Common Ground Conference

November 19, 2014

Seattle, Washington

Keynote Remarks of Commissioner Terrell McSweeny

Good morning. Thank you so much for being part of our Common Ground Conference 

for the Northwest region. I want to thank Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson and 

his office here in Seattle for working with the Federal Trade Commission in co-hosting this 

event. I also want to thank some of the folks who have worked so hard on putting this 

conference together: Julie Mayer, Krista Bush, and Eric Setala from the FTC, and Michele 

Ferazza and Shannon Smith from the Washington Attorney General’s office. Let’s give these 

folks a round of applause for putting together this terrific gathering.

These Common Ground conferences are among the most important events the FTC holds 

all year. The information sharing and collaboration generated by Common Ground is so 

valuable to the work that we all do.

I want to highlight some of our successes together since the last Common Ground 

meeting. Last month, the FTC, the Federal Communications Commission, and all fifty states and 

the District of Columbia announced coordinated settlements with AT&T over cramming charges 

on mobile phone bills. This FTC settlement will provide $80 million in redress for consumers. 

In July, the FTC, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and 15 states worked 

together on Operation Mis-Modification, an effort that resulted in 41 separate actions being 

brought against fraudulent mortgage modification operations.

These bogus businesses collected upfront fees from distressed homeowners in exchange 

for promises to modify existing loans. Consumers would pay as much as $4,000 in fees, but 

inevitably, received no relief in terms of their mortgage. In some cases, the phony modification 

companies even instructed homeowners to cease communications with their mortgage lenders.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, the Montana Department of Justice, and the Better 

Business Bureau of Eastern Washington, North Idaho, and Montana provided invaluable 

investigative assistance to the FTC to help us take action against a Missoula-based operation that 

allegedly crammed $70 million worth of charges on the cell phone bills of unwitting consumers.

These are just a few examples of numerous types of cases that the FTC and the states 

have recently worked on together, which include everything from fraudulent telemarketers

claiming to raise money for charities, to bogus government grants and business opportunities, to 

scams that conned consumers into paying for phony discount cards for health care or prescription 

drugs.

We have also formed new partnerships to provide valuable assistance, like our work with 

AARP to address concerns around prize promotion and lottery scams aimed at older consumers.

As part of the program, the FTC partnered with the AARP Foundation to refer individual peer 

counseling to consumers over the age of 60 who have called the FTC’s Consumer Response 
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Center to complain that they had been victims of certain frauds, including lottery, prize 

promotion, and family emergency scams. The AARP call center used for this effort is located 

here in Seattle and AARP Washington State Director Doug Shadel was instrumental in setting up 

the program. 

But, as all of you know all too well, fraudsters and scammers continually adapt to new 

technologies to target victims and invent new schemes to insinuate themselves into vulnerable 

communities. That’s why conferences like this one are so important – and why I want to spend a 

few minutes talking about some of the new tools we’re developing at the FTC to help protect 

consumers. 

In September, we announced our Every Community initiative. The basic premise of this 

effort – that fraud is a problem in every community – is nothing new to anyone in this room.

Young or old, native or immigrant, veteran or civilian, scams harm consumers regardless of 

where they live or the language they speak. 

The best way to combat fraud is to empower consumers and foster collaboration across 

stakeholder groups, so that we can quickly identify new scams and work together to stop them.

All too often consumers are unaware that they can come complain to us, to their state AG, to 

their local Better Business Bureau – and that their complaints are taken seriously. 

That’s why we are redoubling our efforts to reach out to underserved communities, or 

groups that might be particularly targeted. Our Division of Consumer and Business Education 

has found that merely translating materials from English into a native language isn’t always 

effective in conveying information to an immigrant community. So we are retooling consumer 

education pieces to make them culturally aware and meaningful. As an example, we have begun 

using graphic fotonovelas for some of our Spanish language outreach. 

In addition, this fall we launched the “Pass It On” campaign to help guide active older 

adults in avoiding various scams. The idea is simple. Instead of telling seniors what not to do 

and alarming them, the campaign is geared toward empowering them not only to protect 

themselves, but also others in their community. 

Last year we started working with the Department of Defense, the CFPB, state attorneys 

general, the Better Business Bureau and others to launch our Military Consumer project. This 

effort provides online resources for our military families on everything from managing your 

credit while a loved one is deployed to giving advice on auto loans or avoiding scams that too 

often target military families. Regrettably our military families often experience frauds and 

unsavory business practices – from unconscionable debt collection to fraudulent charitable 

solicitations or scholarship and financial aid scams for those continuing their education. 

Finally, last month President Obama signed as part of the BuySecure Initiative an 

Executive Order designed to strengthen consumers’ financial security and provide better 

assistance to victims of identity theft. The President provided us with new resources to bring 

together identity theft information from a variety of agencies – including the Department of 

Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) – and improve the resources for 

consumers on IDtheft.gov so that remediation is an easier and more seamless process. 
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All of our consumer education materials are free to use – they have no copyright – so I 

invite you to use them in any way that fits your mission. Our goal is to get them in the hands of 

as many consumers as possible. Together we can make sure that they do.

I believe the shared mission we have – protecting Americans from frauds and scams – is 

one of the most important tasks of government. As new technologies allow scam artists to move 

seamlessly across jurisdictions or target groups in new ways, cooperation between us is more 

important than ever. 

At the FTC we want to hear from you. The door is open. Thank you all for being here 

today.