WASHINGTON – Fraud losses reported by people 60 and over rose about fivefold in five years. They went from $600 million in 2020 to about $3 billion in 2025. The Federal Trade Commission gave the figures on November 4, 2026, in a consumer alert about its new report to Congress.
The report, dated October 19, 2026, is the FTC’s ninth annual report on protecting older consumers. It goes to the Judiciary Committees of the Senate and the House.
The numbers are reported losses only. The FTC did not take consumer reports from October 1 to November 13, 2025, because of a lapse in funding. The report says “many frauds go unreported,” so the $3 billion “does not reflect the true cost of fraud to older adults.” The FTC’s own estimate of the full cost in 2025 is between $13.3 billion and $119.5 billion, “depending on methodology.”
Older adults were not the group most likely to lose money. The FTC says that last year “younger adults were generally more likely to report losing money to fraud than older adults.” The report puts a number on it: older adults reported losing money to fraud at a 14% lower rate than younger adults. But when they did lose money, their typical loss was larger.
| Key fact | What the source says |
|---|---|
| Reported losses, 2020 | $600 million, people 60 and over. |
| Reported losses, 2024 | About $2.4 billion. |
| Reported losses, 2025 | About $3 billion. |
| Typical (median) loss, 60 and over | About $900, steady from 2024. |
| Typical (median) loss, 80 and over | $2,000, up 21% from 2024. |
| Estimated full cost, 2025 | $13.3 billion to $119.5 billion. |
| Most money lost to | Investment, government impersonation, business impersonation scams. |
| Where to report | ReportFraud.ftc.gov, or 1-800-MEDICARE for a Medicare scam. |
What changed#
The report is the FTC’s account of its work for older adults “over the past year.” That work runs “from law enforcement to consumer education to coordination with partners …”
The rise came mostly from very large losses. Reports of a loss over $100,000 were 6% of older adults’ loss reports in 2025. Those reports made up 70% of the money older adults reported losing.
The count of those large losses grew fastest. Older adults reporting a loss over $100,000 went from 1,136 in 2020 to 6,769 in 2025. Reports of a loss under $10,000 grew from 60,930 to 93,135 over the same years.
Investment scams cost older adults the most money. Those losses “jumped 42% in 2025.” The report says people “often described being lured to fake cryptocurrency-investment platforms after being targeted on social media.”
Government impersonation came second. The largest share of those losses was on scams pretending to be the FTC, the FBI and the Social Security Administration. Business impersonation came third, with the highest losses on scams pretending to be banks.
Those bank scams follow one pattern. They work “by convincing people that a security issue has put their accounts at risk.” People then report being told to move money, mail cash, or put cash into Bitcoin ATMs to keep it “safe.”
The alert lists where the agency’s recent cases fell. It says “recent FTC law enforcement actions that impacted older adults focused on various consumer protection areas …” It names “debt relief services, health insurance frauds, government and business impersonation schemes, money-making opportunities, and tech support scams.”
It also names one outreach effort. Never Ever is “a public-private consumer education campaign that raised awareness about government and business imposter scams.” The FTC says its materials can be shared.
How the scams reach people changed too. Social media brought older adults the most loss reports and the most money lost in 2025. Those losses were “about twelve times higher than in 2020.” Of the money older adults lost to scams that began on social media, investment scams took 56% and romance scams 23%.
The typical loss was higher on scams that began with a phone call than on social media. It was $3,000 on a scam that began with a call and $599 on one that began on social media.
People 80 and over were the exception. For them, scams that started with a phone call caused much higher losses and far more loss reports than any other first contact. Social media was “a distant second.”
Older adults’ reported losses to text scams were up 61% from 2024. The largest share of those loss reports were texts pretending to be well-known businesses, “particularly Amazon, Apple, and banks.”
The way money left matters as well. Older adults reported the highest aggregate losses on frauds paid by bank transfers or payments, and the second highest on cryptocurrency transfers. Credit cards were the fraud payment method they reported most often.
Who it affects#
People 60 and over, and the adult children who look out for a parent. The report shows how often family steps in. About 17% of reports for people 80 and over were filed by someone else, such as an adult child, a spouse or a caretaker. That is far higher than any other age group.
Five scam types stood out in the report. Compared with younger people, older adults were over four times more likely to report losing money to a tech support scam. They were over twice as likely on a prize, sweepstakes or lottery scam. They were 48% more likely on a romance scam. They were 15% more likely on government impersonation, and on scams pretending to be a friend or family member.
A tech support scam is a call, message or pop-up that says a computer has a problem and offers to fix it. A prize scam says a person has won something and must pay a fee or give account details to collect. A government impersonation scam is a caller or message pretending to be an agency such as Medicare or Social Security.
Medicare’s own fraud page states the test for the last one. It says, “Medicare will never call you to sell you anything or visit you at your home.” It adds that Medicare “will only call and ask for personal information in limited situations,” such as returning a call a person placed. The report says phone scams that older adults spotted without losing money often pretended to be Medicare, banks, Amazon and the FTC.
The same Medicare page gives a second number for people in a Medicare Advantage or Medicare drug plan. They can also call the Investigations Medicare Drug Integrity Contractor at 1-877-772-3379. It also says to check receipts and statements from providers for mistakes, and to call the provider’s office if a charge seems incorrect.
What to watch, with dates#
- November 4, 2026: the FTC published the consumer alert pointing to the report.
- Any day: a scam, paid or not, can be reported at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. A suspected Medicare scam can be reported at 1-800-MEDICARE, which is 1-800-633-4227, or online, per Medicare’s page.
- The next report: this is the ninth annual one, so a tenth is likely in about a year. No date is given.
The FTC adds a caution about its own estimate. It says the $13.3 billion to $119.5 billion figures “reflect a considerable degree of uncertainty.” The reason it gives is that the scale of unreported fraud, “particularly when losses are high, is not well understood.”
For how to read a claim about fraud in benefits, see the Vice President on fraud in your benefits. For how to check any number in a government statement, see how to check a policy claim. For where federal rules live, see reading the federal rulebooks.
Source: Federal Trade Commission, “Protecting Older Consumers 2025-2026: A Report of the Federal Trade Commission,” October 19, 2026; read November 5, 2026. Also the FTC consumer alert, read November 5, 2026.