>> the committee will come to order. good morning. today the special committee on aging iscial releasing its updated 2020 fraud book. it lists the top ten scams that have been reported to our over t committee over the past year. the good news is that the irs impersonation scam, the top scae reported to the committee for rs five consecutive years has fallen off dramatically.ll ity. used to be number one.one, now it's number seven.c still a problem but public awareness has certainly helped to decrease the prevalence of that scam. unfortunately, the social security impersonation scam, the topic of this morning's hearing, has risen to take its place. now, reports of the ssa scam bae barely registered as recently as 2017, but then it began to takef off, cracking the top ten scams reported to our committee's fraudfrau hotline in 2018 and becoming the number one reported scam last year as showed on the chart displayed on the monitors. this scam has resulted in $38 million in reported losses to americans in 2019 alone. i suspect that's just the tip oe the iceberg.to because many seniors are too embarrassed to report their loss or don't even knowow who to tur to. the emotional and psychologicall toll for those who have lost hard-earned life savings are beyond measure. we will hear today from michelle anderson who has been a victim of this ruthless scheme and i di want to personally thank michelle foror her willingness come forward and share her story. because of her willingness to d so, i am certain that there will be other, older americans who now know to just hang up the phone when they are called by somebody who is asking them for money or gift cards and pretending to be from the social security administration. we're also very fortunate to have other terrific witnesses with us today, and who are working very hard to combat thi scam and i will be introducing them at the appropriate time. typically the scam begins with an unsolicited robo call with a spoofeded caller i.d. falsely displaying the social security administration as the source ofa the call.ll now naturally, most of us if we see on caller i.d. that the we social security administration is calling us, we are going to answer the phone. the fraudster making the call will attempt to scare the victi by claiming that his or her social security number has been suspended due to suspicious ity activity, deceiving the victim soso that he or she will do as instructed without question. now, my own 92-year-old mother received five of these social security administration scam scm calls on her cell phone.nately fortunately, she wasn't taken in. she knew to call me, but they ye were sor clever and so specificc telling her that her number hadn beeng her compromised, had bee to commit fraud in texas.fraud there were so many details that she wisely chose to check with me to see if there could be any truth inin it. but that's how clever and ruthless these criminals are. the scammer then tries to isolate the victim so no one can warn him or her of the scam and break the spell. finally, criminals claim that e the only way the victim can resolve the problem is to provide sensitive financial ancl information over the phone and transfer thousands of dollars to them as quickly as possible. the speed and anonimity of gifta cards have made them the emp scammer's current mamt method of choice. in the dire nature of the victim's situation, scammers often work in teams to rs impersonate the local law enforcement, irs or other federal officials. in one particularly outranlgs case that we will hear about this morning, a criminal claimef to be the the head of the drug r enforcementat administration anv evenen suggested to his victim that she verify his identity byl looking up hisoo name and phone number at the agency online. to keep their victims under their spell, scammers will demand that they cooperate with their fake investigation by the government or face severe fines or even jail time. they also attempt to isolate the victim by keeping him or her one the phone, uninterrupted for rue hours ord even days at a time ad by instructing them not to tell anybody about what is going on. they'll cite the confidentiality of the investigation. in a recent case reported by "the wall street journal" an oncology nurse in new york was o instructed to leave work without notice, check in to a hotel and stay on the phone for nearly 50e hours.t coached through a series of transactions at her bank and credit union, she lost almost $340,000 to scammers over three days.vparticularly older americans who are more likely to be the targets, is key to defeating the scam. in today's hearing we hoped learn more about how these fraud stirred's entrapped are victims as well as what the social security administration has done and plans to do to get the word out to the public, to consumer groups, to businesses and to law enforcement at every level. we will also look at what should be done in response. in that area i in that area, i'm pleased to note the late-breaking development that the social security administration working with thehe office of the inspecl general and the department of justice has recently filed civil suits against and for temporary restraining orders in cases duas against five companies and three individuals. that iss finally progress. i also look forward to asking theth inspector general about n investment activity to stop thee these harmful thefts.eciate i appreciate all of our witnesses in joining in this ho effort. heari my hope is that our hearing elp today will help heighten public awareness about this scam because the best way for us to prevent this scam from ever again robbing seniors of their hard-earned savings is to prevent the scam from happening in the first place. thank you. i'm now pleased to turn to our r ranking member, senator casey, for his opening statement. fo >> chairmanr hi collins, thank . very much. holding this hearing today to discuss social security impersonation scams as everyonef knows we're in the middle ofor very important proceedings on the senate. at the same time for americans t who are worried about their loved ones being scammed out of their hard-earned savings, our efforts here and the efforts oft others too stop con artists andt fraudsters must be taken just as seriously. it's for this reason i'm pleased that the aging committee is taking on this topic as the mini first one we examine in the yean 2020. the social security impersonation scam is an plain imposter scam, plain and simplee however in this case, the imposter diabolically is exploiting a public good, a benefit paid for and earned by hardworking americans we need to be concerned for federal ies departments and agencies that are tasked with serving all of us. just last week, as we were of my preparing for this s hearing, o. of my staffers receive this had message from social security imposters. >> this call is from the department of social security administration.adminis the reason this call is to inform you that there is legal enforcement actions filed on sec your name and social security number and involved in a crime.r suspend your social security numbermmedia on an immediate ba. so call us back at the earliest possible before we begin legal . proceedings. >> you can tellll>> from just t brief example how when using that highly charged language tot get your hiattention, anyone cod be a victim of this crime.on one thing we need to be focused on, of course, is tracking people down, prosecuting them and throwing themem in jail. but we will to talk about ways n to prevent it. this that's the purpose of this hearing. my staff member recognized this for what it was, thankfully, with you but not all americans aree immersed in this issue. today, we're here to make clear that no one from the united states government, no one from our government will ever make these typesthe of threats in so ways as senator collins talked k about,ed we've made some progre on the irs version of this, by warning people what the irs would not do.irs woul we have to do the same in this . case. all americans, especially sit se seniors, need to be aware of this. i visit senior centers in my la home state of i pennsylvania i t bringhe copies of the report wi me. every single individual who wants a copy goes home with oneh it's a real best seller at r senior centers.th this year, these same seniors will be going home with a poster that's inserted in the back. this poster which is not huge but you get a sense of the size of it. that gives people a lot of information that our committee l prepared.ther we're grateful, senator collins and i are, that our staff helpew us with those. this poster will be held up by the proverbial magnets on rs or refrigerators or other ways to remind folks about this scam.not public awareness alone is not we enough. we'll be hearing about will thos efforts today. t it's for this reason i join senator collins and those on the committee sending letters to th social security administration, inspector general for social security, the elder justice committee and trade commission asking for help. i know all these entities are eager to help to engage the sen private sector must also be involved. i have a bill with senator moras that will help banks, wire transfer companies, retailers tn train their employees to spot a scam and to stop it before money exchanges hands.obj we're trying to get it through a the senate aste well. we know that con artists and s u scammers should not beld allowe to steal money from our loved ty ones, nor should they be allowe to steal our confidence in verne government itself. we've got a lotwe of work to do. i look forward to hearing from our witnesses today and the proposals they have. again i look forward to working with chairman collins, my colleagues on the committee and others in the senate to stop s theseen imposters in their trac. thank you, chairman collins. >> thank you. i wantwant to welcome senator mcsally and senator hawley to our hearing today.senator they've been very active members of our committee.ing this and we appreciate them taking the time during this very busy . time for all of us. i now want to turn to our witnesses, and i'm very pleased to welcome our first panel. we have the commissioner of the social security administration, andrew saul. he was sworn in as commissioner in june of 2019 and he 20 immediately began taking a leadership role in the federal p response to theon social securi impersonation scam. he has a longstanding commitment to protecting and improving security for older americans, having previously served for nine years as chairman of the federal retirement thrift investment board which overseasl the federal employee retirement system. our second witness is dr. gayle ennis, inspector general ennis was sworn in as ig in january of 2019 after practicing law for pr more than two decades in securities litigation and banking enforcement. she has greatly the focus and we're grateful to have two sucht dedicate dedicated public servants with us this morning.>> commissioner saul, we'll start with you. >> thank you very much, senators, for welcoming us here. as you said, as everybody said so far,, the publicity, the education is the most important thing. by having thisisfurt hearing i e can further that goal.ommitt committee chair collins, ranking member casy and members of the committee, i am andrew saul, commissioner of social security. thank you for inviting medrew s today to talk about the scam scm crisis. h everyone here has probably received one of these scam cally and too many people have been victimized and lost money.ney. it is a national problem. at first we were not doing enough to prevent these scams. it caught us off guard.agency americans trust our agency and our employees and we cannot allow swindlers to erode that trust. in my first office visits, employees told me how these scams harm americans and our service. we have received more and more reports from people who have e been trick byby or are worried about these calls. americans want our help on this crisis and we also need to do s critical social security work, k likee processing benefit applications and making sure we pay people the right amount. within a few months of getting here, i made fighting these scams and helping our front linp offices a top priority. with inspector general ennis' help, we started fictioning things. we've been working closelye havd oig and deputy commissioner black to lead our efforts to curb the scams and see what mors we could do. now i believe we are on the e right track. we are taking action at the national level. the help front line employees provide better service to their local community, employees like. mr. groshan, a district manager ma in maine, who will speak to you about his office's experiences e last year before we had taken ol this problem. let me tell you you some of the things we are doing.anyo anyone who comes to our home ll page will see a bold red banner with scam information just liken the one you see on the screen in this room.room we are. working to add messages to the pages people visit most often. here you see these. this is up from our actual web page on our home page.online we develop an online scam to ad help oig to get the informations it needs to stop these crooks.mi oig received over 100,000 written reports. we over haul our hotline and improve your numbers. callers can hear the scam and we how to report them. we work with oig and major phone carriers and block calls. education is key. we are using e-mail, television radio prints and social media including youtube, facebook and twitter. last week we began rolling out l e-mails to all 47 million my soi social security account alholdec we are working to add a scam awareness message to the outside of our envelope which will reach millions of people. i make public service we announcements that we released this month to tv and radio outlets across the country. i did an interview with aarp that focused heavily on the scams and aarp with its 38 million members. we appreciate that walmart work with us and oig to display our s message and over 2,000 of the gr store's nationwide and we are recruiting other organizations anddagencies agencies. we have issued two recent national press releases regarding the scam.of last month we provided every member of congress and i urge message lp us get thee out. everyone needs to hear this message. if a callerer says there is a problem with your social security number or mber oaccoung up.de don't profd them money for personal information. report it at oig.ssa.gov. crooks likely target another age agency just as they move from irs to ssa. our country needs broad nationas solutions.s. wewewe all share responsibility fight the series threat to the public. if you havec. beenen tricked by these scams, you are not alone. these criminals are very good at what they do and you should note feel embarrassed or ashamed if you are a victim. you can help protect other people by coming forward and an reporting what you know to oig. i thank this committee for com holding thismi hearing to eleva the visibility of these scams and for working on solutions. i would be happy of course to answer any questions. >> thank you very much commissioner. inspector general ines. >> thank you for inviting me to raise public awareness. americans have beenetter pa pla robocalls and live callers who y pretended to be government employees. americans fallen victims to these scams because they fear for their families lie she had no one to care for her newborn if hee went to prison.wr a 75 years old californian who waseventu harassed. he wired in mail cashier's chec. of $260,000. these scams impacted social security ability to deliver its vital service timely and damagen the trust of social security. we work with thepartm justice an department and other law enforcementave agencies and wor with ssa to reach as many people as we can with our educational i message. i am pleased tosage. announce ts a result of ourof investigativ effort, the department of erday justicein filed two civil complaints yesterday requesting temporary restraining orders and other erelieves. we are hopeful the other temporary retraining order will be granted.thes these companies known as gatewae carrier facilitate the delivery of millions of fraudulent callst everyday to the united states telephone system and ultimately to the personal phones of victi victims throughout the united states. these gateway carriers were notified repeatedly they're passing the scam call.eds of they allowed hundreds of u.s. millions of scam calls into the u.s. telephone system.in the they earned a lot of money in the process. profiting off of scam victims. the civil action is the result ofofclose months of investigati. the u.s. postal inspection service is a partner and other agencies including homeland gene social security investigations and the secretet service. the fcc and the fcc provided data to support the vestiga investigation.i i am pa particularly proud of o role. ourur agents and council advocav for this top down approach to to combat the stands. we took the lead to g the investigating the gateway care and played a pivotal role. we conducted phone call routing into countless victims in the thought of building the government's case. perhaps more importantly we need to ensure we get others to fillt that void.we c we continue to conduct these and other scam related i investigations. i can't share many details because otherer investigations ongoing but we'll update you asa thes event unfolds. all of our investigative efforts, i continue to believe t raising public awareness is the way.ost effective no matter how many ho investigations we conduct andw a how many scammers we put out of business, they'll always be new around the corner.you c you can learn about our public outreach efforts in details. scam is a broader problem than social security or igig can cooi address on itsna own.compre we need an approach that harness resources.age therefore we encouraged congress to consider a way to stand upon the trade act. to see congress could also grant access to certain agencies allow them to use seize funds for victim's restitution or consumer pr y protection outreach. thank you for holding the you hearing today. in your involvement increase attention to this issue and hela us move closer to a sive comprehensive solution. thank you again for inviting meo to testify, i am happy to answen any questions.s. > thank you very much. >> let me begin my comments by h thanking both of you for your efforts, i will tell you that when this committee first arted started becoming aware of this scam two years ago, we naturallc contacted the social security administration and the ig's office and frankly we had a get difficult time getting them to pay attention and realize how important it was for the agency to be front and center in communicating with bi beneficiaries. in this case, i am going to start them by thanking both of you. you are the ones who have the access to the people who are most likely to be the victims and the means to meet them, suc as through dwrour messages to those online and social security accounts the public service.d messages and the enforcement for which i think is so important. i want to talk a little bit itt about thebi role of these gatew telecommunication companies. in reading about the complaints that were filed just yesterday, i learned that the companies have been charged funneled 700 million calls through, that were scam calls. that's absolutely outrageous. they'refr makingom money from to fra fraudsters. you talk the tremendous outreach that you are doing and general working on this particular case.i' i would like each of you to come and what is the reaction of the telecommunication companies when you go to them and a