The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has warned that Americans will lose $3.5 billion to fraud by 2025, with reported losses nearly tripling by 2020.
Impostor scams were also the most reported fraud category last year, accounting for nearly one in three fraud reports filed with the FTC. In these scams, scammers reach out to victims through text messages, phone calls, emails, social media, and search engine results. The most expensive schemes often involve a fake bank security alert encouraging targets to transfer funds to “protect” their accounts.
According to the FTC, victims have lost nearly $1 billion to business fraudsters (banking fraudsters are behind the most lucrative scams) and nearly $920 million to government fraudsters. Social media has been the most cost-effective attack vector for actors, with more than 2.1 billion losses by 2025 traced to social media (eightfold from 2020).
About one in three Americans who lost money to this crime were first contacted through social media, with losses from Facebook alone exceeding those from text and email combined, while WhatsApp and Instagram ranked second and third.
“The FTC will use all available tools to combat one of the most dangerous forms of fraud—government and corporate impersonation—and protect the integrity of the digital economy,” said Christopher Mufarrige, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
Total reported fraud losses across all categories reached nearly $16 billion by 2025, the highest on record and nearly 25% more than last year.
In March 2024, the FTC again warned that fraudsters are impersonating its employees to steal money after receiving numerous reports of scams in which fraudsters impersonate agency employees to pressure Americans by phone, email, or text to wire or wire money.
Since the Impersonation Act went into effect in April 2024, the FTC has brought a dozen enforcement actions, recovered more than $70 million in consumer settlements and stopped other fraudulent schemes.
Last year, the FTC announced legal action under this law against MediaAlpha (a government fraud scheme), the US Internal Revenue Service (an IRS fraud scheme), Blackstone Legal (a business credit fraud scheme), Click Profit (a money making scam business), and Accelerated Debt Pay (a government and business fraud scheme).
It also filed a complaint against Innovative Partners in April 2026, alleging that the company impersonated the government and insurance carriers to sell fraudulent health plans.
That same month, the FBI warned in its 2025 cybercrime report that US victims lost nearly $21 billion to cyber-enabled crime over the past year.
Security teams penetrate 54% of successful attacks and monitor 14%. Others walk around the area without being seen.
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