Today, AARP, Amazon, Google, and Walmart announced the launch of the National Elder Fraud Coordination Center (NEFCC). The NEFCC has a mission to fight elder fraud with the help of law enforcement, industry leaders, government, and academia and will target criminal organization that have taken billions of dollars from older Americans every year.
A press release today said that the NEFCC is the first-ever national effort to bring together resources from the private and public sectors to aid law enforcement in investigating and prosecuting criminal fraud rings targeting older Americans.
The organization will fight against elder fraud by investigating cases from around the country, identifying patterns, and linking smaller cases to larger fraud operations. The findings will help state and federal law enforcement agencies to more efficiently identify cases as they happen and shut down the larger operations to both return stolen assets to victims and prevent future incidents.
According to the organization’s website, the FTC estimates that the overall cost of fraud to older consumers in 2023 may have been as high as $61.5 billion, or $117,000 per minute. In the Protecting Older Consumers report, the FTC notes that the cases included robocalls, tech support scams, deceptive or unfair practices around collecting and selling consumer’s precise location data revealing sensitive locations, and more.
Brady Finta, former FBI Supervisory Special Agent and founder of the San Diego Elder Justice Task Force, will lead the team as CEO of NEFCC.
“Older Americans deserve our best efforts to protect them against the transnational organized crime rings defrauding them. As elder fraud soars, it is clear we need a whole-of-society approach to address this enormous threat. NEFCC is modeled on the success of the FBI San Diego Elder Justice Task Force, proving that coordination across sectors and applying an organized crime lens will lead to arrests, prosecutions and convictions. Importantly, NEFCC brings the private sector to this cause, which can add volumes of intelligence data to pursue justice for victims,” said Finta.
AARP, Amazon, Google and Walmart have committed to sharing resources and collaborating to support the mission of the organization.
“While fraud affects people of all ages, older adults often face the greatest financial losses, putting their retirement security and well-being at risk,” said Kathy Stokes, Director of Fraud Prevention Programs, AARP Fraud Watch Network. “Built on a proven model for delivering results, the National Elder Fraud Coordination Center will play a critical role to address the fraud crisis in our country.”
“At Amazon, we are committed to helping protect consumers from scams worldwide, which includes working collaboratively across the public and private sector to hold scammers accountable,” said Scott Knapp, VP of Worldwide Buyer Risk Prevention, Amazon. “We’re proud to be a founding member of the NEFCC and look forward to this coordination to strengthen our fight against scammers.”
“Online scams are devastating, and the elderly are uniquely vulnerable,” said Halimah DeLaine Prado, General Counsel, Google. “We’ve long believed in not only combating scams but using litigation to hold bad actors accountable. We’re thrilled to build on that commitment by joining our industry peers in this new endeavor to keep some of the most susceptible users safer online.”
“We work hard to keep our customers safe from fraud, and the NEFCC will help us be even more effective and stay ahead of scammers’ continuously evolving tactics,” said Claire Rushton, Senior Director, Investigations, Walmart. “By leveraging cutting-edge technology and industry expertise, we will relentlessly work together to protect those most vulnerable.”
You can learn more about the work of the NEFCC at fightelderfraud.org.