31 mind-blowing stats and facts about scams for 2026

Scam attempts often arrive as isolated emails, texts, or calls, giving the impression that they’re manageable or easy to ignore. In reality, their sheer volume means that repeated exposure is the norm, and over time, even cautious users can be caught off guard.

Annual losses from cybercrime, much of which comprises online scams,  surpassed the $20 billion mark in 2025 according to the most recent FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center report.

The statistics below reveal just how widespread scam attempts have become, why they continue to succeed, which types cause the greatest harm, and how losses fall unevenly across different groups. This broader picture helps explain why online scams are a structural problem, not merely a series of individual lapses.

How common are internet scams?

Internet scams are very common; in fact, they are now a routine feature of everyday digital life in terms of how frequently attempts occur, how widely they’re distributed, and how consistently they find new victims.

1. Globally, scam activity occurs at such high frequency that there are nearly 174 scam attempts every second worldwide, according to a survey conducted on behalf of Gen, the company behind Norton.¹

2. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), U.S. consumers filed 2.6 million fraud reports in 2024.²

3. Spread across 365 days, the FTC's 2.6 million reports translate to roughly 7,100 reported scam incidents every day, and that’s only counting what gets reported.²

4. According to a survey commissioned by Gen, 1 in 3 adults reported being targeted by scams in 2025.³

5. Of this group, 1 in 4 respondents who were targeted said they ended up falling for the scam.³

6. A Pew Research Center study found that around three-quarters of U.S. adults have experienced at least one type of scam or cyberattack, with nearly one-third reporting an incident in the past year.⁴

How many people get scammed per year?

Data from multiple sources, including the FTC, Pew, and Gen’s own survey data, indicates that the true number of people in the U.S. who get scammed per year runs into the millions. However, official figures almost certainly understate the problem, since many encounters go unreported, particularly when no money is lost.^{2, 4, 5}

How many people get scammed per day?

FTC data alone suggests thousands of Americans get scammed every day, before accounting for the vast majority of attempts that never appear in any official record.²

What these figures collectively show is that scams persist not because they succeed every time, but because sheer volume and repeated exposure make eventual success more likely.

Emerging trends in online scams 2024–2026

Online scams are not just widespread; they are evolving. Recent data points to a threat landscape that is becoming faster, more automated, and increasingly indistinguishable from legitimate communication, with certain scam types growing at a pace that outstrips individual awareness.

7. Impersonation scams surged 148% year over year, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center, with scammers most commonly posing as businesses or financial institutions, often through spoofed emails, fake customer service numbers, and fraudulent websites.⁵

8. Phishing activity remains near record levels globally, driven by short-lived, highly-automated campaigns that impersonate trusted brands and services, according to the Anti-Phishing Working Group.⁶

9. Fraud attempts across Europe increased by 80% over the past three years, according to a 2024 Signicat study.⁷

10. High-stakes scams such as investment fraud, business email compromise, and impersonation-based schemes account for a disproportionate share of reported financial losses in the U.S., despite generating fewer complaints than higher-volume scam types.⁸

11. Deepfake-related fraud now accounts for a measurable and growing share of total fraud attempts, with synthetic audio and video increasingly used to power impersonation and investment scams.⁷

12. The 2025 IC3 Internet Crime Report warns that deepfake fraud is playing a growing role in employment scams, with fraudsters using AI to conduct fake interviews. Their ultimate goal is generally to gain access to computer systems.⁹

What these trends reveal is less a story of individual carelessness than one of structural asymmetry: automation has lowered the cost of running scams to near zero, while the cognitive burden of detecting them falls entirely on the target. Tools like deepfakes are raising the threshold of what a convincing scam looks like, and that threshold shows no sign of stabilizing.

Top online scams

The most damaging online scams fall into a relatively small number of categories. Phishing remains the most common entry point, while investment fraud, impersonation, and tech support scams account for a disproportionate share of reported financial losses — a concentration of harm that the data makes difficult to ignore.

13. Nearly one million unique phishing attacks were recorded worldwide in Q4 2024 alone, according to the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG). Phishing scams involve messages or websites designed to impersonate trusted organizations, tricking victims into sharing information or making payments.⁶

14. Imposter scams generated over 800,000 consumer reports to the FTC in 2024, making them the most frequently reported fraud category. Criminals pose as government agencies, banks, tech support services, coworkers, or even friends and family to extract money or personal information.²

15. Investment fraud caused more than $8.6 billion in reported losses in 2025, up from $6.5 billion in 2024, making it the costliest scam category by a wide margin, according to IC3. These scams typically promise high returns with minimal risk, often through fake cryptocurrency platforms.^{8, 9}

16. In 2025, investment scams were also among the most common types of internet crime reported to the FBI, behind only phishing or spoofing and extortion, accounting for 72,884 complaints that year.⁹

17. According to the IC3’s 2025 Internet Crime Report, many of the most costly internet crimes were scams, with investment scams (more than $8.6 billion in reported total losses) leading the list, followed by business email compromise scams (over $3 billion in total reported losses), tech support scams (over $2 billion), personal data breaches (nearly $1.5 billion), romance scams (over $900 million), and government impersonation scams (nearly $800 million).⁹

18. Online shopping scams produced 384,946 fraud reports in 2024, placing them among the most commonly reported categories in the U.S., according to the FTC. Victims of online shopping scams typically pay for goods that never arrive, are counterfeit, or differ significantly from what was advertised.²

19. Romance and dating scams caused over $929 million in reported losses in 2025, up from $670 million in 2024, despite a comparatively small complaint volume according to IC3. Victims of romance scams are often manipulated into sending repeated payments over extended periods, producing some of the highest losses per victim of any fraud category. The consequences can be as emotionally devastating as they are financial.^{8, 9}

20. Tech support scams resulted in approximately $2 billion in 2025, up from $1.46 billion in 2024, according to IC3, despite generating fewer complaints than higher-volume types. Victims of tech support scams are typically approached by criminals posing as support agents who falsely claim their device or account has been compromised.⁸

Common targets of online scams

While no one is immune, the data points to three groups who bear a disproportionate share of the burden: businesses exposed through routine financial processes, individual consumers navigating an expanding range of online platforms, and older adults, who face the steepest losses when scams succeed.

21. Business email compromise and payment redirection scams caused around $3 billion in reported losses in 2025, according to IC3, despite involving far fewer complaints than consumer-focused fraud. Small businesses, freelancers, and nonprofits are particularly vulnerable, as scammers exploit routine financial processes by impersonating trusted vendors, executives, or service providers.^{8, 9}

22. Gen Z and Millennials are more likely to fall victim when targeted, according to a 2025 global study, reflecting high exposure to the online platforms where scams most actively circulate.¹⁰

23. Adults aged 60 and older suffer the highest losses per victim of any age group, according to FBI data, making scams disproportionately costly for older adults.⁸

What scams cost victims

In the U.S. alone, total losses reported by consumers ran into the tens of billions of dollars in 2024 and 2025, and official figures likely capture only part of the true cost.

24. The FTC reported that U.S. consumers lost more than $12.5 billion to fraud in 2024, an increase of over $2 billion compared to the previous year. This makes 2024 the highest annual total on record.²

25. The FBI’s IC3 reports put total internet crime losses even higher, at over $16 billion in 2024 and nearly $21 billion in 2025, although not all internet crimes can be classified as scams.^{8, 9}

26. About 38% of FTC fraud reports involved a monetary loss, meaning well over one million reported scams resulted in financial harm.²

27. Gen survey data indicates that among people who have fallen victim to scams, 74% reported being financially impacted, with an average loss of $3,858 per victim.³

Official figures likely understate the true scale of what scams actually cost victims each year. Pew Research Center surveys show that scam exposure is far more widespread than reported losses suggest, with many attempts never appearing in official statistics, especially when no money is lost.⁴

Beyond direct financial harm, repeated exposure to scams carries additional costs that are harder to quantify, like stress, lost time, reduced trust in online communication, and greater hesitation around digital transactions, even among people who never lose a dollar.

Where are online scams coming from?

Online scams are not confined to any single country or region; they are a genuinely global phenomenon, coordinated across borders and routed through international financial infrastructure in ways that make attribution difficult and enforcement complex.

28. In 2024, the top international destinations for reported fraudulent wire transactions were Hong Kong and Vietnam, followed by Mexico, the Philippines, India, and China, based on transactional data from victim reports to IC3.⁸

29. These figures reflect reported payment destinations, not confirmed scammer locations. Scammers routinely obscure their whereabouts using spoofed communications, compromised accounts, and layered international payment routes.

30. In its 2025 Internet Crime Report, the IC3 notes that cryptocurrency investment scams are largely perpetrated by organized criminal enterprises based in Southeast Asia, who use victims of human trafficking as forced labor.⁹

31. Complaints related to online scams were submitted from more than 200 countries in 2024, according to IC3, reflecting the truly global reach of scam activity.⁸

What the data ultimately reveals is less a map of where scammers are than a portrait of how they operate: across jurisdictions, through intermediary financial systems, and at a scale that consistently outpaces the enforcement mechanisms designed to contain them.

Protect yourself against online scams

The average American receives two scam calls and three scam text messages every week, according to Gen survey data.¹ Given this scale of modern scam activity, protection is less about avoiding the occasional suspicious message than about managing a constant, evolving risk. The following tips address both prevention and recovery.

Tips to protect yourself from online scams

Scam prevention is less a matter of vigilance than of habit. The following actions, drawn from FTC guidance and broader cybersecurity research, address the points of greatest vulnerability that are within reach of most users, regardless of technical expertise.

• Treat unsolicited messages with caution: Be skeptical of messages involving payments, account issues, or urgent action, and verify them through independent channels before responding.
• Verify payment or account-change requests independently: Do not send money based on email instructions alone, particularly when the request invokes urgency, which is a hallmark of manipulation and social engineering.
• Enable multi-factor authentication: Available on many online accounts, it remains one of the most effective single steps against unauthorized access by requiring an extra verification method to sign in, such as a one-time passcode, fingerprint, or code from an authentication app.
• Use dedicated security software: Look for tools that actively monitor for scam threats across messages, links, and online activity, rather than relying on manual vigilance alone.

What to do if you fall victim to a scam

Acting quickly is the single most important thing you can do if you suspect you’ve been scammed. The tips below, recommended by the FTC, can help limit the damage and improve the chances of recovery.

• Act immediately: Contact your bank or payment provider to report the transaction and ask whether it can be reversed. Speed significantly affects the likelihood of recovery.
• Visit IdentityTheft.gov: If personal information has been compromised, the FTC’s IdentityTheft resource provides a tailored recovery plan based on what was lost.
• Report the scam to the FTC: Go to ReportFraud.ftc.gov and provide as much information as you can about the scam. Individual reports contribute to enforcement patterns, public alerts, and in some cases, legal action against scammers.
• Block all contact with the scammer: Continued engagement rarely aids recovery and often compounds harm.

How Norton 360 helps protect you from online scams

Scam attempts are now so frequent and so well disguised that the limits of vigilance are real, and individual awareness alone is no longer a reliable defense. Cyber Safety solutions like Norton 360 are designed to complement individual caution by spotting threats across the channels where scams most commonly appear: suspicious links, phishing emails, malicious websites, and fraudulent communications.

Norton technology blocks scam attempts on mobile devices every two seconds on average, according to internal telemetry data. This figure speaks to both the scale of the threat and the limits of what any individual can reasonably be expected to intercept unaided. Norton 360 helps make avoiding scams simpler by providing comprehensive, all-in-one protection against digital threats.

FAQs

Who is the biggest scammer in the world?

There is no single “biggest” scammer. According to law-enforcement data, most large-scale scams are carried out by organized criminal networks, not individuals. These networks often operate across multiple countries and use shared infrastructure, payment channels, and impersonation tactics, making it difficult to attribute activity to one person or location.

How much money is lost to scams each year?

In the U.S. alone, reported fraud losses exceeded $12.5 billion in 2024 according to the FTC, with FBI data placing total internet crime losses even higher, at over $21 billion in 2025.^{2, 9} Because both figures rely on voluntary reporting, actual losses are likely higher. For a fuller breakdown, see the What scams cost victims section above.

What are the most scammed states in America?​​

According to FBI IC3 data, states that consistently report the highest number of scam complaints and total losses include California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois.^{8, 9} However, these rankings largely reflect population size rather than unique vulnerability.