The Aspen Institute Financial Security Program welcomes the House Financial Services Committee’s (HFSC) new staff report, Fighting Back: A Policy Framework for Combating the Rise of Financial Fraud & Scams. We commend Chairman French Hill, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Dan Meuser, and Committee staff for examining one of the most consequential financial-security and national-security threats facing Americans.

Aspen FSP is proud that the staff report draws extensively on our research, particularly United We Stand: A National Strategy to Prevent Scams. More importantly, we are encouraged by the substantial alignment between HFSC’s findings and the national strategy developed by Aspen FSP with contributions from hundreds of experts across industry, government, law enforcement, and civil society.

Although Fighting Back was prepared by Republican Committee staff, its policy agenda reflects substantial bipartisan common ground. At the report’s public launch, Chairmen Hill and Meuser emphasized that scam prevention should not be understood as a partisan cause. Key anti-fraud bills highlighted in the report have attracted strong bipartisan support. That kind of practical cooperation is exactly what the country needs.

HFSC’s bottom line echoes what Aspen FSP heard from its National Task Force in 2025 and continues to hear through its cross-sector work: Fraud and scams are “crimes of such a magnitude and complexity that no one person, company, or agency can tackle the problem alone.” Scammers exploit telecommunications, messaging, social media, paid advertising, retail, financial services, payment systems, and digital assets—often shifting rapidly to whichever part of the ecosystem is least prepared. Defeating them requires the “whole-of-ecosystem” response endorsed by both reports.

Fighting Back appropriately recognizes important progress. Financial institutions and payment providers are deploying new detection tools, warnings, and transaction friction; telecommunications providers are filtering suspicious calls and messages; and technology and social -media companies are expanding advertiser verification, removing scam-linked accounts, and sharing intelligence. HFSC also describes how companies are using private lawsuits to obtain court support for exposing scammers and disrupting the infrastructure they use. These efforts are encouraging, but companies should increasingly be able to show that they are sustained at scale and producing measurable reductions in scam activity and harm. 

Government action is accelerating as well. The Department of Justice’s Scam Center Strike Force has pursued perpetrators, disabled infrastructure, and restrained more than $832 million in cryptocurrency associated with scam schemes (as of July 2026). President Trump’s Executive Order 14390 in March 2026 directed agencies to develop a coordinated action plan against transnational scam organizations and recommend a program for returning seized and forfeited proceeds to victims. Agencies have begun taking actions under the order, but neither the action plan nor the victim-restoration recommendation has been released publicly. The order’s lasting value will depend on transparent implementation, sustained resources, and measurable outcomes.

6 Priorities to Turn Scam Prevention Momentum Into Results

The HFSC report is itself a marker of progress. It identifies nine significant barriers to an effective national response and points toward ways that congressional committees and federal agencies could work more collaboratively. Drawing on United We Stand and Aspen FSP’s continuing work, we would emphasize six priorities for turning that momentum into results:

• Create accountable, cross-jurisdictional leadership. HFSC calls for a formal, coordinated interagency structure to overcome the fragmentation of current federal efforts and engage Congress, industry, foreign partners, and the public. Aspen FSP agrees and believes that effective coordination must extend to Congress itself. Congressional leaders should establish a mechanism—with sufficient authority and resources—to align the committees responsible for financial services, telecommunications, technology, consumer protection, law enforcement, intelligence, and foreign affairs. The executive branch similarly needs an accountable lead, shared goals, dedicated resources, and public reporting on results. (See United We Stand, pp. 47–50.)
• Mandate and fund modern law-enforcement intake and analysis. HFSC calls for harmonizing the nation’s fragmented reporting systems so victims can report scams easily and the government can produce more useful insights for law enforcement, regulators, and the public. Aspen FSP strongly agrees and emphasizes that a simpler reporting “front door” must be matched by greater government capacity to  consume, connect, analyze, and act on the information it receives. This is especially true in light of the fact that the most useful and voluminous data for preventing future scams will likely come from companies rather than the individual customers they serve. Congress should fund modernization of the FBI’s IC3 system, FTC Consumer Sentinel, FinCEN reporting infrastructure, and related databases—including standardized bulk submissions, cross-database analysis, efficient routing, and useful feedback to industry and victims. (See United We Stand, pp. 32–35 and 49–50.)
• Strengthen seizure, forfeiture, and victim restoration. HFSC calls for greater prioritization of fraud investigations and prosecutions, ensuring that law enforcement has the necessary tools and capabilities, and building on the demonstrated accomplishments of the Scam Center Strike Force. The report also highlights the Executive Order’s direction to pursue forfeiture and return stolen funds to victims. Aspen FSP agrees with that emphasis and recommends making these capabilities durable and scalable. Congress should strengthen authorities to freeze, seize, and recover proceeds across all forms of money movement; fund specialized investigators and prosecutors; and improve mechanisms for returning recovered assets to victims. (See United We Stand, pp. 15–18.)
• Modernize incentives and responsibilities across the ecosystem. HFSC highlights important differences in the legal duties and incentives faced by financial institutions,  telecommunications providers, and social media companies. Policymakers continue to debate how scam losses should be allocated. Aspen FSP’s work nevertheless suggests broad agreement on a more fundamental point: The current framework distributes prevention responsibilities and incentives unevenly, leaving too much of the burden—and too much of the resulting harm—with victims and institutions positioned later in the scam lifecycle. Congress should establish clearer, risk-appropriate responsibilities for each sector scammers exploit, while pairing them with safe harbors and other “good Samaritan” protections for companies that act reasonably and in good faith to share intelligence, block suspicious activity, or disrupt scams. (See United We Stand, pp. 50–53.)
• Produce meaningful reform of paid advertising. HFSC appropriately identifies fraudulent paid advertising as an important point of intervention and calls for advertiser verification, prompt investigation and removal of reported scam advertisements, action against repeat offenders, and consideration of legal consequences. Aspen FSP agrees that platforms that earn revenue from advertisements should have a meaningful responsibility to prevent their advertising systems from being exploited by scammers. Congress and the federal government generally should pursue reforms that meaningfully reduce fraudulent advertising while remaining open to evidence about the most effective legislative, regulatory, or standards-based approach. (See United We Stand, pp. 20–23 and 50–52.)
• Turn the FCC’s telecom initiatives into strong, enforceable rules. HFSC identifies spoofed communications, inadequate provider vetting, and fraudulent calls and messages as persistent scam enablers, and urges the FCC and FTC to consider stronger monitoring, authentication, and action against scam content and bad actors. Aspen FSP agrees with those objectives. The FCC has opened important proceedings concerning provider vetting, call authentication, telephone-number access, foreign-originated calls, and the Robocall Mitigation Database (RMD). The next step is to finalize workable requirements, verify compliance, close loopholes as scammers adapt, and enforce consistently—while protecting providers that reasonably block suspicious traffic in good faith. (See United We Stand, pp. 20–26.)

HFSC’s report demonstrates that a whole-of-ecosystem strategy has moved toward the center of the national policy debate. The next test is whether Congress, the administration, regulators, law enforcement, and industry can translate growing agreement into modern infrastructure, aligned incentives, sustained accountability, and measurable reductions in scam activity and harm.

Aspen FSP looks forward to working with leaders in both parties and across the public and private sectors to turn this momentum into results.