Last month, Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-CA) questioned witnesses on recent banking scams during a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 We're going to have questions now, seven minute rounds.
00:03 We've also just begun a vote.
00:05 So Senator Johnson has gone to vote.
00:08 When he comes back, I'll go to vote.
00:10 But we're going to keep the hearing going.
00:12 And I understand that Senator Butler has another obligation
00:17 she needs to attend.
00:18 So I'm going to call on her first.
00:21 >> I so appreciate the flexibility,
00:24 Chairman Blumenthal.
00:25 And thank you so much for having this hearing.
00:28 And it's just another demonstration
00:31 of your career of public service as a consumer advocate,
00:33 really showing up for the American people.
00:36 Thank you all for coming here.
00:38 Ms. Duvall, Ms. Humphreys for sharing,
00:42 you know what I think a lot more people have gone through
00:47 and tend to keep to themselves because they're ashamed.
00:51 They think that how could they have fallen for this?
00:55 But the fact that the two of you have come here
00:57 representing such a diversity of both experience,
01:02 geography and community representation
01:05 helps to give a face to the vulnerability of all communities
01:10 to be targeted towards these scams.
01:13 And even when they are trusted tools that show up
01:16 on the device that we love the most,
01:19 they are tools that should be interrogated
01:22 and we should be making sure as public servants
01:25 that we are doing everything to put in place
01:27 the protections that you need.
01:30 Ms. Duvall, I would love to start with you
01:32 just as a fellow HBCU graduate,
01:35 making sure to lift up your courage
01:40 of sharing what happened to you
01:42 and I'm sure is not unfamiliar to others
01:46 that you might know on campus
01:49 or in and around your community.
01:51 You spent, it seems like a considerable amount of time
01:55 trying to with your mom sort of figure out a way
01:58 to communicate, to over communicate
02:01 and to communicate more.
02:03 Can you just share a little bit,
02:05 I read your written submitted testimony
02:08 even as I missed the, came in on a final bit
02:10 of what you were offering.
02:12 Could you share just a little bit more how you
02:16 or what you were able to find out relative to how
02:20 these kinds of scams are directed towards
02:25 or were directed towards you and others on your campus,
02:30 trying to get to that sort of student vulnerability
02:34 population and if there was any wider exposure
02:38 to this kind of scam on your campus?
02:40 - Yes, of course and thank you, Senator Butler.
02:43 I really appreciate that and also HBCU.
02:46 (laughing)
02:47 - Shout 'em out, girl, shout 'em out.
02:50 But yeah, I got the email first from my school account.
02:54 I don't know how they got my school email accounts
02:56 and I recently learned today actually
02:58 that six other students have been scammed
03:00 the exact same way that I have.
03:01 And with that, I guess they at first,
03:06 they email us with the opening,
03:07 presenting themselves as one of our
03:09 actually head research professors
03:11 but ending with the @gmail.com kind of thing
03:14 and then they ask us to go to another email address
03:17 to keep in contact with them
03:20 and that's when they start spoofing our payroll
03:23 at ncat.edu email address and that's how they further
03:26 send those fictitious checks and then ask
03:30 for that cell payments and things of that nature.
03:33 Does that answer your question?
03:33 - Yes, it does and it leads me right to my next one.
03:36 Thank you for answering it so well, Ms. Hand.
03:38 I would assume just in the ways in which Ms. Duval
03:42 was just talking about the sophisticated nature,
03:45 the evolution of these scams
03:48 and in particular directed towards young people
03:52 and in some instances, young people of color,
03:54 HBCU campuses, I wonder if in your research
03:58 or in your engagement in the advocacy space,
04:02 if there's any, or advocacy and research space,
04:04 if there's any information that you might have
04:07 in terms of how much of this is directed
04:11 towards young people and students
04:15 given the financial vulnerability of most young people,
04:19 particularly when headed towards the end of the school year.
04:22 - Thank you for the question.
04:26 I can show a little bit of light.
04:28 So in addition to testing products,
04:30 we also regularly engage consumers
04:34 and do representative surveys of thousands of consumers
04:38 across the country so we're able to get a sense
04:40 of various demographics and what you do see
04:43 is that the more vulnerable consumers tend to be targeted
04:48 and so you do see younger consumers
04:52 and you also see, frankly, the other end of the spectrum,
04:56 older consumers who, self-reporting,
05:00 that they are victims of fraud,
05:03 various kinds of induced scams in these instances.
05:07 - Thank you for that.
05:08 And Ms. Tatar, is that the right way to pronounce that?
05:12 - Close enough, Tatar.
05:14 - Well, I mean, as the woman with a P, H, and a Z
05:17 in her name, I'd like to get it right.
05:20 Ms. Tatar, thank you for that.
05:23 And is there, or Mr. Braille,
05:25 would you add any additional insights or information
05:29 from your perspective to this line of questioning
05:31 relative to vulnerable communities,
05:34 in particular students, particular time of year?
05:38 There's so many commencements that are happening right now
05:42 and I think this is a time where we have the opportunity
05:45 to get folks who are watching the five people
05:48 who watch C-SPAN, but to really be able to get students
05:51 to understand that they are a targeted audience
05:56 and group of victims, particularly in this moment.
05:59 So I'd open the question to both of you as well
06:02 and I'd love to start with Ms. Tatar.
06:04 - Thank you.
06:05 My experience has been that students
06:08 are probably more often targeted.
06:10 You'll see those numbers in greater numbers
06:12 with that population, but the older generation,
06:16 they're suffering larger losses,
06:19 as significantly larger losses.
06:21 And the trouble with that is they're losing money
06:25 and they're not able to make that money back
06:27 because they're retired or they're losing
06:29 significant amounts of their retirement income.
06:32 I do agree it's time for graduation.
06:36 There are a lot of kids looking for jobs right now
06:38 and they are, through social engineering,
06:42 they are targeted very, by the hordes, yes, absolutely.
06:47 - And just to add on to what Ms. Tatar had to say,
06:53 certainly we know that fraudsters look for
06:56 specific vulnerabilities and specific target audiences
07:00 that they go after.
07:01 And financial distress is one that we see very often.
07:04 And so when we think of students, we often think of
07:07 the stress that they're beginning to feel
07:08 as student debt starts to cut into their,
07:10 what they have to spend money on.
07:14 And so, as in Ms. Duvall's case,
07:17 the offer of employment looks very promising
07:21 to someone who is thinking about having to start
07:23 paying those student loans off.
07:25 And the scammers know this and they target their scripts
07:29 to prey on people who might be vulnerable in that way.
07:33 So they have a script, literally,
07:35 for every potential audience from older people
07:38 to younger people to everyone in between.
07:40 - Thank you all again for being here
07:44 and for offering your testimony here.
07:48 I think it's just such a critically important issue.
07:51 And I think it was noted, Ms. Humphreys,
07:54 in the end of your statement,
07:56 the fact that this is a product that is majority owned
08:01 by the largest financial institutions
08:04 really does make it imperative for the,
08:08 not only the sharing of your stories,
08:09 but the action of our subcommittee and Congress
08:14 to do everything that we can
08:16 to protect the American consumer
08:19 of every bit of the age and experience spectrum.
08:23 So thank you all for being here.
08:24 And thank you, Mr. Chair.