Tester Tears into Scam Callers Targeting Montana Seniors, Presses Officials to Better Protect Montanans from Fraudsters

Senator during Senate Banking Committee hearing: “How can the consumer stay ahead of this?”

As part of his continued work defending Montanans from scams and fraud, U.S. Senator Jon Tester pressed officials yesterday on their work to protect Montana’s seniors from scam callers during a Senate Banking Committee hearing.

Tester began his remarks to the Committee by highlighting the high rate that servicemembers, veterans, and their families are targeted for scams and fraud: “I [serve] on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee. I get contacts [usually] from family members of a member who has been scammed. And when we’ve reported it to law enforcement, law enforcement has come in and they’ve refused to acknowledge the fact that they’ve been scammed. How often does that kind of situation happen?”

As Chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Tester is leading the effort to reinstate criminal penalties for predatory, unaccredited veterans’ claims representatives who charge veterans unauthorized fees while helping them file Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) disability claims with his Governing Unaccredited Representatives Defrauding (GUARD) VA Benefits Act. He also led a Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing in 2023 to examine fraud and scams targeting veterans and their families, and identify mechanisms to hold bad actors accountable.

“I’m here to tell you that every day I either get an email or a phone call from somebody who is trying to screw me out of my money,” Tester concluded, pressing officials on whether there is additional action consumers and banks should take to curb phone scammers: “How can the consumer stay ahead of this? And, by the way, the same thing for the financial folks. The banks, the credit unions, all of those folks. How can they stay ahead of it too?”

Tester has taken the lead on stopping the scourge of robocalls. Last year, Tester pressed officials on their failure to prevent robocalls and ripped phone scammers as “clowns” who need to “go get a damn job” during a Senate Commerce Committee hearing. He also grilled Federal Trade Commission (FTC) nominees on robocalls and phone scams during a Senate Commerce Committee hearing while arguing that the problem has “gotten worse.”

In 2019, Tester’s TRACED Act was signed into law – legislation aimed at cutting down on unwanted calls by requiring phone companies to authenticate incoming calls, and requiring them to allow consumers to block illegitimate ones at no extra cost. It also directs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to make a plan for blocking calls that can’t be authenticated, and boosts the FCC’s enforcement powers to crack down on violators. In addition to the TRACED Act, Tester also helped introduce the Robocall Enforcement Enhancement Act.