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In brief: With so much of the world now online and more people considering themselves tech-savvy, one might imagine that scammers are struggling to con people out of money. The reality is that Americans lost more to fraud than ever before in 2024 – $12.5 billion.
According to the FTC, the $12.5 billion Americans lost in 2024 to scams was up 25% compared to the $10 billion losses a year earlier.
Surprisingly, the actual number of people who reported being the victim of a fraud, 2.6 million, didn’t increase in 2024. What did increase was the percentage of people who lost money in these scams – up from 27% in 2023 to 38% last year. It seems scammers are getting better at convincing people to part with their cash.
The highest losses came from investment scams. A massive $5.7 billion was lost through this type of fraud. The median loss for victims was over $9,000, more than any other scam category.
Often known as pig butchering, a reference to fattening the animal up before slaughter, these investment frauds involve grooming victims over time, winning their trust before convincing them to make large investments. Once someone gives the scammer their money, the criminal cuts off all communications.
The second most-successful type of fraud, and the one that was most commonly reported, was the imposter scam. The FTC writes that $2.95 billion was lost by victims of these crimes, which involve a scammer pretending to be a government official, business representative, family member, or a romantic partner and convincing someone to hand over money. Losses to government imposter scams in particular increased by $171 million from 2023 to a total of $789 million in 2024.
It’s a stereotype that the elderly are most likely to fall victim to scams, but younger people reported losing money to fraud more often than those over 70 – 44% of all reports were filed by those between 20 and 29. This could be due to a greater number of young people being online.
Elsewhere, losses to business and job opportunity scams surged, from $250 million to $750.6 million.
For the second year in a row, the most common method that scammers used to make first contact with victims was email. This was followed by phone calls and then text messages. However, while people lost $1.9 billion to scams that began with contact using these more traditional methods, People lost over $3 billion to scams that started online.
It’s worth remembering that the majority of scams aren’t reported, usually because the victim feels too embarrassed, so the actual figures are likely much higher.
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