A pair of senators plans to introduce a bill Monday that would centralize federal efforts to fight scams and help Americans obtain information about how to identify fraud.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Sens.Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., and Rick Scott, R-Fla., are set to introduce the ReportScams.gov Act, which would require the federal government to establish a centralized reporting website and direct the government to create a new Federal Scams Action Plan to thwart scams and support scam victims.
“This bipartisan bill will establish a comprehensive, unified plan to thwart scammers and provide consumers with one clear user-friendly portal where they can report scams and alert law enforcement,” Hassan said in a statement announcing the bill.According to the FBI, cyber-enabled crimes cost Americans around $21 billion in 2025 from over a million complaints — a record-setting number — as reported to the Internet Crime Complaint Center.The Federal Trade Commission also recently found that Americans lost over $2 billion to scams on social media, which is the leading cause of scams, according to the FTC data.An April 2025 report from the Government Accountability Office found that at least 13 federal agencies work to counter scams in some way, with eight separate agencies receiving complaints about scams.
However, the report found that “there is no single, comprehensive, government-wide strategy for guiding efforts to counter scams.”The FTC already operates a fraud-reporting website, reportfraud.ftc.gov, but the site only covers some types of scams.The Treasury Department has its own reporting mechanisms for tax fraud, while the FBI’s Internet Crimes Complaints Center claims it focuses on cyber-enabled crime.
The new website created by the proposed bill would aim to combine reporting mechanisms into one easy-to-use system, along with providing Americans with educational resources about how ...