Reported losses from fraud targeting Americans aged 60 and older reached approximately $3 billion in 2025, according to the Federal Trade Commission's ninth annual Protecting Older Consumers report. That figure represents a fivefold increase from 2020 and a rise from $2.4 billion in 2024. The FTC cautions that because most victims do not file complaints, the true cost could be as high as $119.5 billion when accounting for underreporting.
Investment scams were the most costly category, with $1.06 billion in reported losses, a 42% jump from the prior year. Many victims said they were lured via social media to fake cryptocurrency trading platforms. Government impostor scams followed at $448 million, up 20%, with fraudsters posing as the FTC, Social Security Administration, or FBI. Business impostors, often claiming to be banks, accounted for $422 million in losses.
Romance scams cost older adults $384 million, up 17%, and older adults were 48% more likely than younger people to report a loss from such schemes. The disparity was even greater for tech-support scams, where older adults were 324% more likely to report losing money, and for prize and sweepstakes scams, where they were 112% more likely.
While older adults are not necessarily more susceptible to fraud overall—74% of reports from this group involved no monetary loss—they tend to lose more when they do fall victim. The median reported loss for those 60 and older held at about $900, but for those 80 and older it rose to $2,000, a 21% increase from 2024 and the highest of any age group.
Losses exceeding $100,000 accounted for only 6% of reports from older adults but represented 70% of total dollars lost. The number of such reports climbed to 6,769 in 2025 from 1,136 in 2020, and combined six-figure losses grew nearly sevenfold. After adjusting for population, older adults were more than twice as likely as younger adults to report a loss of that magnitude.
Social media was the costliest initial contact method, generating $750 million in reported losses—about 12 times the 2020 figure. Investment scams made up 56% of those losses, and romance scams 23%. Phone scams, while less costly in total, had a higher median loss of $3,000 per victim compared with $599 for social media-originated scams. Losses from text-message scams rose 61%.
Most funds moved via bank transfers ($1.03 billion in losses) and cryptocurrency ($603 million). Since 2020, bank transfer losses have grown more than tenfold, and crypto losses more than 27-fold. The FTC noted that impostor schemes often involve callers claiming a compromised account and directing victims to wire money, mail cash, or deposit funds at a bitcoin ATM, sometimes coaching them on what to tell bank employees.
The FTC's enforcement actions returned more than $513 million to consumers in fiscal 2026. In 2025, it referred 680 high-loss reports to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, with the FBI's Recovery Asset Team acting on 200 of them, covering $18.7 million in reported losses, and banks freezing over $10.8 million. Since April, the FTC has directed older adults reporting significant fraud to the Justice Department's National Elder Fraud Hotline, connecting more than 320 callers so far.
Despite these efforts, the FTC says its tools remain limited and continues to urge Congress to restore its authority to seek monetary relief under Section 13(b) of the FTC Act, which the Supreme Court curtailed in 2021. For advisors, the report underscores the importance of discussing AI-driven fraud risks with clients and monitoring for phishing scams that target wealthy individuals.
