Arizona’s small businesses need protection from scammers, not new burdens

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Reaching Your Federal Lawmakers

To contact U.S. Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, visit senate.gov and pull down the menu at the top of the page to Arizona, then click on Contact under their names for an email form, office locations and phone numbers.

To contact your Arizona representatives in the U.S. House, visit house.gov and enter your ZIP code in the box next to the map in the upper right corner of the page, then click on their names for an email form, office locations and phone numbers.

DATA DRIVEN

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SCAMS

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OPINION — I run my own photography studio. Most customers pay through peer-to-peer apps. Money lands in seconds, and on Zelle, nobody pays fees, so I keep more in my pocket. My business isn’t unique. Arizona has more than 700,000 small businesses, many running on payment apps, the new cash.

So, when Washington, D.C., talks about regulating payment apps, we pay attention. Bad rules hit businesses like ours.

No one knows scams better than small businesses facing fake invoices, phony vendor emails and bogus utility calls. I want criminals stopped without losing the tools my business runs on.

In D.C. and some states, lawmakers and attorneys general want banks or platforms to repay tricked users. That doesn’t stop scams, it just shifts the criminal burden.

Platforms forced to cover every loss will treat every payment as risky. They’ll hold funds longer, add fees to free services and impose hoops on buyers and sellers. Some businesses may drop the apps, burdening consumers.

A broad refund rule also invites claw backs unrelated to scams. A customer unhappy with their photos could skip me and report fraud for an automatic refund. I’d eat that loss.

Criminals use crypto, gift cards, wire transfers and fake checks. Targeting apps ignores those and steers crooks to apps, where others pay for their crimes.

Real solutions target criminals, which Arizona cannot do alone since most scams originate overseas. The next Congress should make fighting scams a real priority: fund law enforcement to catch scammers, pressure foreign governments to shut down scam operations and revive the bipartisan TRAPS Act to coordinate federal agencies and industry.

Arizona’s small businesses want scams stopped as much as anyone, but we need solutions targeting crooks, not the tools we count on to get paid.

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