Americans are still falling for romance and crypto scams. The Federal Trade Commission today reported a 25% year-over-year increase in fraud losses in 2024.
The amount of money lost to scams reached $12.5 billion last year, the agency says, up from $10 billion the previous year. "One in three people who reported fraud said they lost money (up from one in four" in 2023, the FTC added in a blog post.
The number of fraud reports the FTC received from consumers, at 2.6 million, didn’t increase from the previous year. Instead, scammers got more successful in stealing people's money.
"The percentage of people who reported losing money to a fraud or scam increased by double digits," the FTC said today. "In 2023, 27% of people who reported a fraud said they lost money, while in 2024, that figure jumped to 38%."
(Credit: FTC)A large chunk of the losses, at $5.7 billion, occurred through investment scams, which often trick people into buying fake cryptocurrency or precious metals or investing in a real estate project. The scams, also known by the derogatory name “pig butchering,” can be particularly effective because scammers spend weeks or months building relationships with prospective targets through social media or dating apps before asking them to invest in the fraudulent scheme.
“A majority (79%) of people who reported an investment-related scam lost money, with a median loss of over $9,000,” the FTC noted.
Another successful scheme is “imposter scams,” which made up $2.95 billion of the fraud losses in 2024. Imposter scams, which can involve impersonating government agencies and companies, are also ranked as the most reported scams.
The FTC adds: “For the second consecutive year, email was the most common way that consumers reported being contacted by scammers. Phone calls were the second most commonly reported contact method for fraud in 2024, followed by text messages.”
But for users who lost money to the fraud, the scams first started online, whether it be through social media, a website, or online ads. “People lost over $3 billion to scams that started online, compared to approximately $1.9 billion lost to more ‘traditional’ contact methods like calls, texts, or emails,” the agency added.
The losses were calculated using data from the FTC's “Consumer Sentinel Network,” which takes reports from ReportFraud.ftc.gov and other state and local agencies. The commission didn’t say why the fraud losses are mounting, except to note that the “scammers’ tactics are constantly evolving.”
But other investigators, including the FBI, say many of these scams come from organized Chinese crime groups working in Asia. The scale of the activities has grown to the point that Chinese syndicates are building large compounds in Cambodia and Myanmar full of workers dedicated to perpetuating online scams, according to Erin West, a former California deputy district attorney who's been urging governments and companies to crack down.
“They will be working 17 hours a day to scam Americans (and others worldwide) and to steal all of their money,” she told a congressional committee in September. “In Cambodia, towers filled with human trafficked victims are forced to conduct this dirty business, shielded from disruption by the rampant corruption that rises to the top of government.”