Older Americans Lost $3B to Scams in 2025: FTC

Older Americans are watching their savings vanish to scammers at a pace that's accelerating fast. A new Federal Trade Commission report says people aged 60 and up reported losing about $3 billion to fraud in 2025, up 25% from 2024 and five times the tally in 2020, reports CNBC. Just 6% of victims lost at least $100,000, but those big hits made up 70% of the total losses; the FTC estimates the real damage could range wildly from $13.3 billion to almost $120 billion.

Investment schemes were the biggest drain, notes Investment News, costing older adults more than $1 billion, up 42%. Those losses were followed by government and business impersonation scams, with AI tools making scams more convincing and harder to spot. "The numbers and the increases are staggering," says Bob Blancato of the Elder Justice Coalition. "The perpetrators are always ahead. They seem to be one step ahead of everybody." In Washington, lawmakers are weighing bills that would restore tax breaks for many fraud victims and let financial firms briefly freeze suspicious transactions to protect customers.