Congress empowers financial fraud whistleblowers with cash rewards and legal protection
S. 2429 — Stop the Scammers Act · Filed by Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) · 26 cosponsors · Introduced Jul 24, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill amends the Consumer Financial Protection Act to establish a whistleblower incentive and protection program for the CFPB. Whistleblowers who provide original information leading to successful enforcement actions resulting in over $1 million in civil penalties receive awards of 10–30% of penalties collected (minimum $50,000 if penalties are lower), paid from the CFPB's civil penalty fund. The bill also protects whistleblower identities, voids non-disclosure and predispute arbitration agreements that would silence them, and increases the CFPB's funding cap from 6.5% to 12% of Federal Reserve operating costs.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is establishing a whistleblower incentive program and increasing CFPB funding to strengthen enforcement of consumer financial protection laws. It is fundamentally about empowering regulators and insiders to detect and punish financial fraud.
What the text implies
- Whistleblower awards are paid from the CFPB's civil penalty fund, meaning enforcement penalties are partially redirected to reward informants rather than retained as general revenue or returned to consumers—this may reduce restitution available to victims in some cases.
- The bill voids predispute arbitration agreements for whistleblower claims but preserves them in collective bargaining agreements, creating a carve-out that may limit protection for unionized workers in some contexts.
The full analysis lists 4 implications of this text.
Who stands to gain
whistleblowers (direct award recipients); whistleblower counsel (legal representation fees)