M3AAWG continued its full court press against the normalization of scams at the “United States of Scams: The Financial and Emotional Fallout” event held in Washington, DC last month.
As reported in this blog, M3AAWG recently joined 12 other groups from the tech, telecom and financial sectors (pictured below), to launch the most comprehensive study ever conducted on scams in America. Results of this Gallup/Stop Scams Alliance survey – which are currently making worldwide headlines – were released at this event on June 30th.
M3AAWG joined two members of the United States Congress, and a host of other industry groups and people, coalescing to assess what more can be done to fight back against scams.
As scams reach a tipping point in America, the anti-abuse work needed in response cannot exist in a vacuum, said M3AAWG Chairperson Emeritus, Chris Roosenraad. Chris attended the event and is pictured below with Ken Westbrook, Founder and CEO of the Stop Scams Alliance.
“This is a ‘larger ecosystem’ problem and that speaks to the strength of where M3AAWG can continue to bring organizations together to talk honestly and develop best practices,” Roosenraad said.
Congressmen Gabe Amo (D-RI) and Jefferson Shreve (R-IN) delivered a fireside chat at the event and brought attention to the Stop Scams Caucus. (Photo below: the Congressmen join Justin Lall of Gallup on stage).
The Caucus, established in 2025, serves as a central point within Congress to gather intelligence from the American public, and private industry, to advance policies to keep the scam crisis from spiraling further.
Reps. Amo and Shreve both called on the private sector to break up its siloed efforts in addressing the crisis.
"Our system is structured in a way where we have a lot of really high-functioning, talented people working on these issues—but they are not necessarily all working together," Rep. Amo said.
An Unrelenting Attack
As Ken mentioned in the event’s opening statements, “It's no exaggeration to say that the United States is under an unrelenting attack by transnational criminal gangs.”
To underscore Westbrook's point, M3AAWG’s last three General Meetings have been keynoted by harrowing stories from the front lines of these scams:
- Paul Raffile's Keynote to Address a Cybercrime Syndicate Targeting Minors with Sextortion
- Erin West Brings an Inside Look at the Global Scam Ecosystem and Fighting Organized Crime
- Deception by Design: Cecilie Fjellhøy Spotlights the Human Cost of Romance Scams
“Americans may be divided on many issues, but they are absolutely united in a desire to stop this scourge of scams,” Westbrook said.
The Next Steps Begin Now
With research showing scammers favor phone calls, text messages, emails, fraudulent websites and social media to orchestrate the lion’s share of their crimes. M3AAWG is critical to the cross-channel response discussed in Washington and its members are working to ensure the survey’s findings get built into more precise solutions.
M3AAWG will continue to participate in guiding future studies to ensure its work has the strongest possible data-driven impact.
“The gap between where scams originate, where they are detected, and where the loss occurs creates the primary opportunity for M3AAWG to drive change through coordination, shared intelligence, and earlier disruption,” said M3AAWG Financial Services SIG Leader Sara Roper.
Now is a great time to get deeper involved with M3AAWG… you can attend our upcoming General Meeting in Paris and subscribe to this blog. We also recommend following M3AAWG on Facebook and LinkedIn to keep up with our news. You can also watch a video of Chris discussing the Stop Scams event in Washington on M3AAWG’s YouTube channel.