FTC going after more scammers after closing major loophole; will help protect seniors

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will now be going after more scammers after it closed a significant loophole in the law.

The agency says the expanded scope of the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) will be of particular benefit to seniors, who disproportionately fall victim to fake tech support calls …

Existing telemarketing rules

The law already puts in place a number of requirements for anyone making unsolicited sales calls. Telemarketers must:

• transmit their telephone number and, if possible, their name, to your caller ID service
• tell you right away what seller or charitable organization they represent and that the call is a sales call or a charitable solicitation
• disclose all material information about the goods or services they’re offering and the terms of the sale
• get your permission to charge you and to use a particular account number

They cannot:

• call before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. in your local time
• be deceptive or abusive or lie about any terms of their offer
• ask you to pay:
  • with a cash-to-cash wire transfer (ex. Western Union and MoneyGram)
  • by giving the PIN from a cash reload card (ex. MoneyPak and Vanilla Reload)
  • by asking for your bank account information to create a type of check that you never see or sign, called a “remotely created payment order”

Major loophole now closed

The rules used to apply only when someone called you. What scammers are increasingly doing is using online ads and email campaigns to try to persuade victims to call them. One common example is a banner ad made to look like a computer error message.

Many tech support scams try to trick consumers into calling them by using pop-up alerts and other tactics that claim that consumers’ computers or other devices are infected with malware or other problems in order to sell them bogus tech support services. Tech support scams often want the caller to pay for tech support services they don’t need, to fix a problem that doesn’t exist.

The rule has now been updated to include inbound calls.

The Federal Trade Commission has approved final amendments to its Telemarketing Sales Rule that will extend the rule’s coverage to so-called “inbound” telemarketing calls made for technical support services. These would include calls made by consumers to companies pitching technical support services through advertisements or direct mail solicitations.

Although scammers can be criminally prosecuted for fraud, the TSR enables action to be taken against them even when victims don’t fall for the scam. Scammers also ask for payment via methods which cannot be reversed, and now even asking for one of these payment methods will be illegal.

The FTC says that the change will help protect seniors in particular.

As the FTC recently reported to Congress, last year consumers 60 and older were five times more likely than younger people to report losing money on a tech support scam. Older consumers reported more than $175 million in losses to tech support scams last year.

You can play your part by helping educate non-techy friends and family members, warning them of the dangers of fake tech support calls.

Photo by Keith Tanner on Unsplash