Americans lost an unprecedented $12.5 billion to fraud last year, with investment scams and fake employment scams among the most damaging.
In 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) received over 2.6 million fraud reports. One in three people who reported fraud said they lost money, with a median loss of $497.
Most scams started online, causing victims to lose over $3 billion. Seventy percent of the victims said they were contacted through social media. More traditional methods for scamming people, like calls, texts, or emails, caused over $1.9 billion in losses.
According to the antitrust supervisor, investment scams led to the highest losses, with a median loss of $9,196. In total, around $5.7 billion in losses was reported in this category.
Most of the reports the FTC received were labeled as imposter scams. Over 800,000 reports led to almost $3 billion in losses.
The biggest scam losses happened by bank transfer or payment. Among all payment methods, people reported $2 billion in losses through a bank transfer or payment, closely followed by cryptocurrency at $1.4 billion.
Job scams and fake employment agency losses nearly tripled between 2020 and 2024. Financial losses in this category grew from $90 million to $501 million.
Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, most people who lost money because they were scammed were between 20 and 29 years old. However, when senior citizens lost money, they lost far more than any other age group.
The FTC received 449,032 reports from people who said their information was misused with an existing credit card or when applying for a new one. Military consumers reported over 99,000 fraud complaints, including 44,587 imposter scams that reportedly cost them over $199 million in 2024.
The states with the highest per capita rates of reported fraud in 2024 were Florida, Georgia, Delaware, Nevada, and Maryland. For reported identity theft, the top states in 2024 were Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Texas, and Delaware.
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