Gallego, Duckworth Urge FTC to Take Immediate Action to Protect Military Families from Scams and Financial Exploitation

WASHINGTON – Today, Senators Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) sent a letter to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson urging immediate federal action to protect servicemembers, veterans, and military families from fraud. The Senators warned that military-connected consumers are being targeted at scale, losing hundreds of millions of dollars each year to sophisticated fraud schemes that exploit the unique pressures of military life. “This is not just a consumer-protection problem,” the Senators wrote. “It is a readiness, military family stability, and a national security problem. When a servicemember is deployed, relocating on short notice, transitioning out of service, or relying on a spouse to manage household finances, scammers see opportunity. The federal government must respond with the urgency, coordination, and accountability this threat demands.” The letter raises particular alarm that the Trump administration systematically dismantled much of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s capacity to track, investigate, and respond to harms affecting servicemembers, veterans, and military families — making the FTC’s role increasingly critical as other consumer-protection guardrails are weakened or eliminated. The Senators urged the FTC to take four immediate actions: Conduct a 90-day assessment of whether existing FTC military-consumer efforts are keeping pace with the scale and sophistication of scams targeting servicemembers, veterans, spouses, survivors, and military families; Prioritize enforcement against scams that uniquely exploit military life, including fraudulent housing listings near installations, Permanent Change of Station (PCS)-related scams, benefits and claims-assistance fraud, government impersonation, identity theft, and scams targeting deployed servicemembers or their families; Strengthen coordination with financial institutions, payment companies, rental platforms, telecommunications providers, and social media companies to identify and disrupt fraudulent ads, spoofed accounts, fake military-affiliated websites, and scams using AI and voice cloning; and Provide Congress with recommendations for any additional statutory authority, resources, or private-sector obligations needed to better prevent and remedy scams targeting military-connected consumers. The Senators also requested that the FTC deliver a detailed response to Congress no later than July 31, 2026 , including the most recent data on fraud reports and losses involving military-connected consumers, a description of current enforcement actions and interagency efforts, an explanation of how the FTC coordinates with the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and state attorneys general, and an identification of any barriers limiting the FTC’s ability to protect military-connected consumers. “The men and women who serve this country, and the families who serve alongside them, should not be easy targets for fraudsters,” the Senators wrote. “They deserve a federal government that is organized, proactive, and accountable in protecting them.” Read the full letter HERE .