With financial payment platforms used more regularly to exchange cash between individuals, scammers have become more creative in using them to defraud users. Today’s guest is John Breyault. John is the National Consumers League Vice President of Public Policy, Telecommunications, and Fraud. As the director of Fraud.org, John is a nationally recognized expert in fraud, with more than 17 years of experience in educating consumers in advocating for stronger consumer protections at the federal, state, and local levels. He is the author of Fraud.org’s monthly Fraud Alert emails and NCL’s bi-weekly Data Insecurity Digest. He has testified before Congress, federal regulatory agencies, and state legislatures dozens of times about fraud related topics. He is quoted regularly in the press about fraud including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.

Show Notes:

• [1:10] - John shares his background and current roles with the National Consumers League.
• [3:02] - John has been working in consumer advocacy for over 20 years.
• [4:27] - What are peer to peer payment platforms? Venmo is the most commonly used.
• [5:53] - The features of peer to peer payment platforms that are attractive to users are also attractive to scam artists.
• [7:46] - John shares the trends in what scammers have been using to get money through Western Union, Green Dot cards, and gift cards.
• [9:32] - More needs to be done to make security a priority.
• [11:09] - John explains the difference between credit card transactions and peer to peer payment platforms.
• [12:16] - With peer to peer platform fraud, banks can’t do anything about it due to a loophole in the law.
• [13:38] - When this type of fraud is much more painful to experience than credit card fraud.
• [14:44] - A huge appeal to these platforms is that they are free. But security needs to be improved.
• [17:09] - There are a couple of regulations related to the connection of Venmo to a bank account.
• [19:19] - The responsibility has been put on users and victims to monitor and fight back against fraud.
• [21:47] - Scammers are very adept at creating a sense of urgency.
• [23:38] - John shares an example of how this sense of urgency can fool anyone.
• [24:34] - Cryptocurrency is the next focus of attention for those trying to prevent fraud.
• [26:40] - These trends tend to follow a pattern.
• [28:09] - One of the problems in tracking scam trends is the way data is collected.
• [29:23] - We need to change how we talk about fraud victims.
• [31:28] - Scams are run as a business these days, which make them much more convincing than in the past.
• [34:15] - With most overseas scams, the likelihood of getting your money back is slim.
• [35:50] - As a business, think about how you can make peer to peer payment apps as safe as possible?
• [37:35] - John shares an example of Venmo transactions that are protected and those that are not.
• [40:07] - A legitimate business will accept payment in other ways than only peer to peer apps.

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