the great emporium for emergency scam. it is quite despicable. it preys on a senior citizen's willingness to do anything to help a family member in trouble. for example, a skimmer convinces the demo for a telephone that his or her grandchild or another relative is in jail, is in the hospital or stuck in a foreign country needs money to get out of the predicament.

and since the beginning of 2012, the federal trade commission has received more than 30,000 complaints about scammer who claim to be a friend or family member in distress and it cost americans more than $42 million just since the beginning of 012. now, this doesn't tell the whole story. since the majority of these crimes go unreported. what we do know is the ftc report that imposter scans have doubled between 2009 and 23rd

and warn potential but the

undisputed and we have some good news today from the green dot corporation. they make their product that has been one of the fraudsters in many schemes. we heard it first in the jamaican lottery scam. it has announced plans to retire from store shelves nationwide. they seeing how this product has been used by the skimmers and that is to pull it. green dot, wal-mart and cvs submitted statements for today's hearing, which will be a part of the record and going forward we will have these companies, and to join in this committee to hear about their experience and their progress. we are going to continue to encourage other debit card

companies and retailers to do the same proactive thing. so little by little, we are trying to get visibility to this fraud that is being perpetrated particularly on our senior citizens. senator collins. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and i apologize for being a few minutes late. like view i am trying to balance a lot of different commitment today. i want to thank you for the danger is viacom artist looking to surrender older americans out of their life savings. this is our seventh year in on such scams and i appreciate your hearing the committee focused on this incredibly important topic. in fact, a great deal of what

we've learned about is the reports of complaints made to the committee of the fraud hotline today's hearing is an impersonation scam that we've nicknamed the green parrot scam. a skimmer calls a potential victim and claims to be someone he is not remains to be caught immediately because of an emergency. he played some of the dems emotions by claiming to be a grandchild or another loved one. he says that he needs money because he has made in an accident, his car is broken down or he is stranded in a foreign country. i myself has received an e-mail urchin of this scam from someone purporting to be my next few and

it sounded just like him and he was overseas brought and needed money to fly back home. perhaps i'm sympathetically i told him to go to the american embassy for help i started thinking about it and called his father to see what was going on and found out that he was not in fact overseas. in many cases the skimmer asks the victim to send money and the fastest way possible, which is purchasing a prepaid debit card and convincing the scammer of the code on the backs to allow them to transfer the value. once that money is transferred, it is very difficult if not impossible to trace. one main green parrot was caught by a scammer.

a so-called grandson was saying he got in a car accident in nicaragua and needed $1800 to pay back the rental car company where he wouldn't be allowed to leave the country. after my constituent went through the money from his savings and wired it to his so-called grandson, he got another call. this time the scammer said he was pursuing criminal charges against him because someone had been injured in the accident and they needed $4000 to hire a lawyer right away. since my constituent out that his grandson was traveling abroad for a wedding, he went to his bank again and went through $4000 more from his savings. for the scammer pressed his luck and called back a third time asking for even more money, my constituent became suspicious

and thought to ask him some simple questions that he wished he had asked from the start such as where are you bored who is your mother. it was only when the scammer couldn't answer those questions that this loving and trusting grandfather realized that he had been duped. fortunately he was able to limit his losses because he hadn't yet released the code to transfer the money to nicaragua. another constituent, mrs. sandra jagr got a call last fall from someone who claim to be her son. he said he had been in a car accident, that he was his fault and he didn't have insurance. he asked her $1500 to pay off the other party and mrs. jagr did so using western union to fire the money. now here is the point. when she realized she had been scammed, she contacted everyone she could think of to report her case and get how. local and state on enforcement,

the fbi, but she was told there was nothing they could do for her. as we have learned, the scammers are not only unscrupulous, convict and dozens of times, but they are also technologically savvy. they know how to route their call using voice over internet protocol, which is very hard to trace and they know how to spoof caller i.d. to make it appear they are calling from a trusted source. another version of this impersonation scam might be called the tax man and in this version, the con artist used to spoof caller i.d. that represents a legitimate washington d.c. to contract taxpayers and to be calling from the criminal investigative division of the irs.

the scammer identified themselves as the investigation chief and tells the taxpayer that he or she owes more than $5000 in back taxes. well, to make a long story short, my staff actually spoke to a taxman scam artist as part of the committee's investigation. we suspect that the scammer who called himself steve parker was located outside of the united states. but this scam is so elaborate that the scammer was able to claim he was calling from the federal investigative department at the irs, was able to get the correct address for irs headquarters here in washington and actually included a room number, but not surprisingly that remembered does not exist within the irs building. mr. chairman, the scammers are a plague for all americans, but

especially to our seniors. i thank you for continuing to shine a light on their appalling practice is and i look forward to hearing from eyewitnesses. >> and you notice a pattern here of all of these hearings that we have in having on scams that are perpetrated against senior citizens. >> absolutely. >> and this is just another version and it is a particularly disrespectful one. first, we have a victim of a grandparent scam and we aren't using his full name because he doesn't want the scammers to try to reconnect him. and we will call him mr. w. he is accompanied today by one of his grandson. next, kevin rupy, vice president

of law at the u.s. telecom association. and then, lois greisman, associate director of the federal trade commission's director of marketing practices in the bureau of consumer protection. ms. greisman. and then, joseph campbell, the assistant director of the fbi's criminal investigative division. mr. campbell, your written statement should be very specific on the grand parent scheme and the fbi's website has more information on these type of scams compared to the statement that you have submitted. so i would like in the questioning for you to provide

additional details. now, because of the fact we have god a vote coming up at 2:10, i am going to hold you to five minutes so that we can get through everybody and cannot need to questions. mr. w., you are up. turn on your microphone. >> thank you, chairman nelson and ranking member columns for the opportunity to tell my story before the special committee on aging. i am an 81-year-old grand pier from cincinnati, ohio. last december i asked answered the phone and sent my world into a whirlwind. the caller had a job voice into grandpa, this is her favorite grandson. to which i replied, i have six grandsons and they're all my

favorite. his reply was, while this is your oldest grandson. to which i replied tai, how are you? i can't remember exactly his reply, but it was something like i am in jail and i need your help to get me out of jail and i don't want mom and dad to know about this. talking to this police officer. i can't remember the officers name, but he said the car contained for young men on their way to a football game. he searched the vehicle, narcotics were found. all four men were arrested on narcotics charges. all four denied knowledge of who the narcotics list, but i have been the most cooperative and now he needed was $3000 cash to get out of jail. i told the police officer that i needed -- i was told by the police officer that i need to go

to bombard for cvs and that a total of $3000 into green dot money cards in $1000 denominations and i need a cash to purchase this card. i cash a check for $3000 at my bank and went to wal-mart and bought three money pack cards, each loaded with $1000. i returned home and called the police officer at the number with the 438 area code. the area code for montréal, canada and gave him the scratch off numbers on the money pack cards. later, the police officer called again and said they needed an additional $4000. however, my checking account would not cover that amount. my wife went to the bank and withdrew $4000 from her savings account and went to wal-mart and loaded for money pack cards with $1000 each.

i told the officer the scratch off numbers. subsequently, i received another call from him saying they needed another $2500. at this point my wife suggested we call subbase twin brother to see if he had been him today. dillon said he saw him before we went to work that morning. he called his cell phone and he answered. it became obvious that grandpa and grandma were to set a scam. what cannot the money pack card, there is a warning that says small print, and i repeat in small print it says if anyone else asks you for your number, your information from your receipt is a scam and green dot is not responsible for paying me back. i believe putting not warning in such small print is

unconscionable and it has some liability in as much as they profited from these transactions. i also believe wal-mart has them as possibility and facilitated and profited from the scam. i reported this scam for the cincinnati police. i also contact dave the investigations are referred me to the federal trade commission, but i am not sure what they have been able to do about it. i have some suggestions about what prepaid debit card companies could do to protect consumers, which i hope to get into later on. thank you for listening to me and giving me this opportunity to testify. i'm happy to answer questions. >> thank you, mr. w. your courageous to come and share this with us. mr. rupy.

>> chairman nelson, ranking member collin, members of the committee. thank you for giving me the opportunity to appear before you today. my name is kevin rupy uni service vice president of blonde policy at u.s. telecom. u.s. telecom share the concern about the problems and impostors scans targeted at seniors. calls using protocol or voip technology when combined with caller i.d. spoofing can be used by scammers to mask their identity and location, giving our target a false sense of confidence of who is calling. three important developments have occurred in the last year that could help address this issue. first, our member companies continue to work with government and industry stakeholders to develop a more secure form of

caller i.d. authentication and order to more effectively address caller i.d. spoofing. last summer the engineering task orders or ietf created a formal working group focused on creating a secure caller i.d. for voip calls. the secure telephone identity revisited group has been working since then to achieve this goal. despite technological challenges , stakeholders from the ietf for voa p. can provide a much stronger in spoof of oil a proof of identity and the legacy telephone network provides today. members include representatives from industry, including many u.s. telecom members and government including the

technologists. in may, they develop high-level requirement and less than two weeks ago to reduce the document with a maximum originators of voip telephone calls. any solutions developed by this group will become most effect if on a full transition to ip-based communication networks, a process that is well underway. sakic, u.s. telecom member companies and independent application developers offer services today that help older americans release unknown and potentially fraudulent calls. consumer subscribing to digital voice service can utilize the do not disturb feature, which prevents some or all incoming calls from wearing any customer sound. sending them instead to voicemail for general

announcement. they can be activated for sec. or left on indefinitely and also lets consumers establish an accepted callers list for two-time numbers that will bypass the safeguards and allow the call to ring through. similar offerings are available from century link, at&t and others. in addition, third-party services such as the ftc's robocall challenge winner rowboat may also be available to consumers. finally, our industry has ramped up a concerted broad-based public-private effort focused exclusively on the issue of telephony abuse attorney existing framework of the message in now way or a local anti-abuse working group. participates in the working group include the sec, the ftc, the department of homeland

security and a broad range of industry members. the mod voice and telephony accrues group is addressing abuse occurring over telephone networks. it was created to help protect telephony services from criminal activity and abuse by developing best practices, technologies and not it's for mitigating phone-based attacks and scams. in closing, let me think again the committee for holding this timely hearing. we share the committees can turns. we look forward to her continuer together to to address this constantly evolving challenge. >> double your efforts, mr. mr. rupy. missed that one. >> atrovent, chairman nelson, ranking member collin's and members of the committee. i appreciate the opportunity to discuss the commission's role in

combating telemarketing fraud. as we've heard, the injury inflicted by telemarketing fraud is on no. however, stories abound the harm is just but emotional as well. to tackle phone fraud, the ftc uses a three prong strategy. the federal and international counterparts, education and outreach and an initiative to spur technological innovation to the tools that help consumers avoid unwanted calls and also help one for search tracked on the fraudsters. first, law enforcement and with a focus on impostors scans. each of us in her own life seeks out and relies upon trusted sources here that is the very thing scammers years whether they pretend to be from the government, family member hide behind a recognizable name. the person in his summa trust is more than a door opener. it's an invitation to come in and sit down. and when successful, people lose

money coming in or miss amounts of money at her testimony indicates during the past two and a half years, consumers report having lost when the $200 million to impostors scans. not surprisingly the complaint reported to the commission, consumers indicate the contact was by the phone. hoping perch matters is one case we filed early this year typifies the work to call people, many of whom were elderly and the family or friend had offered them a medical device alert. and then they lied about whether they would have to pay for it. given the nature of such conduct and the fact we see at least some telemarketers engage emanating out of canada and also jamaica, or criminal liaison

unit has worked closely with criminal authorities to prosecute perpetrators of phone scams are what is known as project colt, which dates back to 1998 and more recently joked. second, consumer education is an indispensable complement to him personally. the ftc has a wide range of materials relating to imposter fraud and i'll telemarketing scams. every year we reach out to tens of millions of people with those materials. i want to highlight pass it on. i know you have seen it before. as our newest project and we just launched this innovative initiative aimed specifically at older active adults including veteran's. based on research with the target audience, it gives older consumers critical information about dams so they can pass it on to those who need it. and of course that information includes impostors scans and the all too common you have just one scam.

we also went in a new direction in 2012 when they partnered with the aarp foundation to include one-to-one can win over age 60 who complained about being the victim of certain types of fraud including impostors dance. the foundation have provided advice and counsel to more than 1000 people. we have been kimmey focused on spurring innovation to tackle illegal calls to the convergence between our phone to send and the internet as well as other technological development, nick and fraudulent calls is cheaper than ever and because it is so received for the scammers to hide, the enforcement challenges are huge. in may 2012, we met those challenges with around robocall challenge, which incentivize creating innovative call blocking platforms. i'm delighted to say one of the winners already launched a new product for consumers it is successfully blocking unwanted

calls. mr. ruby referred to as moments ago. a second challenge is taking place next month at the devcon conference in vegas. this is information security experts for our contest will focus on some honeypot, how to create them and how to use them to fight legal calls. at the same time, the ftc has spearheaded a new working group of the london action plan international do-not-call for them to look specifically at caller i.d. spoofing issues from an international perspective. in sum, the commitment to tackling phone fraud to enforcement action, education and outreach in innovation is strong. i say about fines, the commission will continue to identify and purse to innovative ways to protect against tumors nadh federal international private industry members to do the same. thank you for the opportunity. i look forward to your questions. >> thank you.

mr. campbell, tell us how we put some of these people in jail. >> yes, sir. chairman nelson, ranking member collin said members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the federal bureau of investigation to combat fraud against our nation's seniors. i'm pleased to appear before the committee today to address this important issue. at the beginning of 2011, the first of our nation's baby boomers reached the age of 65. since then, thousands that they are also reaching that milestone. i have many reasons to celebrate. senior citizens are most likely to have a nest egg to on their own home and have excellent credit. these are also many of the same qualities which make them so attractive to con artists. as you may already be aware, the fbi participates in a number of working groups and task forces dedicated to combating significant fraud to include phone scams against our nation's

citizens. for a mortgage in health care fraud task force is to interagency groups such as the elder justice interagency working group, many resources are focused on preventing, detect and in combating those fries which i'm senior citizens. unfortunately though, frauds are limited only to the imagination of those who commit such egregious crimes. internet and telephone fraud is defined as any illegal activity involving phone calls, websites, chat rooms and/or e-mail. this fraud involves false communication or fraudulent representations to consumers. these crimes may include but are certainly not limited to advance fee scams, lottery scams and identity theft. in one particular scam, the grand parent scans, scammers use the nearest that include claims of their relatives being arrested around a car accident in another country. these fraudsters often posed and

creates an urgent even make a desperate plea for money to victims. it's not unusual for scammers to bake victims not to tell other family members about the situation. this is just one example. unfortunately, the variety of schemes is again limited only by the imagination of a con artist who offered to. and our continued effort to combat the numerous front stairs to redo our citizens harm, the federal bureau of investigation and the national white collar enter established the crime complete center. the i see three develops criminal complaints in criminal complaints and regard the rapidly expanding arena of cybercrime. the i see three to the victims of cybercrime a convenient and easy-to-use reporting mechanism that alerts authorities of suspected criminal and civil violations. from one person regulatory agencies at the federal, state,

local and international level, the i see three provides a central referral mechanism for complaints. for one person regulatory agencies at the federal, state, local and international level, the i see three provides a mechanism for complaints involving internet-related crimes. as complaints are reported online, ic3 looks at the data and disseminate information to the appropriate federal, state, local or international law and force it or regulatory agencies for criminal, civil or administrative action as appropriate. i can assure you it will also remain a priority object is a ic3 to establish effective alliances with industry. such alliances enable the ic3 to leverage intelligent and subject matter resources pivotal in identifying and crafting an

aggressive, proactive approach to combating the crime. in conclusion, as you have heard, fraud targeting our senior citizens exists in many forms is created in its approach and can often leave our most vulnerable citizens with little to no savings to enjoy a time in my favor and. the fbi in partnership with our federal, state, local and regulatory partners is committed to identifying this threat where it exists and taken aggressive action in this honest. chairman nelson and ranking member collin, i would like to thank you again for the opportunity to discuss the fbi's efforts to combat fraud against a nation senior citizens. i'm now happy to answer any questions you may have. >> before and may turn to senator collins, mr. campbell, the federal trade commission has a separate way to file complaints called the consumer sentinel network.

it seems to be a much more expansive database. do you all use.? >> yes, that is correct that our two agencies to coordinate on fraud information and the ic3 data we have received from potential big dems is also fed into the can immerse sentinel database so they can all benefit from that information, analyze it, disseminated as appropriate and develop a right strategies to target the criminal activity. >> have you put somebody in jail for this kind of fraud? >> yes, we have. we have for the grand parent scan. we had a case that in fact we have conducted with project called as referred to. that individual has been arrested. he pled guilty to one count of wire fraud and that was in interagency investigation and that indictment took place in

2012. >> i was just that you publicize that. by the way, do you find that these are criminal enterprises that do other kind of criminal things as well as this? >> yes, that is a very important point because there are individuals and smaller groups out there perpetrating these scams. they can be tied to organized crime or transnational organized crime, enterprises or they may also be more expansive fraud ranged engaged in a variety of fraud relative to this. that is correct. >> we are going to try to get everybody's questions and before you have to go to this vote. senator collins. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. campbell, i do appreciate her work you are doing, but until we put in jail a lot of

people who are committing these scans, we are not going to see real progress. the ftc has told us there were 127,000 pastors scams last year alone. so how many of these cases were prosecuted in response to the chairman you mentioned just one case in 2012. how many? >> right amount we don't track specific numbers regarding state grand parent scan for particular individuals who have been targeted. but we have investigated a wide variety of individuals in regard to these types of fraud which have taken place. we have had a number of convictions related to those and we are pursuing them. it certainly is a priority for

us as i noted in regard to the establishment of ic3 to target this threat and dedicate the resources we can with our interagency partners against this threat. >> well, what worries me is what i am hearing sounds very bureaucratic. it sounds like there's a lot of task force going on and a lot of discussion back and forth. for 127,000 pastors last euro amount. 9 million scans of various kinds reported to the ftc, 9 million cases like mr. w. were trusting seniors with thousands of dollars. what i am hearing from one source meant as they are too small individually for us to bother with them. well, you can be sure that the person who ripped out mr. w. went on to rest up other people.

that is just one case. he didn't rip off mr. w. and say i am done now. i am going to pack it up. in fact, we know from our previous hearing that there are boiler room operations that do this with people having scripts and i just ads with the jamaican lottery scams and where they got jamaica to change at five and we started seeing more aggressive prosecution in this country that until that happens, we will continue to see our seniors. i would like some statistics from you that shown me that you are making this a priority and is import and even if they are reported one by one a few

thousand dollars here, a few thousand dollars they are. in the aggregate, it is a lot of money and even for the individual that may be what blondes worsen it considers a small amount of honey can be devastating to their life savings. >> i certainly agree with you. you used a key word there, aggregate. it is important that we do receive this information and the complaint because of some cases we do find them tied together and that enables us then to affect ugly devote resources against that and work with the prosecutors at the state and local level as well. we agree that this is a tragic circumstance and all available resources should be dedicated to it and we are committed to that. we encourage the public to

report that more can can help us be effective in regard to this targeting. >> well, the public is reporting if you've got 9 million scans reported to the ftc including 127,000 impostors scams just last year. my time is expired. we've got others to question. for the record, i would like an answer from you on how often and how wildmon forcemeat uses that wealth of data that you have collected at the ftc. if i could have that for the record. >> okay, we are honored to have senator murphy, join us. i may call on our committee member senator casey. >> mr. chairman thanks very much. i want to get a sense of both works because often around here

as you may have detected from reading the newspaper, we don't pass a lot of substantial bills under bridges or basis. so we often have to think of other ways to have an impact because legislation takes a long time and their other problems getting them past. we have to try to use our staff, our resources and a lot of them in-state to have an impact on a problem like this. in our office we have in the website. i know other offices have similar strategies. it is a website to provide older adults and family members with information and tips about scams or fraud of various kinds. i will just ask roger, roger w., just from kind of year-round perspective inherent experience, what you think works or i should say what kind of information would you hope would be

available if it were on a website of an elected member of congress or any other information that families are not getting that you hope they would get. is that nick -- >> i am not sure i heard he knew about his grandparents can. then i became a victim of it. i have read about it and heard about it, but the way of the setup when i was that i was in kind of a family member has been hospitalized and is interested in this condition, i thought his wife was calling when i received this call, normally i'd look at the caller i.d. if it's a 438 number or just disregard it. but because i am slow to get around, i was in the living room where we don't have a telephone and by the time i got there it had gone to a third rate and the fourth ring it stops working. so i answered the phone looking at the caller i.d. what cannot the caller i.d. is clearly one way, if you look at

the caller i.d. in the theater not a number with which you are familiar for some of the things that this gentleman talks about, there's some possibilities. there's other things that are involved in this. beyond that, this money pack cards i'm glad to your thick green dot is getting a bad business, but i am sure there will be -- there is a market for it, so i'm sure somebody's going to fill that market. but i'm not sure that being, no disrespect here, website, but i don't think many senior citizens look at their senators website with any frequency. >> i guess we've got to promote it. that is helpful. there's other ways we can put in place preventative strategy, that would be helpful. of course over time you can add to your answer and written

advice as well. we appreciate that. i know where the met on time. ms. streisand, we know that the do-not-call registry has been effective in a lot of ways. but i would ask you because apparently in addition to what benefit we get from the do-not-call registry, we know that consumers will often post comments that are associated with these kinds of fraudulent calls. they post them on different message lines and i just wonder if the ftc would consider, has considered creating unkind of a message board system or clearinghouse that kind of aggregates information about these kinds of fraudulent calls. did i miss your testimony? maybe i spoke to it, but

anything. >> if it's a fair question, we are constantly evaluating, reevaluating what to do with our complaint data and how best to utilize it. it's widely available to live for and in mind for us and as use it extensively. we consider the consumer complaints we have received and we received a great many relating to do-not-call in any given month we make it 270, 280,000 complaints relating to do-not-call or robocalls. we consider them nonpublic, so we can't just put them on the public record, but that is a fair question we will continue to evaluate. >> thank you very much. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator murphy. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for allowing me to set as the panel. we have a string of these grand parent subfloor, which is the reason i've had interest in this issue over the past several i want to ask one simple question knowing we are short on time and

that is about this issue of how you get information from local law enforcement. there's been some information compiled at a committee that suggests local outdoorsman doesn't know where to report these scams when they get 9 million is a stunning number, imagine what the actual number is applying for is that for sending all that information. given the fact you were in the prosecuting where you receive volume giving your limited resources, it seems like an imperative to make sure the locals on first and is communicating up the chain to these databases into the fbi, the ftc when they get information about these scams. so what is the status on both of your opinions as to the flow of information from local law enforcement to the databases and federal bumpers and and what can we do to make it better? >> sure.

well, and this is an area that for years we have worked in many bubbles to have that dialogue with law enforcement with regard to these scams. we work with associations like the icp and so forth in regard to the issue. we also have now what is called operation wellspring which is coordinated out of the ic3 and then involve passing these violations were field offices across the country. the data is analyzed to determine if it can be investigated and prosecuted federally and if not, the information is passed to it date and local officers for them to review and determine what action they can take and that has increased information sharing both ways and so we are working to promote that initiative more to encourage that type of dialogue is filed to drive together against this threat. >> ms. greisman. >> s., thank you gadara police department and sheriff's office

to contribute then to submit data into the sentinel system and also used sentinel system. frank h. and hands-on training for them as well so they can access it in a smart and intelligent way. >> well, think we need to do better. i appreciate the sufferers. mr. rupy, industry can be involved. it's obviously in your interest to make sure up the information from local law enforcement as to the places in which it can be actionable and abrogated and this seems to be a perfect example of the place limited public resources can be paired with attention and more bountiful private resources to make sure local law for that report will develop an information. thank you are a much, mr. chairman for allowing me time. >> mr. rupy, what can a telephone company do to help the senior citizen mimic collins may they have been hammered? >> that is an excellent

question, chairman and that is something that the phone companies will work with the consumer based on the tools that they have and also based on the specific situation at hand. so as an example, i'll worry consumer reaches out to the phone company complaining about perhaps calls that they are receiving, the phone company can work with that consumer to identify tools that may be available to that consumers so they can either -- >> such as you could have the technology that a face whose number comes up but somehow it alerts the customer? >> that is actually the ultimate goal that i was talking about in my oral and written testimony, mr. chairman. essentially the endgame of the

technology she is to have an authentication between the person being called in the calling party. >> is that technology available today? >> it is not yet available today, mr. chairman, but we do have intense industry and government involvement on developing those standards because we have to develop a standard in order to implement that technology into the network. the mac well, if you could've heard all the hearing that we have and just to complicate matters, a lot of them don't originate in this country. they are from a foreign country. that means you've got to work with another government in order to get them to cooperate, to go after the guys. so that makes it doubly difficult and longer and longer

and therefore the development of technology that will help someone identify a number that is spoofed, that would be extremely helpful in the protection of senior citizen, and a protection of customers. because of the vote that is now occurring, i want to say that i want to break to the table retailers who offer this service is to send money such as western union money grin and the various cards. we are going to have a future hearing on that. now, they have been reluctant to come. i want to tell them that obviously we will treat them very fairly, but they are being used to perpetrate fraud on our people. and we don't like this. and the american people don't like it. so we want them to common help

work with us and with law-enforcement and the agencies. the regulatory agent is. i am encouraged by the action of some retailers and debit card companies that they have taken, but several of them were reluctant to come. well, if we have to, we will compel them to come because we are going to get at the bottom of this. thank you all. the meeting is adjourned. [inaudible conversations]

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