Recently, a friend expressed her frustration to me that the PA Turnpike was dinging her for unpaid tolls on her EZ-Pass account. Immediately recognizing fraud, I cautioned her not to respond but unfortunately, she already had. In a span of just 30 seconds, the first credit card she entered was “rejected” and she promptly entered two other credit cards, both of which were rejected. I told her she was being scammed and advised her to freeze all her credit cards. Minutes after she froze the accounts, she was notified that a fraudulent attempt was made on one of the cards -- in California (we live in Pennsylvania).

During my time in the legislature, my office was inundated with calls from constituents who fell victim to these online cybercrimes. In Pennsylvania, we have an outstanding education program for people but limited prevention or even more limited prosecution.

I found that when these crimes/alleged crimes were reported, it was met with an attitude of “let me take the report” knowing full well the agency did not have the resources to respond to the millions of attempts annually.

The lack of a centrally controlled reporting system with enforcement powers as well as due to the small dollar amount (small compared to trillions of dollars in deficits), makes the victims of these crimes even more vulnerable.

The hacking of national databases of personal data as well as the impact of organized crime and sophisticated data harvesting, makes the average person much more vulnerable to cyberattacks and fraud.

This type of criminal behavior requires a federal solution with a centralized enforcement mechanism to thwart the activities of these cyberthieves.

Every second, Americans are falling victim to online scams -- phishing attacks, identity theft, fake job offers, fraudulent charities, and more. This digital deception is not just targeting strangers on the internet; it’s hitting our friends and neighbors in our own communities. No one is safe from these attacks.

Despite the scale of this crisis, there is no unified federal response. Surprisingly, no single agency is clearly tasked with leading and prosecuting the fight against online fraud. As a result, perpetrators operate with impunity, often from overseas or across state lines, knowing full well our fragmented enforcement system cannot keep up.

States like Pennsylvania are doing what they can with their own regulatory approach, but the digital nature of these crimes makes a purely state-based response ineffective. Online fraud crosses jurisdictional borders with ease, and the current patchwork of state regulations only leads to confusion, inefficiency, and gaps in enforcement that criminals are all too eager to exploit.

Additionally, scammers have magnified their arsenal, relying on multiple messaging platforms and financial channels to defraud Americans. As the misconduct has evolved, the government’s response to stopping these nefarious actors has failed to advance.

A complicating factor is that many of these fraudsters originate from abroad. Countries like Burma and Cambodia have become breeding grounds for these criminal enterprises.

A coordinated, nationwide strategy with enforcement authority is needed to combat this behavior. This should include a federally mandated task force with the authority, resources, and expertise to investigate and prosecute online fraud. Such a task force must collaborate with law enforcement leaders and unify the efforts of existing federal agencies, while cutting through red tape and conflicting jurisdictions to bring clarity and muscle to the fight.

This is not about growing government. It’s about adapting it to modern threats. In the military, our operations always dealt with operational seams where weaknesses could be fatal. With cybercrimes, a fragmented state approach is such an operational seam that can only be closed with a national response to an international criminal network. The thieves are “banking” on fragmented responses with limited funding at the state level to perpetuate low dollar value crimes that are difficult to stop. That approach did not work in Los Angeles or other cities which refused to prosecute crimes under $1000 and it will not work in the United States. To be fully effective, there should be no threshold on prosecution.

Cybercrime is no longer a niche concern -- it’s a national emergency. According to the Federal Trade Commission, Americans lost $8.8 billion to fraud in 2022 alone, much of it from online scams. As long as the federal government remains disorganized in its response, that number will only climb.

I urge Congress and our leaders like Senator Dave McCormick to make this a priority. It is time to establish a clear, centralized federal response to online fraud.

Americans deserve better protection, and criminals should be held accountable. We cannot afford to wait.

Col. Frank Ryan, CPA, USMCR (Ret) represented the 101st District in the PA House of Representatives from 2017 to 2022. He is a retired Marine Reserve Colonel, a CPA and specializes in corporate restructuring. He has served on numerous boards of publicly traded and non-profit organizations. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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