on news makers, vermont senator bernie sanders. he talks about efforts to revamp the v.a. by robert mcdonald. the lame-duck congress and what he expects in the next congress and campaign 2016. sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. the 2015 c span student cam video competition is under way. create a five to seven minute documentary on the theme the three brafrms and you showing how a policy law or action by the exec he cannive, legislative has affected your community.

next a senate aging committee hearing on phone scams targeting seniors. witnesses talked about a particular scam where someone pretended to be a family member or loved one to get a victim to wire them money. americans lost more than $73 million to phone scams last year. this is about 50 minutes.

good afternoon. i've asked all of you to join the table instead of two panels, because we have a vote that is being called 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 explored the rise of jamaican lottery scams, tax refund schemes and social security and medicare fraud.

so today we are going to examine a -- what is now making a comeback in the scam world. and it's called the grandparent or emergency scam. it's quite despicable. it preys on a senior citizen's willingness to do anything to help a family member in trouble. for example, a scammer convinces the victim over the telephone that his or her grandchild or another relative is in jail, is in the hospital or stuck in a foreign country and 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 scammers who claim to be a friend or a family member in distress. and it's costing americans more than $42 million. just since the beginning of '12. now, this doesn't tell the whole story. since a majority of these crimes go unreported. what we do know is that the ftc reports that imposter scams have double doubled between 2009 and 2013. and so today we're going to hear from a distinguished panel on what authorities are doing to detect and prosecute such crimes and how seniors can protect

themselves. we are also going to hear about private industry's role in combating these scams. the bottom line is that the government alone cannot prevent these types of scams. private companies that sell prepaid debit products or offer wire services are the last line of defense for consumers before their money is sent and then it's lost forever. now, fortunately, some of these large retailers are beginning to take proactive steps to protect their customers. in addition to issuing consumer warnings about scams, many companies are now training their employees to identify and warn potential victims. and we have some good news today

from the green dot corporation. it makes a product that has been one of the cards of the choice for fraud people in many of the schemes. we heard about it in the jamaican lottery scan. green dot announced plans to retire the money pack card from store shelves nationwide. they have seen how this product has been used by the scammers and have decided to do the right thing, and that's to pull it. green dot, walmart and cvs submitted statements for today's hearing which will be a part of the record. and going forward, we will have these companies come and join in this committee to hear about their experience and their progress. we're going to continue to encourage other debit card companies and retailers to do

the same pro active thing. so little by little, we are trying to give visibility to this fraud that's being perpetrated, particularly on our senior citizens. senator collins? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i apologize for being a few minutes late. like you, i'm trying to balance a lot of different commitments today. i want to thank you for calling this hearing to explore once again the dangers posed by con artists looking to swindle older americans out of their life savings. this is our seventh hearing on such scams. and i appreciate you are maintaining the committee's focus on this incredibly important topic. in fact, a great deal of what we have learned about these scams

is a result of reports and complaints made to the committee's fraud hotline. today's hearing explores a form of impercent nation scam that we call the grandparent scam. a scammer calls a potential victim and claims to be someone he is not who needs cash immediately because of an emergency. the scammer plays on the victim's emotions by claiming to be a grandchild or another loved one. he says that he needs money because he has been in an accident, his car is broken down or he is stranded in a foreign country. i myself have received an e-mail version of this scam from someone purporting to be my neph nephew. it sounded just like him.

he was overseaed supposedly and had been robbed and needed money to fly back home. perhaps unsympathetically, i told him to go to the american embassy for help. i then 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 scam mer ask the victim to send money in the fastest way possible which involves going to a local retailer, purchasing a prepaid debit card and giving the scammer the code on the back to allow him to transfer its value. once that money is transferred, it is very difficult if not impossible to trace. one main grandparent was called by a scammer impersonating his grandson. the so the-called grandson told

my constituent he had gotten into a car accident in nicaragua and needed $1,800 to pay the rental car company or he wouldn't be allowed to leave the country. after my constituent withdrew the money from his savings and wired it to his so-called grandson, he got another call. this time the scammer said that the government was pursuing criminal charges against him because someone had been injured in the accident and he needed $4,000 to hire a lawyer right away. since my constituent thought that his grandson was traveling abroad for a wedding, he went to his bank again and withdrew $4,000 more from his savings. when 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

that he had asked from the start such as where were you born and 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, got a call last fall from someone who claimed to be her son. he said he had been in a car accident, that it was his fault and he didn't have insurance. he asked for $1,500 to pay off the other party and she unfortunately did so using western union to wire the money. here is the point. when she realized that she had been scammed, she contacted everyone she could think of to report her case and to get help. local and state law enforcement,

the fbi. but she was told there was nothing that they could do for her. as we have learned, these scammers are not only unscrupulous and aggressive, often calling potential victims dozens of times, but they are also techno logically savvy. they know how to route their calls using voice over internet protocol, which is very hard to trace. and they know how to spoof caller i.d. to make it appear that they are calling from a trusted source. another version of this impercent nation scam might be called the tax man scam. in this version, the con artist used a spoof caller i.d. that represents a legitimate washington, d.c. phone number to contact taxpayers and they claim to be calling from the criminal investigative division of the irs. the scammer identifies himself as the investigation chief and

tells the taxpayer that he or she owes more than $5,000 in back taxes. well, to make a long story short, my staff actually spoke to a tax man scam artist as part of the committee's investigation. we suspect that the scammer who called himself steve parker was located outside 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 give the correct address for irs headquarters here in washington and actually included a room number but not surprisingly that room number does not exist within the irs building. mr. chairman, these scammers are a plague for all americans but especially to our seniors.

i thank you for continuing to shine a light on their appalling practices and i look forward to hearing from our witnesses. >> you notice a pattern here of all of these hearings that we have been having on scams that are perpetrated against senior citizens. >> absolutely. >> this is just another version. it's 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 grandsons. next kevin rupy, the vice president of policy and law at

the u.s. telecom association. and then lewis greisman, associate commissioner of marketing practices in the bureau of consumer protection. 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 grandparent scheme and other imposter phone scams. 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 that we have got a vote coming up and it's at 2:10, i'm going to hold you to five minutes so that we can get through everybody and get on in the questions. all right. mr. w., you are up. if you would turn on your microphone. >> thank you, chairman nelson and ranking member collins for the opportunity to tell my story before the senate special committee on aging. i am an 81-year-old grandparent from ohio. last december, i answered a phone call that sent my life into a tailspin and conned me out of $7,000. what i now know was a phone scam. the caller had a young voice and said, grandpa, this is your favorite grandson. to which i replied, i have six grandsons and they're all my favorites. his reply was, well, this is

your oldest grandson. to which i replied, hi, how are you? i can't remember exactly his reply but it was something like, i'm 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. talk to this police officer. i can't remember the officer's name but he said he stopped a car for speeding. the car contained four young men who were on their way to a football game. in a search of the vehicle, narcotics were found. all four of the young men were arrested on narcotics charges. all four denied knowledge of who the owner of the narcotics was. but he had been the most cooperative and all he needed was $3,000 cash to get out of jail. i told the police officer that i needed to go to -- i was told by the police officer that i needed to go to walmart or cvs and load a total of $3,000 into green dot

money pack cards in $1,000 denominations and i needed cash to purchase the cards. i cashed a check for $3,000 at my bank and went to walmart and bought three money back cards each loaded with $1,000. i returned home and called the police officer at the number with a 438 area code. the area code for 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 $4,000. my checking account would not cover that amount. my wife went to the bank and withdrew $4,000 from per savings account and went to walmart and loaded four money pack cards with $1,000 each. i told the officer the scratch

off numbers. subsequently i received another call from him saying they needed another $2,500. at this point my wife suggested we call ti's twin brother to see if he had seen him that day. he said he saw him before he went to work that morning. i called ty's cell phone and he answered. he was at work. it became obvious that grandpa and grandma were victims of a scam. looking at the money pack card, there's a warning that says in small print -- i repeat, in small print it says, if anyone else asks you for money -- your money pack number, your information from your receipt, it's a scam and green dot is not responsible for paying you back. i believe putting that warning in such small print is unconnecticut shenable and green

dot has some liability inasmuch as they profited from the transacti transactions. i believe that walmart has some responsibility in that they -- it facilitated and profited from the scam with their sale of these money pack cards. i reported this scam to the cincinnati police who did not seem interested. i contacted the federal bureau of investigations who referred me to the federal trade commission. i'm not sure what they have been able 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 listen to me and giving me this opportunity to testify. >> thank you. you are very courageous to come and share this with us. mr. rupy? >> chairman nelson, ranking

member collins, members of the committee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to appear before you today. my name is kevin rupy and i serve as vice president of law and policy at u.s. telecom. u.s. telecom and our member companies share the committee's concern about the problems associated with phone-based imposter scams targeted at seniors. calls using voice overinternet protocol or voip technology when combined with caller

formal working group focused on creating a secure caller i.d. for v.o.i.p. calls. the secure telephone identity revisited group has been working since then to achieve this goal. despite challenges, stake holders believe a krit toe graphic approach can provide a stronger and less spoofable assurance of identity than the legacy telephone network provides today. members include representatives from industry including many u.s. telecom members and government, including the fcc's chief technologist. in may, the group developed high

level requirements for solutions and less than two weeks ago it released a document outlining a mechanism for securely identifying originators of the phone calls. any solutions developed by this group will become most effective upon a full transition to i.p. based communications networks, a process that is well under way. second, u.s. telecom member companies and independent application developers offer services today that can help older americans reduce unknown and potentially fraudulent calls. for example, consumers subscribing to verizon digital voice service can utilize a do not disturb feature which prevents some or all incoming calls from ringing a customer's phone, sending them to voicemail or a general announcement.

of it can be activated for set periods or left on and also let's consumers establish an accepted caller list for up to ten numbers that will bypass the safeguards and allow the call to ring through. similar offering are available for century link, at&t and others. in addition, third party services such as the ftc's row bow call challenge winner may also be available to consumers. finally, our industry has ramped up a concerted broad based public private effort focused on abuse within the existing framework of the mobile anti abuse working group. participants in the working group include the fcc, the ftc, the fbi, the department of homeland security and a broad

range of industry members. the voice and telephone abuse sole focus is addressing abuse occurring over telephone networks. it was created to help protect te telephone services from abuse by developing best practices technologies and methods for mitigating phone-based attacks and scams. in closing, let me thank again the committee for holding this timely hearing. we share the committee's concerns. we look forward to our continued work together to address this constantly evolving challenge. >> double your efforts, mr. rupy. miss greisman. >> good afternoon, chairman nelson, ranking member collins and members of the committee. i appreciate the opportunity to appear before you on behalf of the federal trade commission to discuss the commission's role in combating telemarketing fraud.

as we have heard the jish inflicted by fraud is well-known. the harm is not just economic but emotional as well. to tackle phone fraud, the ftc uses law enforcement with close coordinate with federal and international counterparts, education and outreach and an initiative to spur technological innovation to develop tools that help consumers avoid unwanted calls and also help law enforcers to track down the frauds. first law enforcement and with a focus on imposter scams. each of us seeks out and relies upon trusted sources. that's the very thing scammers use and twist. whether they pretend to be from the government, a family member or hide behind a recognizable corporate name. impersonating someone trusted is more than a door opener. it's an invitation to come in and sit down. when it's successful, people lose money enormous amounts of

money. as the testimony indicates during the past two and a half years, consumers report having lost more than $200 million to imposter scams. not surprisingly, in more than 90% of the cases report of the complaints reported to the commission consumers indicate that the initial contact was by the phone. halting such impersonate serz central to the commission's broad telemarketing enforcement program. one case we filed early this year typifies the work. defendants called people, many of whom were elderly and falsely stated that a member of the family had bought a medical device alert and they lied about whether they would have to pay for it. given the nature of the such conduct and the fact we see some telemarketers engaged in imposter scams emanating out of canada and also out of jamaica, our criminal lee a son unit has

worked to catch perpetrators. second, consumer education is an indispensable compliment to law enforcement. the ftc has a wide range of materials directly relating to imposter fraud and all telemarketing scams. every year we reach out to tens of millions of people with those materials. i want to highlight fas on. i know you have seen it before. it's our newest project. we just launched this innovative initiative aimed specifically at older active adults, including veterans. based on research with the target audience, it gives older consumers critical information about scams so that they can pass it on to those who need it. of course, that information includes imposter scams and the all too common you have just won scam. we also went in a new direction in early 2012 when we partners

with the aarp foundation to afford one to one peer counseling to consumers over age 60 who complained about being the victim of certain types of frauds, including imposter scams. the foundation's volunteers have provided council to more than 1,000 people. finally, we have been keenly focused on spurring innovation to tackle illegal calls with the convergence between the phone system and the internet as well as other developments making fraudulent calls is cheaper than ever. because it's easy for the scammers to hide. the enforcement challenges are huge. in late 2012, we met those challenges with our own challenge which incentivized creating innovative call blocking platformed. one of the winners already launched a new product for consumers that is successfully blocking unwanted calls. mr. ropey referred to it moments

ago. our secretary challenge is taking place next month at the death con conference in have a gas. our contest will focus on phone honey pots, how to create them and use them to fight illegal calls. at the same time, the ftc has spearheaded a new working group of the london action plan international do not call forum to look specifically at caller i.d. spoofing issues from an international perspective. in some the commission's commitment to tackling phone fraud through enforcement action, education and outreach and innovation is strong. as i have outlined, the commission will continue to identify and pursue innovative ways to protect consumers and engage federal international and 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 collins and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the federal bureau of investigation's efforts to combat fraud against our nation's seniors. i am pleased to appear before the committee 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 a day are also reaching that milestone. they have many reasons to celebrate. senior citizens are most likely to have a nest egg to own their own home and to have excellent credit. unfortunately, these are also many of the same qualities which make them so attractive to con artists. as you may be aware, the fbi participates in a number of working groups and task forces dedicated to combating significant frauds to include phone scams against our nation's citizens. from mortgage and healthcare

fraud task forces to interagency groups such as the elder justice interagency working group, many of those resources are focused on preventing, detecting and combating those frauds which harm senior citizens. unfortunately, frauds are limited only to the imagination of those who commit such agreenlous crimes. internet and telephone fraud is 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 serbly not limited to advanced fee schemes, lottery scams and identity theft. in one particular scam, the grandparent scam, scammers use scenarios that include claims of a relative being arrested or in a car accident in another country. they often pose as the relative, create urgency and make a plea

for money to victims. it's not unusual for scammers to beg 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 the con artists who offer them. in our continued effort to combat the numerous sfrauds who would do our citizens harm, the federal bureau of investigation and the national white collar crime center established the internet crime complaint center. the i c3 receives, develops and refers criminal complaints regard the rapidly expanding arena of cyber crime. the ic3 gives victims of cyber crime an easy to use reporting mechanism that alerts authorities of suspected criminal or sieve ill violations. for law enforcement and regulatory agencies at the federal, state, local and

international level, the ic3 provides a central referral system for complaints. for law enforcement and regulatory agencies at the federal, state, local and international level, it provides a central referral mechanism for complaints involving internet related crimes. as complaints are reported online, the ic3 compiles the data, trained analysts review and research each complaint, disseminating information to the appropriate federal, state, local or international law enforcement or regulatory agencies for criminal, civil or administrative action as appropriate. i can assure you it will also remain a priority of objective of the ic3 to establish afaekive alliances with industry such as alliance enable the ic3 to ref ladies and gentlemen intel lens and subject matter expert 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 creative in its approach and can often leave our most vulnerable citizens with little to no savings to enjoy a time in life they have earned. the fbi in partnership with our federal, state, local and regulatory partners is committed to identifying this threat where it exists and taking aggressive action in response. chairman nelson and ranking member collins, would like to thank you for this opportunity to discuss the f bi's efforts to combat fraud against our nation's senior citizens. i am happy to answer any questions that you may have. >> before i turn to senator collins, mr. campbell, the federal trade commission has a separate way to file complaints. it's called the consumer

sentinal network. do you all use that? >> yes. that is correct our two agencies do coordinate on fraud information and the ic3 data that we receive from potential victims is also fed into the consumer database so that we can all benefit from that information, analyze it, disseminate it as appropriate and develop the right strategies to target that criminal activity. >> have you put somebody in jail for this kind of fraud? >> yes, we have. yes. we have for the grandparent scam. we have had a case that in fact we have conducted with project colt as referred to. that individual was -- has been arrested. he pled guilty to one count of wire fraud. that was an interagency investigation. that indictment took place in 2012. >> i would suggest that you

publicize that so 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's a very important point. because there are individuals and maybe smaller groups out there perpetrating these scams. but in some cases, they can be tied to organized crime or transnational organized crime enterprises or they also may be more expansive fraud rings engaged in a variety of frauds relative to this. that's correct. >> we are going to try to get everybody's questions in before you have to go to this vote. senator collins. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. campbell, i do appreciate the work that you are doing. but until we put in jail a lot

of people who are committing these scams, we are not going to see real progress. the ftc has told us that there were 127,000 imposter 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. we don't track specific numbers regarding, say, a grandparent scam or a particular individual who has been targeted. but we have investigated a wide variety of individuals in regard to these types of fraud which have taken place. we have have had a number of convictions related to those. we're pursuing them. it certainly is a priority for us as i noted in regard to the establishment of ic3 to target

this threat and to dedicate the resources that we can with our interagency partners against this threat. >> what worries is what i'm hearing sounds very bureaucratic. it sounds like there are a lot of task forces going on and there's a lot of discussion back and forth. but 127,000 imposter scams last year alone, 9 million scams of various kinds reported to the ftc, 9 million cases like mr. w. where trusting seniors lost thousands of dollars. what i'm hearing from law enforcement is, they're too small individually for us to bother with them. well, you can be sure that the person who ripped off mr. w. went on to rip off other people.

that's just one case. he didn't rip off mr. w. and say, boy, i'm done now. i'm going to pack it up. in fact, we know from our previous hearings that there are boiler room operations that do this with people having scripts. and i just think as with the jamaican lottery scam where we got jamaica to change its laws and we started seeing a more aggressive prosecution in this country that until that happens, we're going to continue to see our seniors and others ripped off. so i'd like some statistics from you that show me that you are making this a priority and that you consider these scams to be important even if they are reported one by one a few

thousand dollars here, a few thousand dollars there. in the aggregate, it's a lot of money. even for the individual where it may be what law enforcement considers to be a small amount of money, it can be devastating to their life savings. >> i certainly agree with you. you used a key word there, aggregate. it's important that we do receive this information and complaints, because in some cases, we do find them tied together. and that enables us then to effectively devote resources and work with prosecutors. we agree this is a tragic circumstance and all available resources should be dedicated to it and we're certainly committed to that. the more intelligence that we can receive, we encourage the public to report. the more it can help us be

effective in regard to this targeting. >> the public is reporting. if you have 9 million scams reported to the ftc, including 127,000 imposter scams, just last year. my time is expired. we have others to question. miss greisman for the record, i would like an answer from you on how often and how well law enforcement uses that wealth of data that you have collected at the ftc. >> provide that for the record. we are honored to have senator murphy come and join us. let me call on our committee member senator casey. >> mr. chairman, thanks very much. i know we have a limited time. will be brief. i want to get a sense of what works. often around here, as you may

have detected from reading the newspaper, we don't pass a lot of substantial bills on a regular basis. so we often have to think of other ways to have an impact, because legislation takes a long time. there are other problems of getting it passed. we have to try to use our staff, our resources and a lot of them in state to make -- have an impact on a problem like this. in our office, we have a website and other offices have similar strategies. it's a website to provide older adults and family members with information and tips about scams or fraud of various kinds. i'm just going to ask roger w. just from your own -- kind of your own perspective and your own experience, what do you think works in terms of -- 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? >> i'm not sure -- i already knew about the grandparent scam. then i became a victim of it. i had read about it. i heard about it. the way it was set up -- when i was contacted, i was in kind of a -- it was family member who has been hospitalized. i thought his wife was calling when i received this call. normally, i look at the caller i.d. and if it was a 438, i would disregard it. because i'm slow to get around, i was in the living room and i got -- by the time i got there, it was the third ring and the fourth ring it stops working. so i answered phone without looking at caller i.d. looking at the caller i.d. is comple

clearly one -- if it's not a number you are familiar or some of the things that this gentleman talked about, there's some possibilities. there's other things that are involved in this beyond that it's the money pack cards. i'm glad to hear the green dot is getting out of that business. i'm sure there will be another -- there's a market for it. i'm sure somebody will fill that market. i don't have a good answer for that. i'm not sure that being on -- no disrespect to your website, but i don't think many senior seens looked at their senator's website. >> i guess we got to promote it. that's helpful. if there are other ways you think we can put in place preventative strategies, that would be helpful. of course, you can over time add to your answer and send us written advice as well. we appreciate that.

i know we are limited on time. i want to ask about -- we know that the do not call registry has been effective in a lot of ways. i would ask you -- apparently in addition to what benefit we get from do not callregistry, consumers will post online. i'm wondering if the ftc would consider -- has considered creating some kind of a message board system or clearinghouse thattin ago gats things about te fraudulent calls. i missed your testimony. maybe you spoke to this. >> it's a fair question. we're constantly evaluating,

re-evaluating what to do with our complaint data and how best to utilize it. it's widely available to law enforcement and law enforcement does use it extensively. we consider the consumer complaints we receive. we receive a great many relating to do not call in any given month we may get 270,000280,000 complaints about -- relating to do not call. we consider them non-public. but that is a fair question. >> thank you very much. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator murphy? >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for allowing me to sit as part of this panel today. we have had a string of these grandparent scams in connecticut along our shoreline, which is the reason i have had some interest in this issue over the past several months. i just want to ask one simple question knowing we are short on time and it's probably for mr. campbell. that's about this issue of how

you get information from local law enforcement. there have been some information compiled by this committee that suggests that local law enforcement doesn't know where to report these scams when they get word of it. they often aren't reporting into the databases. 9 million is a stunning number but imagine what the actual number is if local law enforcement was sending the information. given the fact that you are prosecuting where you see volume given your limited resources, it seems like an imperative to make sure that local law enforcement is communicating up the chain to the databases and to the fbi, to the ftc whethn they get information about the scams. what's the status in both of your opinion as to the flowing of information from local law enforcement and to federal law enforcement and what can we do to make it better? >> sure. this is an area that for years

we have worked at many levels to have that dialogue with law enforcement in regard to the scams. we work with associations like the iacp and so forth in regard to this issue. we also have what is now called operation well spring which is coordinated out of the ic3. that involves passing these violations to our field offices across the country. the data is analyzed to determine if it can be investigated and prosecuted federally. if not, that information is passed to our state and local officers for them to review and determine what action they can take. that has increased that information sharing both ways. so we're working to promote that initiative more to encourage that type of dialogue to drive together against this threat. >> yes. thank you. we work extensively with local police departments and sheriff's offices to encourage them both to contribute data to -- into

the system and also to use the system. we engage in hands-on training for them as well so that they can access it in a smart and intelligent way. >> i think we need to do better. appreciate the efforts. mr. rupy, i think industry can be involved in this as well if this is a matter of dissemina disseminating information. it's in your interest to make sure that all this information gets to the places it can be actionable. this seems to be a perfect example of a place where limited public resources can be paired with potentially more bountiful private resources to make sure local law enforcement reports all of the relevant information. thank you very much, mr. chairman, for allowing me the time. >> mr. rupy, what can telephone company do to help a senior citizen when they call and say they have been hammered? >> that is an excellent question, chairman.

that's 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. as an example, where a 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 consumer so that they can either -- >> such as? you could have the technology that if a spoofed number comes up that somehow it alerts the customer? >> that is actually the ultimate goal of the steer that i was talking about in my oral and written testimony, mr. chairman. essentially, the end game of that technology is that you will

have an awe thenty indication between the person being called and 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 the standards in order to implement that technology into the network. >> if you could have heard all the hearings that we have and just to complicate matters, a lot of them don't originate in this country. they're from a foreign country. that means you 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 if it's spoofed, that would be extremely helpful in the protection of senior citizens indeed protection of customers. because of the vote that is now occurring, i want to say that i want to bring to the table retailers who offer the services to send money such as western union, money gram and the various cards. we're 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. we don't like this. and the american people don't like it. so we want them to come and help work with us and with law

enforcement and the agencies. the regulatory agencies. i'm 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. we are going to get at the bottom of this. thank you all. the meeting is adjourned. tomorrow a panel discussion with an editorial team including allen greenblatt, louis jacobson.

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have none. i'm a very partisan kind of person. but the reason i almost have none is i think you all do a tremendous job of showing just about every side of everything the way people look at things in d.c. and elsewhere. i take my hat off to you. thank you very much. >> continue to let us know what you think about the programs you are watching. screeria -- niger- with live coverage of the u.s. house on c-span and the senate on c-span2, here we compliment that coverage by showing you the most relevant congressional hearings and public affairs events. on weekends, we are the home to american history tv with programs that tell our nation's story, including the civil war's

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randall coleman said investigating are a top priority for the agency. this is about an hour and 25 minutes.