New FTC Data Show a Big Jump in Reported Losses to Fraud to $12.5 Billion in 2024

 

Federal Trade Commission

5 hours ago

New FTC Data Show a Big Jump in Reported Losses to Fraud to $12.5 Billion in 2024 | Federal Trade Commission

 

The FTC added 6.5 million consumer reports to the Consumer Sentinel Network (Sentinel) secure online database in 2024, with over 118.960 reports of investment fraud schemes and 845,806 reports of imposter scams.

However, it's important to note that the data shared by the FTC reflects only a fraction of the actual harm scammers inflicted last year since the vast majority of frauds are never reported

US govt says Americans lost record $12.5 billion to fraud in 2024

By Sergiu Gatlan
March 10, 2025
03:05 PM

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said today that Americans lost a record $12.5 billion to fraud last year, a 25% increase over the previous year.

Consumers reported that investment scams resulted in the highest losses, totaling around $5.7 billion with a median loss of over $9,000 and exceeding all other fraud categories. The second largest reported loss was linked with imposter scams, amounting to $2.95 billion in 2024.

Younger people have also reported losing money to fraud more often than people over 70, as 44% of all reports filed last year came from consumers between 20 and 29.

Fraud statistics in 2024 (FTC)

​​The FTC added 6.5 million consumer reports to the Consumer Sentinel Network (Sentinel) secure online database in 2024, with over 118.960 reports of investment fraud schemes and 845,806 reports of imposter scams.

However, it's important to note that the data shared by the FTC reflects only a fraction of the actual harm scammers inflicted last year since the vast majority of frauds are never reported.

Fraud victims can file identity theft reports at IdentityTheft.gov and report incidents at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

After being included in the FTC's Sentinel database, their reports are available to approximately 2,800 federal, state, local, and international law enforcement professionals, helping fraud investigators track down scammers and making it easier to discover trends.

A full breakdown of reports received in 2024, including state and metropolitan area statistics, can be found on the FTC's data analysis site at ftc.gov/exploredata.