Recently, a friend expressed her frustration to me that the PA Turnpike was dinging her for unpaid tolls on her EZ-Pass account. Immediately recognizing fraud, I cautioned her not to respond but unfortunately, she already had. In a span of just 30 seconds, the first credit card she entered was “rejected” and she promptly entered two other credit cards, both of which were rejected. I told her she was being scammed and advised her to freeze all her credit cards. Minutes after she froze the accounts, she was notified that a fraudulent attempt was made on one of the cards — in California (we live in Pennsylvania).
During my time in the legislature, my office was inundated with calls from constituents who fell victim to these online cybercrimes. In Pennsylvania, we have an outstanding education program for people but limited prevention or even more limited prosecution.
I found that when these crimes/alleged crimes were reported, it was met with an attitude of “let me take the report” knowing full well the agency did not have the resources to respond to the millions of attempts annually.
The lack of a centrally controlled reporting system with enforcement powers as well as due to the small dollar amount (small compared to trillions of dollars in deficits), makes the victims of these crimes even more vulnerable.
The hacking of national databases of personal data as well as the impact of organized crime and sophisticated data harvesting, makes the average person much more vulnerable to cyberattacks and fraud.
This type of criminal behavior requires a federal solution with a centralized enforcement mechanism to thwart the activities of these cyberthieves.
Every second, Americans are falling victim to online scams — phishing attacks, identity theft, fake job offers, fraudulent charities, and more. This digital deception is not just targeting strangers on the internet; it’s hitting our friends and neighbors in our own communities. No one is safe from these attacks.
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