S. 3355 — National Strategy for Combating Scams Act of 2025

This section states congressional findings concerning the prevalence and impacts of scams, including (1) more than 4 in 10 U.S. adults (an estimated 141.5 million) have lost money to scams or had sensitive information used fraudulently; (2) consumers reported losses exceeding $12 billion to fraud in 2024, a 25% increase from the prior year, with imposter scams the most common; (3) criminals increasingly use generative AI (e.g., hyper-realistic voice deepfakes) for scams; (4) scams particularly harm older adults' mental health and finances; (5) at least 13 federal agencies counter scams independently; and (6) the Government Accountability Office recommends the FBI lead development of a national strategy to combat scams.

This section directs the FBI Director, not later than 90 days after enactment, to assemble an interagency working group—including the FTC, CFPB, HHS, State Department, FDIC, Federal Reserve, FinCEN, DHS, NCUA, OCC, U.S. Attorneys Office, Secret Service, Treasury, FCC, SEC, CFTC, SSA, and others as appropriate—to develop a National Strategy for Combating Scams. The strategy must (1) incorporate feedback from specified community stakeholders (e.g., scam survivors, older adults, disability groups, prosecutors, businesses, and experts); (2) establish a definition of "scam" for use by the FBI, FTC, and CFPB, including analysis of its selection and evaluation of adoption by other agencies; (3) evaluate scam risks, including threats, vulnerabilities, health and financial impacts, national and economic security risks, and federal responses; (4) evaluate evidence-based scam prevention methods; (5) define agency roles, responsibilities, and authorities; (6) analyze maintaining a single government-wide estimate of scams and associated dollar losses (including unreported incidents), with either a development plan or barriers analysis; and (7) formulate plans for (A) coordinated, accessible consumer complaint reporting; (B) identifying agency duplications and establishing deconfliction procedures; (C) harmonized data collection and aggregation (e.g., improving reporting, identifying scams, standardizing data on types/losses/payment methods, enhancing interoperability, and modernizing via AI); (D) increased federal-private sector coordination (e.g., data sharing, authenticating/blocking transactions, preemptive enforcement); (E) rapid response protocols for public warnings; and (F) enhanced federal-state-local-Tribal coordination, including feasibility analysis of relevant mechanisms.

This section directs the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to adopt the common definition of "scam" recommended in the National Strategy for Combating Scams not later than one year after the strategy's publication. It further requires the agencies to adopt any updated definition from a revised strategy within one year of that update.