Fraud and Scam Statistics (2026)

Fraud is big and getting bigger. In 2024 US consumers reported losing $12.5 billion to fraud, a 25% jump over 2023 and the highest annual total the FTC had recorded to that point (see the snapshot below). The reports came in through the Consumer Sentinel Network, which collects complaints from consumers, law enforcement, and partner agencies.

The report count barely moved: about 2.6 million fraud reports, roughly flat versus 2023. What changed was the share of people who said they lost money, which jumped from 27% in 2023 to 38% in 2024. In other words, more of the scams that got reported actually succeeded in taking money.

Investment scams have become the biggest money drain of any category. Consumers reported losing $5.7 billion to them in 2024, about $1 billion more than 2023 and more than any other type of fraud. These pitches promise outsized returns, often through fake crypto platforms or bogus trading apps, and frequently start with a stranger building trust over weeks.

They are also unusually effective. Of people who reported an investment-related scam, 79% said they lost money, the highest hit rate of any top-10 category, and the median individual loss topped $9,000 (FTC). When a scam is this good at converting contact into cash, a small share of the population can account for enormous losses.

Imposter scams are the ones people encounter most. With 845,806 reports in 2024, they were the single most-reported fraud category, and they stayed number one for a fifth straight year in 2025. The playbook is impersonation: the scammer pretends to be the government, a well-known business, a bank, a love interest, or a relative in trouble to pry loose money.

They ranked second by dollars too, at $2.95 billion in reported losses with a $800 median. Only 22% of imposter reports came with a loss, far below the investment scam hit rate, but sheer volume makes the category one of the largest overall. Government impersonation alone cost $789 million, up $171 million from 2023.

Ranking scams by reports and by dollars tells two different stories (see the chart and table below). By report volume, imposter and online-shopping complaints dominate. By dollars, investment scams sit far out in front at $5.7 billion, nearly double imposter losses, even though they generate a fraction of the reports.

The gap comes down to loss size. Online shopping produced 383,441 reports but only $432 million in losses, a $130 median, because the typical loss is one undelivered item. Investment and business-opportunity scams have median losses of $9,196 and $2,250, so each victim gives up far more. High volume plus low stakes is a very different problem than low volume plus high stakes.

Zoom out and the trend is stark. Reported fraud losses went from $3.3 billion in 2020 to $5.8 billion in 2021, $8.8 billion in 2022, $10.0 billion in 2023, and $12.5 billion in 2024, then to a preliminary $16 billion in 2025 (see the chart and table below). That is close to a fivefold increase in five years.

Some of the rise reflects better reporting and inflation, but most observers attribute it to scams getting more sophisticated, more organized, and increasingly powered by social media and, more recently, AI-generated voices and text. The 2025 figure is preliminary, drawn from the FTC's June 2026 imposter-scam release rather than a full Data Book, so treat it as a first estimate.

Scams reach people through many channels, and each carries a different risk profile (see the table below). Email was the most common way scammers made first contact, tied to 371,651 reports, followed by phone calls (284,659), text messages (246,784), and social media (186,826). A contact method was identified in 58% of the 2.6 million fraud reports.

But frequency and damage are not the same. Email produced a $600 median loss, and website or app contacts just $200, while phone calls carried a $1,500 median. The channel that combined high volume with high dollars was social media, which we look at next.

Social media is where the money is lost. Scams that started on social platforms cost consumers $1.86 billion in 2024, the most of any contact method by a wide margin, even though social media ranked only fourth by report count. The FTC notes that reported losses to social-media scams are now about eight times higher than in 2020 (FTC).

The reason is that social platforms feed the two costliest scam types: investment and romance-to-crypto pitches that start with a friendly message and escalate over weeks. Of people who reported being contacted through social media, roughly 70% said they lost money. When a channel blends personal trust with easy anonymity, it becomes a scammer's best tool.

Follow the payment and you see where the biggest dollars go (see the table below). Bank transfers and payments accounted for the highest aggregate losses in 2024 at $2.09 billion, followed by cryptocurrency at $1.42 billion, even though each was named in fewer than 50,000 reports. These irreversible, high-value rails are favored for investment and imposter scams.

Credit cards were the most frequently named payment method (108,881 reports) but produced only $275 million in losses, because card payments are disputable and capped. Gift cards, once the signature scam payment, fell to $212 million. The clear lesson: any request to pay by wire, crypto, or bank transfer to someone you have not met in person is a red flag.

Age changes the picture in two ways (see the table below). Younger adults report losing money far more often: 44% of reports from people aged 20-29 came with a loss, versus 24% for those 70-79 and 21% for those 80 and over. Middle-age groups filed the most reports and, in aggregate, lost the most, with people 50-59 and 60-69 each topping $1 billion.

That aggregate view understates the per-victim toll on older people, though. Total losses for those 80 and over were $319 million, but that came from just 51,713 reports, a much smaller group. Spread over fewer victims, the average hit lands far harder, which is why median loss is the fairer lens.

When older adults do get caught, the damage is severe (see the chart below). The median reported loss climbs steadily with age: $189 for those 19 and under, $417 at 20-29, $691 at 60-69, $1,000 at 70-79, and $1,650 for people 80 and over, roughly nine times the youngest group's median.

Combining the two age patterns yields the core insight: young people are targeted and defrauded more frequently but for smaller amounts, while older people are victimized less often but lose much more each time. Both realities argue for different defenses, and both argue for skepticism toward any unsolicited financial pitch.

Impersonation is a growing sub-theme within imposter scams. In 2024, government impersonators cost consumers $789 million, up $171 million from 2023, while business and job-opportunity scams reached $750.6 million, up nearly $250 million. Job and employment-agency scams alone tripled in reports from 2020 to 2024, with losses rising from about $90 million to $501 million.

The FTC's Impersonation Rule, finalized in 2024, gave the agency stronger tools against fake-government and fake-business schemes and has produced over $70 million in consumer redress. Even so, the 2025 preliminary data show impersonation still growing, with government-impersonator losses rising to about $920 million.

Fraud is only part of what the Consumer Sentinel Network tracks. Of the 6.5 million total reports in 2024, identity theft made up 18% (the second-largest category after credit bureaus and information furnishers at 21%). Credit-card identity theft was the most reported type, with 449,032 reports, ahead of loan or lease fraud (176,400) and bank-account fraud (114,608).

It is also worth remembering that these are reported losses. The FTC stresses that most fraud is never reported, so the true totals are almost certainly higher. Military consumers alone filed over 99,000 complaints in 2024, including 44,587 imposter scams that reportedly cost them more than $199 million.

The problem kept accelerating into 2025. Preliminary FTC figures put total reported fraud losses near $16 billion, another roughly 25% rise, with imposter scams again leading at $3.5 billion. Because investment and crypto pitches are the costliest scams and increasingly start on social media, ordinary investors are squarely in the target zone.

The practical defenses are boring and effective: never invest through a platform a stranger sent you, never move money by wire or crypto on someone else's urging, verify any government or bank contact through an official number you look up yourself, and be extra protective of older relatives, who lose the most per incident. Slowing down is the single best fraud control there is.