{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.scott.senate.gov/media-center/press-releases/sen-scott-praises-law-enforcement-calls-for-innovation-education-to-protect-consumers-from-fraud-and-scams/", "Sen. Scott Praises Law Enforcement, Calls for Innovation, Education to Protect Consumers from Fraud and Scams", "2024-09-12", "2024", "2024-09", "Republican", "Senate", "SC", "Tim Scott", "S001184", "www.scott.senate.gov", "timscott", "https://www.scott.senate.gov/media-center/press-releases/jsf/jet-engine:press-list", "scraper", "WASHINGTON \u2014 At today\u2019s U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs hearing on consumer fraud and scams, Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the committee\u2019s top Republican, praised law enforcement for their tireless efforts to combat financial crime and protect Americans in communities across the country. Senator Scott also acknowledged state financial regulators and financial institutions\u2019 work to educate consumers against different types of scams.\n\nSenator Scott thanked Carri Grube Lybarker, Administrator of the South Carolina Department of Consumer Affairs, for testifying and providing her expertise on how we can adapt and innovate to improve our technology, education, and other approaches to stopping these crimes.\n\nSenator Scott\u2019s opening remarks as delivered:\n\nThank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here today\u2013all the witnesses.\n\nFirst and foremost, I want to start today by thanking our law enforcement partners at the state and the federal level.\n\nEvery day, our law enforcement members work tirelessly to combat crime\u2014including financial crime \u2013 and to protect and defend victims in every community around the country.\n\nAnd that\u2019s exactly what the \u201cfrauds\u201d and \u201cscams\u201d are. They are crimes, and the criminals who commit these crimes should be punished accordingly.\n\nI also want to acknowledge our regulators, both at the state and the federal level, as well as our financial institutions and companies that work tirelessly to combat and prevent criminal actors from taking advantage of hardworking Americans.\n\nThis includes their critical work educating consumers on the warning signs of popular frauds and scams.\n\nThe first step to stopping fraud is ensuring people are equipped with the tools to recognize the very fraud that so many of us fall victim to.\n\nCriminals are inherently looking to benefit themselves without regard for the wellbeing of others\u2014and certainly without respect of the law.\n\nAnd, unfortunately, criminals often prey on our most vulnerable, which of course would be our seniors.\n\nUnfortunately, it seems almost daily that I hear a horrible story of a hardworking Americans who worked their entire lives forced to come out of retirement after having their savings wiped out by the scams.\n\nMy time as the Ranking Member of the Aging Committee allowed me to learn a great deal more about these types of crimes.\n\nIn particular, the severe detriment they have on our nation\u2019s seniors.\n\nThat is why I advocated to holding hearings directly focusing on these types of fraud and issued an annual \u201cFraud Book\u201d to bring about more awareness of these scams.\n\nToday, I look forward to hearing from the panel of witnesses in front of us today so that we can understand the new and emerging solutions to this epidemic.\n\nAnd it is my hope that this will not simply turn into a blame game of who\u2019s responsible\u2013 whether it\u2019s financial industries whether it\u2019s the scammers. We need all hands on deck to solve the problem that we face today and to help protect more Americans from the challenges that they have once their savings are gone.\n\nI believe, frankly, that part of the solution starts with education.\n\nAnd through my time in Congress, I\u2019ve continued to promote financial education and financial literacy, because those as my top priorities allows us to address the very challenges that so many Americans face.\n\nIf we can help more Americans access financial education, we can help them have the tools to both protect themselves, as well as achieve financial freedom.\n\nThis is why I am so pleased to have Carri Grube Lybarker with us today. She\u2019s the Administrator of the South Carolina Department of Consumer Affairs before us today and she will share her perspective and some of the things you\u2019ve been doing to help combat these challenges.\n\nI love this \u201cditch the pitch.\u201d Sometimes the fewer words you use the more you actually say \u2013 the more effective you are at communicating. And I will say in a world that is unfortunately moving at a faster pace, the longer we have to listen sometimes the less we actually absorb. And so, \u201cditch the pitch\u201d gives us at home in South Carolina an opportunity to learn ways to reduce the impact of scams and frankly, to detect them quickly, and perhaps avoid them all together.\n\nOur nation\u2019s seniors are not the only ones affected by these crimes, and these criminals are looking for new targets every single day.\n\nCriminals are unfortunately smart and agile.\n\nJust like we are working to use new technologies to drive efficiencies and choice\u2014criminals are using new technologies to pad their own pockets at someone else\u2019s expense.\n\nThat\u2019s why we must adapt and continually work to innovate. We must also work to educate and combat criminals using these same technologies for ill gain.\n\nAnd let\u2019s not forget what we heard in February when this committee examined check fraud, old technologies are also being used to exploit in an increasing frequent manner.\n\nI\u2019ll close like I started.\n\nI am grateful for the work our law enforcement, our regulators, and our financial institutions \u2013 what they\u2019re doing together to combat and prevent financial crime.\n\nAnd I am really proud of a lot of the good work being done to better educate people of all ages on the frauds and scams they face.\n\nToday, I hope we hear other ideas on how we can improve our technology, education, and other approaches to stopping these crimes\u2014all the while making sure we are not incentivizing new, or additional, criminal acts.\n\nThank you.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:46:43Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.scott.senate.gov/media-center/press-releases/sen-scott-praises-law-enforcement-calls-for-innovation-education-to-protect-consumers-from-fraud-and-scams/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.917396206408739, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}