Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White led a multi-agency event on July 15 to support the Military Consumer Protection Day 2015, highlighting how service members can best protect themselves and their finances from fraud and identity theft.
Service members and their families are frequent targets for financial fraud and identity theft. Military Consumer Protection Day aims to provide men and women in uniform with the knowledge and skills to better understand their finances so they can invest wisely and avoid fraud.
“Taking control of your finances starts with access to information about financial products and services and the people who sell them,” said SEC Chair Mary Jo White. “We want to ensure the men and women of our armed forces who protect us are themselves protected in the financial marketplace.”
Questions ranged from what service members should consider before investing to how to avoid becoming victims of investment fraud. Both Chair White and Lori Schock, Director of the SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy, cautioned service members about offers that sound too good to be true, high-pressure sales tactics, and fraudulent opportunities that appear on social media. Chair White also discussed cases the SEC has brought to halt frauds that targeted service members and advised the audience on how to best protect themselves from such scams.
Chair White was joined at the event by officials from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Department of Justice’s Service Members and Veterans Initiative, the U.S. Attorneys’ Housing and Civil Enforcement Section of the Fair Housing Program, the FBI’s Securities Fraud Program and the U.S. Secret Service.
For more information on this event, please visit www.military.ncpw.gov/