Hassan, Scott to Introduce ReportScams.gov Act on Fraud
Sens. Maggie Hassan and Rick Scott plan to introduce the ReportScams.gov Act on Monday to create a centralized federal website for fraud reports. The proposal would give consumers one portal for reporting scams and would send submissions to the relevant federal and state law enforcement agencies.
The bill would also direct the government to create a new Federal Scams Action Plan to thwart scams and support victims. Hassan said the measure would 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,” while Scott said the site would centralize reports of “these fraudulent activities.”
ReportScams.gov and fraud reports
Under the proposal, a person who submits evidence of a scam would receive a list of the agencies that got the report and a tracking number for the submission. The website would also provide educational resources meant to help Americans identify and avoid scams. That would put reporting, guidance and case tracking in one place instead of across several separate systems.
The bill arrives after the Federal Trade Commission, the Treasury Department and the FBI each maintained different reporting channels for certain kinds of fraud and cybercrime complaints. The FTC already runs reportfraud.ftc.gov, but that site covers only some scams. The FBI’s Internet Crimes Complaints Center focuses on cyber-enabled crime, and Treasury has its own systems for tax fraud.
April 2025 GAO findings
An April 2025 Government Accountability Office report found at least 13 federal agencies work to counter scams in some way, and eight separate agencies receive complaints. The same report said there is no single, comprehensive, government-wide strategy for guiding anti-scam efforts. The new bill is aimed at folding those scattered intake points into one federal front door.
The timing also follows a March hearing, where senior officials from the FBI and the FTC sparred over where scam reports should go. Hassan, a U.S. senator from New Hampshire, and Scott, a U.S. senator from Florida, are using their bipartisan bill to push a different structure: one website, one tracking number, and a federal action plan tied to the reports that come in.
FBI fraud and AI
The proposal comes as federal agencies have been warning that scams are growing more sophisticated. The FBI said cyber-enabled crimes cost Americans around $21 billion in 2025 from over a million complaints, and the Federal Trade Commission recently found that Americans lost over $2 billion to scams on social media.
The FBI also said cheap or free AI tools now let scammers create realistic replicas of trusted emails or online services, and that AI systems can reliably mimic a person’s voice and likeness, even on a live video call. Kathy Stokes of AARP has called AI an “industrial revolution for fraud criminals.”
For consumers, the bill would not change existing scams overnight, but it would create one place to file a report, get a tracking number and see where the complaint was sent. Scott said, “Fraud prevention isn't just a financial issue,” and added, “It's a matter of national security and dignity for older Americans.”
