WASHINGTON – Arizona senior Senator Kyrsten Sinema joined a bipartisan group of Senators on the Senate Aging Committee urging the Department of Veterans Affairs to better protect veterans from scams.
“As scammers become more sophisticated in their efforts, it is imperative that VA play an active role in combatting financial exploitation posed by scammers. Veterans and their families have a right to expect that the nation they served will fight to protect them from such unscrupulous tactics,” the Senators wrote.
AARP studies have found veterans are twice as likely as non-veterans to lose money in a scam, and more than 80 percent of veterans report being targeted by a scam related to their veteran status. Currently, the VA does not collect data on veteran-focused scams. Sinema has long worked to protect Arizona seniors and veterans from scams.
Sinema recently led the passage of her bipartisan Protecting Affordable Mortgages for Veterans Act that safeguards veterans from predatory loan practices and helps them more easily access their earned homeowner benefits.
In the U.S. House, Sinema led the passage of the Senior Safe Act and worked with Republican Senator Susan Collins as it passed the Senate and became law in 2018. The Senior Safe Act enables financial institutions to work with law enforcement in order to stop the financial abuse of seniors. Earlier this year, Sinema partnered with Senator Collins again to introduce the bipartisan Senior Security Act, which creates a task force focused on protecting Arizona seniors from financial crimes and scammers, and the bipartisan Anti-Spoofing Penalties Modernization Act, which increases penalties on criminals who use robocalls to harass and defraud.
Read the full text of the letter HERE.