The Online Scam Epidemic: Why Nobody Is Immune Anymore

There was a time when “watch out for scams” meant something fairly simple.

Don’t send money to a stranger who emails you from another country.

Don’t believe the person who says you’ve won a lottery you never entered.

Don’t click the weird link.

Those warnings still matter.

But they’re no longer enough.

Online scams have become a massive global criminal business—and the people running it are getting very good at what they do.

In 2025, Americans filed more than 1 million complaints with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), reporting losses of nearly $21 billion. People age 60 and older reported about $7.7 billion in losses, up 37% from 2024.

And those numbers almost certainly don’t represent the whole problem.

Many victims never report what happened.

Some don’t know where to report it.

Some don’t think anyone will help.

And some are simply too embarrassed to admit they were fooled.

The result is an enormous crime wave that is difficult to see in its entirety.

This isn’t one kind of scam

When we hear the word scam, we often imagine one particular trick.

Today’s scam economy is much bigger than that.

There are:

• Investment scams
• Cryptocurrency scams
• Romance scams
• Government impersonation
• Bank impersonation
• Tech-support scams
• Online shopping scams
• Fake package-delivery messages
• Employment scams
• Grandparent scams
• Business impersonation
• Phishing
• Extortion
• Sextortion
• Fake charities
• Lottery and prize scams
• Recovery scams

And new variations appear constantly.

Investment fraud is particularly expensive. The FBI says it accounted for nearly 49% of all reported scam-related losses in 2025. Cryptocurrency-related complaints alone involved more than $11 billion in reported losses.

That tells us something important.

The biggest scams aren’t necessarily the obviously ridiculous ones.

Some are sophisticated financial operations designed to keep victims involved for weeks or months.

The scammer doesn’t have to look like a scammer anymore

This may be the biggest change.

A scammer used to have to persuade you that he was somebody he wasn’t.

Technology can now help create an entire fake world around you.

A fake investment website can show you an account balance that doesn’t exist.

A fake romantic partner can maintain a relationship for months.

A fake bank employee can tell you exactly why your account supposedly has a problem.

A fake government official can threaten you with arrest.

A fake family member can call sounding remarkably like someone you know.

Artificial intelligence is making some of these impersonations easier and more convincing.

The FBI’s 2025 report included an AI-specific section for the first time. It recorded 22,364 complaints involving AI-related crime, with reported losses of nearly $893 million. The FBI says scammers are using AI to create fake profiles, voice clones, identification documents and convincing videos.

That doesn’t mean every scam uses AI.

It means one old assumption is becoming less reliable:

“I’ll know a scam when I see one.”

Maybe not.

Your phone is now a doorway into your life

Scammers don’t have to wait for you to visit a suspicious website.

They can come looking for you.

A text.

A phone call.

An email.

A social-media message.

A dating-app conversation.

An online advertisement.

A pop-up on your computer.

And once they get your attention, the technology becomes almost secondary.

The real goal is to get you emotionally involved.

The scammer’s real weapon isn’t technology

It’s psychology.

Technology makes scams easier to operate.

But the underlying weapon is still human emotion.

Fear.

Greed.

Loneliness.

Love.

Curiosity.

Urgency.

Hope.

The scammer doesn’t necessarily need you to believe something ridiculous.

He needs you to make one decision while you’re emotional.

“Move your money before someone steals it.”

“Your grandson is in trouble.”

“Your computer has been hacked.”

“Your investment account is frozen.”

“Your Social Security number has been connected to a crime.”

“You’ve been selected for a refund.”

“Your account will be closed today.”

The details change.

The psychology doesn’t.

Urgency is one of the biggest red flags

A scammer wants to take away your time to think.

Act now.

Don’t tell anyone.

Your account will be closed today.

You could be arrested.

Your money isn’t safe.

You must transfer it immediately.

This is deliberate.

The less time you have to think, the less opportunity you have to ask somebody else:

“Does this sound right to you?”

The FTC has documented high-dollar impersonation scams in which criminals create a fake crisis and then tell older victims that transferring their money is the way to protect it. The agency notes that scammers often try to keep victims on the phone, making it harder for them to consult someone who might recognize the deception.

That’s why one of the best anti-scam habits isn’t technical at all.

Slow down.

When someone creates an emergency, don’t automatically accept their emergency as your emergency.

Why older adults are such attractive targets

This isn’t because older people are stupid.

Far from it.

Older adults can have something scammers desperately want:

money.

Retirement savings.

Investment accounts.

Home equity.

Social Security.

Decades of accumulated wealth.

The FBI says people 60 and older reported approximately $7.7 billion in internet-crime losses in 2025. More than 12,400 older victims reported losing at least $100,000.

The FTC has also documented a dramatic increase in high-dollar fraud reports among older adults. Between 2020 and 2024, reports from older adults involving losses of $10,000 or more to business and government impersonation scams increased more than fourfold. Reports involving losses over $100,000 increased nearly sevenfold.

But here’s an important point:

Older adults aren’t the only people being scammed.

Almost anyone can be a victim.

The FBI has documented cases involving highly educated people who were manipulated into losing enormous amounts of money. In one case, an older victim who was a criminology professor lost more than $500,000 after being manipulated by a government-impersonation scam.

The lesson isn’t “older people are vulnerable.”

The lesson is:

These criminals can be extremely convincing.

The investment scam can look like an investment

Some of the most damaging scams don’t look like scams at all.

You may meet someone online who appears to be successful.

They tell you about an investment opportunity.

They introduce you to a professional-looking website.

You deposit some money.

The account appears to grow.

You may even be allowed to withdraw a small amount.

Everything seems legitimate.

Then you try to withdraw a larger amount.

Suddenly there’s a tax.

A fee.

A security deposit.

A verification charge.

You pay it.

Then there’s another one.

Eventually you realize the “account” wasn’t an investment account at all.

It was a display created to convince you that your money was growing.

Investment scams were the largest source of reported scam losses in the FBI’s 2025 data.

Cryptocurrency has made some scams especially damaging

Cryptocurrency isn’t inherently a scam.

But criminals have embraced it.

One reason is that cryptocurrency transactions can be difficult to reverse once the money has been sent.

The FBI received more than 181,000 cryptocurrency-related complaints in 2025 involving over $11 billion in reported losses.

The FBI’s report also shows just how serious cryptocurrency investment fraud has become for older Americans.

And scammers have found another way to exploit cryptocurrency:

crypto ATMs and kiosks.

The FBI reported more than $257 million in losses among people 60 and older involving cryptocurrency ATMs or kiosks in 2025.

If someone tells you to put cash into a cryptocurrency ATM to protect your money, pay a government agency, fix a computer problem or keep your account safe, stop.

That is an enormous red flag.

Behind some scams is a global criminal industry

Perhaps the most disturbing development is the scale.

This isn’t always one person sitting alone in a basement sending emails.

Investigations by the Associated Press and FRONTLINE have documented large scam operations, including compounds in Southeast Asia where people have been trafficked and forced to conduct scams.

Organized criminal groups can combine:

• human labor
• social engineering
• cryptocurrency
• stolen information
• social media
• American technology
• artificial intelligence

The result is something much closer to an industrialized fraud business than the old stereotype of a con artist.

And businesses improve.

They test what works.

They change what doesn’t.

They study their victims.

They exploit new technology.

That’s why the scam you encounter next may not look anything like the scam you were warned about last year.

Sometimes the scam isn’t over when you’ve been scammed

This is one of the nastiest parts of the modern scam economy.

Someone who has already lost money can become a target for a recovery scam.

A stranger contacts the victim and says:

“We can get your money back.”

The person may claim to be:

• A government investigator
• An FBI agent
• A lawyer
• A cryptocurrency recovery specialist
• A bank employee
• A cybersecurity expert

Then comes the request for money.

The FBI’s 2025 report identified more than 2,500 recovery-scam complaints from people 60 and older, with reported losses exceeding $540 million. The FBI notes that those figures can include losses from the original scam as well.

It’s a cruel second act:

The first scammer steals your money. The second scammer tries to steal your hope.

What can actually protect you?

There is no magic piece of software that makes you scam-proof.

And you can’t memorize every scam.

A better strategy is to develop habits that work against almost all scams.

1. Don’t make important financial decisions under pressure

If someone tells you that you have five minutes to act, take ten minutes.

Then take an hour.

The FBI itself now tells people to “Take a Beat” when confronted with potential fraud.

2. Verify independently

If your bank supposedly calls, hang up.

Find the bank’s number yourself.

If a government agency supposedly contacts you, find its official website yourself.

If your grandchild supposedly calls from a new number, call them back using the number already in your contacts.

Never use the contact information supplied by the person you’re trying to verify.

3. Don’t trust appearances

A logo can be copied.

A website can be copied.

A phone number can be spoofed.

A voice can potentially be cloned.

A video can potentially be generated.

An official-looking document can be fabricated.

Something looking real isn’t the same as something being real.

4. Talk to somebody

Before sending a large amount of money, tell someone you trust.

A spouse.

A family member.

A close friend.

Your bank.

A professional you already know.

The scammer wants you isolated.

Another person can interrupt the spell.

5. Never let embarrassment keep you silent

This is a big one.

If you think:

“I can’t tell anyone. They’ll think I’m an idiot.”

you’ve just become easier to manipulate.

Being deceived doesn’t mean you’re stupid.

It means somebody deliberately tried to deceive you.

The FBI specifically encourages victims not to be embarrassed about reporting scams.

What to do if you think you’ve been scammed

Act quickly.

Contact the bank, credit-card company, payment service or cryptocurrency platform involved and tell them what happened.

Preserve emails, texts, phone numbers, websites, transaction records, screenshots and other evidence.

Report internet-related crime to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at IC3.gov.

Report fraud to the Federal Trade Commission at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

And tell someone you trust.

Don’t wait because you’re embarrassed.

Time can matter.

The FBI says rapid reporting can sometimes support recovery efforts, although recovering money—particularly money sent overseas—is often difficult.

The new reality

We may need to change the question we ask about scams.

The old question was:

“How do I recognize a scam?”

That’s still useful.

But there’s a better question:

“How do I make it difficult for anyone to get me to act before I’ve had time to think?”

That’s a much more powerful defense.

Because you probably can’t recognize every scam.

You don’t need to.

You need a system that gives you time to recognize when something isn’t right.

Stop.

Step away.

Verify.

Ask someone.

Then decide.