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CfA's July 26, 2024 Newsletter

With your support, Campaign for Accountability is working to expose corruption and hold the powerful accountable.

This Week's Updates:

Senators Push Big Banks on Zelle Fraud
On Tuesday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations held a hearing to discuss the failure of large financial institutions to protect consumers from fraud via Zelle, a digital payments network that is built into many personal banking accounts. A new reportreleased by subcommittee staff suggests that scams and fraud claims involving Zelle are on the rise, but are less likely to be reimbursed than claims on debit or credit cards. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who chaired the hearing, called for stronger customer protections and asked Zelle’s chief administrator to explain why these claims were less likely to be fulfilled. When that witness didn’t provide a clear answer, representatives from major banks argued that the majority of Zelle claims were submitted incorrectly, or were the result of human error rather than actual fraud. Without strong incentives to prevent fraud, though, some banks have fallen behind on their consumer safeguards, and paid miniscule fines for their noncompliant levels of scam activity.

New Report Points to High Infant and Maternal Mortality in States Funding CPCs
Today, a new report from the watchdog group Reproductive Health and Freedom Watch examines the landscape of taxpayer-funded crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) in the United States. Unlike real reproductive health clinics, CPCs push their anti-abortion beliefs on patients and do not offer them quality care – instead, patients are given misinformation about the risks of abortion and treated by unlicensed, unqualified staff. The report, which has not yet been released in full, points out that states funding CPCs clinics also have the highest levels of maternal and infant mortality. In states like Iowa, HHS funds that could have gone to legitimate healthcare providers are being redirected to CPCs, which is an especially devastating policy choice for a state with rising maternal deaths and shrinking access to prenatal care.

In 2020, CfA urged Pennsylvania officials to pull state funding from an organization called Real Alternatives, which channeled money to CPCs that were forbidden to even discuss contraception with patients. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) eventually terminated the contract with Real Alternatives in 2023, cutting it off from taxpayer dollars. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) terminated a similar contract in 2019, following complaints filed by CfA regarding the misuse of funds by CPC operators.

Meta’s Failed “Yahoo Boy” Crackdown
In January, a South Carolina state lawmaker sued Meta over the death of his 17-year-old son, who was blackmailed by a sextortion scammer on one of the company’s platforms. According to the FBI, these scams typically involve an adult using a fake profile to solicit explicit photos or videos from a minor, which are then used to blackmail them into sending money. A large percentage of these scams are carried out by West African cybercriminals called “Yahoo Boys,” because they are known to use Yahoo email addresses.

At least 20 minors are confirmed to have taken their own lives after being targeted by Yahoo Boys; expertsbelieve that the true number of deaths is likely greater, because minors may never tell their families that they have been blackmailed. In June, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported that most underage victims were initially contacted on Instagram or SnapChat, according to CyberTipline data submitted by the companies. Under pressure from lawmakers, Meta announced on Wednesday that it had purged over 60,000 accounts linked to sextortion schemes from its platforms – but a quick fact check by CfA’s Tech Transparency Project shows that Yahoo Boys are still thriving on Facebook. There, scammers make large public groups that are used to buy and sell resources for duping victims, including fake social media accounts, folders full of stolen photographs, and even “scripts” for blackmail. Meta’s failure to remove these public pages should cast serious doubt on its ability or willingness to protect users from sextortion, unless lawmakers force them to invest in more safeguards.

What We're Reading
Iowa abortion ban taking effect as residents flee out of state for care
Elena Kagan calls for better enforcement of Supreme Court’s ethics code
Biden signs bill strengthening oversight of crisis-plagued US Bureau of Prisons after AP reporting

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Be on the lookout for more updates about our work in the upcoming weeks. Thanks again for signing up to be a part of CfA!

Sincerely,

Michelle Kuppersmith
Executive Director, Campaign for Accountability

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