On this special holiday episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Colleen Tressler of the Federal Trade Commission and Corey Carlisle of the ABA Foundation join co-hosts Evan Sparks and Joan Gregory Saenz to explore the dark side of Valentine’s Day: online romance scams.
Updated from “lonely hearts” letter scams and leveraging the power of the internet to increase scale, these scams accounted for $220 million in fraud in 2016, preying on victims’ affection to bilk them out of cash. Reports of online dating scams to the FBI have tripled since 2012.
Tressler and Carlisle share common red flags for the scams and explain how consumers should respond if they have already sent money. They also provide tips and resources that banks can use to educate customers about these scams, including the infographic that the ABA Foundation and the FTC recently released.
If you can’t see the audio player above, click here to listen to this week’s episode.
In this episode:
Senior Project Manager
Federal Trade Commission
Executive Director
ABA Foundation
Editor-in-Chief
ABA Banking Journal
VP, Congressional
Relations, ABA
