Scam Statistics 2026

Consumers filed 3 million fraud reports in 2025 with $15.9 billion in reported losses — the highest on record and roughly 25% above 2024's $12.5 billion.

The FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center received 1,008,597 complaints in 2025 — its first year over one million — with reported losses of $20.9 billion, a 26% increase year over year. Average loss per complaint: $20,699.

The Global Anti-Scam Alliance estimates worldwide scam losses at approximately $1.03 trillion in the past 12 months, factoring in unreported cases.

Investment fraud was the highest-loss crime type in 2025 at $8.6 billion per FBI IC3 (up from $6.6 billion in 2024), driven largely by cryptocurrency investment scams and pig butchering. The FTC's own tally puts 2025 investment-scam losses at $7.9 billion, with an average individual loss over $10,000.

Business Email Compromise (BEC) and email account compromise scams cost U.S. businesses $3.05 billion in 2025 through wire fraud and impersonation, up from $2.77 billion in 2024.

Tech and customer support scams — fake Microsoft and Apple support calls, fake virus popups — cost Americans $2.13 billion in 2025, a 46% jump from 2024's $1.46 billion.

Romance scams, including pig butchering variants, cost victims $1.1 billion with over 59,000 reported cases — though actual losses are likely much higher due to underreporting.

Imposter scams — government impersonation, business impersonation, tech support, and grandparent scams — were the most reported fraud category for the fifth straight year, with $3.5 billion in 2025 losses across more than 1 million reports, nearly triple 2020 levels.

For the first time in its ~25-year history, the 2025 IC3 report tracks AI-enabled crime as its own category: 22,364 complaints with at least $893 million in losses — including $632 million in AI-nexus investment fraud. IC3 notes true AI involvement is likely undercounted.

Adults aged 60 and older reported $7.75 billion in losses to fraud in 2025 — up 59% year over year — across 201,266 complaints (up 37%). Average loss per complaint: $38,500. Older adults remain disproportionately targeted by high-loss scams.

In 2025, 12,444 complainants aged 60 and older each reported losing more than $100,000 — losses that often represent entire retirement savings.

Adults aged 20-29 reported fraud losses more often (44%) than adults aged 70-79 (24%) in 2024, but older victims lost significantly more per incident on average.

Text-based scams cost Americans $470 million in reported losses in 2024 — with delivery scams, bank fraud alerts, and toll scams topping the list.

Phone-based scams remained the third most-reported contact method, with $1.1 billion in losses despite continued carrier anti-spam efforts.

Email was the most common contact method reported in fraud cases, accounting for 25% of all reported scams in 2024.

Social media remained the costliest contact method in 2025: nearly 30% of people who reported losing money to a scam said it started on social media, with $2.1 billion in reported losses — an eightfold increase since 2020. Facebook was the top-loss platform.

Complaints involving cryptocurrency reported $11.37 billion in 2025 losses across 181,565 complaints — the costliest category IC3 tracks, up 22% year over year. Within that, crypto investment fraud alone was $7.2 billion, with pig butchering the largest share.

The average reported loss per cryptocurrency-related complaint was $62,604 in 2025 — far above other scam categories — and 18,589 complainants each lost more than $100,000.