2025: YEAR OF THE FRAUD

A highly educated woman called me one evening, terrified. She had spoken with her bank, which had told her she needed to withdraw thousands of dollars to keep her money secure. The bank kindly provided step by step instructions on how to keep it safe, even staying on the phone with her as she took the cash to a cryptocurrency ATM. The bank rep confirmed receipt once she deposited it. She called me because she worried she was in some kind of trouble. You know the end of this story — the caller was not her bank and the money from her bank account went directly to a scammer. She had never even seen a cryptocurrency ATM before that day.

Avoiding fraud is harder than ever. We are barraged every day with text messages, phone calls, and ads touting deceptive offers. The level of exposure to fraud is enormous in a landscape where deploying tens of millions of text messages and calls costs very little and where social media platforms are getting better and better at identifying our thoughts and wishes. Data breaches make it possible for the most sensitive personal information to be found in dark corners of the internet, thus thwarting our attempts to authenticate the stranger on the other end of our devices. 

Reports from people who experienced fraud in 2025 can help us spot scams in 2026. The Federal Trade Commission has not yet published its Annual Data Book about fraud reporting trends, but the data itself was quietly released. Here are my takes.

Fraud is exploding

Let’s start by understanding the scope. People reported losing $15.9 billion to fraud in 2025. That is a nearly 25% increase from 2024. But even though 2025 brought the highest fraud losses ever reported to the FTC, the true harm is much higher because most people never report fraud. For example, in 2024 people reported losing $12.77 billion, but the FTC estimated that the overall cost of consumer fraud that year could be as high as $195.9 billion. 

Watch For These Red Flags

First, scammers prefer certain payment methods. In 2025 people reported paying scammers $1.78 billion via cryptocurrency – more than 13 times what people reported paying scammers via cryptocurrency in 2020. Why? Because scammers can get paid quickly, regulatory oversight is limited, and many consumers aren't familiar with it. Bank transfers are even more lucrative for scammers. People reported paying scammers $2.28 billion with bank transfers in 2025.  

Second, watch out for the top scams. In 2025, investment scams caused $7.9 billion in reported losses. This is a whopping 36% spike from 2024 ($5.8 billion). For an individual, the loss is potentially life changing — the median reported loss was $10,400. While investment scams were the most costly, more consumers reported impersonator scams than anything else, and these losses were also staggering in 2025: $3.5 billion. 

Third, watch out for how scammers make contact. The biggest dollar losses came from scams that started on social media. Take a moment to think about that. This is that online love interest, that “business coach,” or that cute shop that has just the tool or top you want. In 2025, scams that started on social media caused a reported loss of more than $2 billion.

What Can You Do?

The FTC has a great resource, ftc.gov/scams, to help you figure out what to try to recover funds lost to scams. But it’s better to avoid scams in the first place. Talk about fraud with other people. Tell people about the red flags. Talk about the latest scammy text you got offering you a job you did not apply for, or about the phone call from the “sheriff’s” office about your imminent arrest, or about your social media friend who has the inside scoop on how to make money with cryptocurrency. Talking about scams helps other people (and you) spot them and avoid them.