February 27, 2026
Pennsylvania Alliance President Testifies at Informational Hearing on Online Scams
Pennsylvania Alliance President Mike Crossey joined state lawmakers and other witnesses in Harrisburg on Wednesday to testify about online scams targeting seniors.
In his testimony, he discussed how scams allowed to proliferate on social media networks are harming older Americans’ financial security. Older Americans reported $4.8 billion in losses from internet scams in 2024 — a 43 percent increase from the year before. He also gave an overview of how the Alliance’s new “Stop the Scam” campaign will educate older Americans and urged legislators to put more safeguards in place and hold Big Tech corporations accountable.
“Educating seniors about the risks and providing tools to recognize warning signs and protect themselves is a critically important part of the campaign. But education alone cannot solve a problem that is operating at industrial scale,” said President Crossey. “We need legislators and regulators to create stronger safeguards, stronger enforcement tools, and to demand greater accountability from the technology platforms that allow scams to spread rapidly and at scale. We also need policymakers to listen to older adults.”
Yosef Getachew, Senior Policy Counsel at Reset Tech, pointed out that scams targeting seniors are supercharged by social media and artificial intelligence – and that corporations like Meta are incentivized to profit from digital scams instead of taking action to stop them.
Other speakers included Kate Kleinert, a widow who lost money to a romance scam that originated on Facebook, and Bill Moyer, a homeowner whose life was turned upside down because scammers used his home address in fraudulent social media ads.
