Political Quotes

“Mr. President, as Chairman of the Senate Aging Committee, I am delighted to be joined today by my ranking member and good friend, Senator Claire McCaskill, in introducing the Senior$afe Act of 2015, a bill that would put in place a common sense plan to help protect American seniors from financial fraud. According to the GAO, financial fraud targeting older Americans is a growing epidemic that costs seniors an estimated $2.9 billion annually. Protecting seniors from financial exploitation and fraud is one of the top priorities of the Aging Committee. Over the course of the past two and a half years, our Committee has held 15 hearings, six since January, examining how fraudsters find and exploit their victims and what can be done to stop them. The frauds we have highlighted have ranged from the infamous ``Jamaican Lottery Scam,'' that reached its height in 2013, to the notorious IRS phone scam that burst onto the scene this spring, and, more recently, to the shady practices of the pension advance industry. Sadly, not all scammers are strangers to their victims, in too many cases, the senior is exploited by someone he or she knows well. Although the various scams we have examined differ in scope and structure, one factor is common to all--the fraudsters need to gain the trust and active cooperation of their victims. Without this, their schemes would fail. That is why it is so important that seniors recognize as quickly as possible the red flags that signal potential fraud.…”