The Federal Trade Commission released a new report Monday on fraud targeting older Americans, defined as people 60 and older. And things just keep getting worse.
The report, which is mandated by Congress under the Elder Abuse Prevention and Prosecution Act of 2017, found that the amount of money seniors reported to the FTC as being lost to fraud jumped from $600 million in 2020 to $3 billion in 2025. But the real number is likely several times that, since most fraud goes unreported. The FTC estimates that the overall cost in 2025 could be anywhere from $13.5 billion to $119.5 billion, depending on which methodology is used. That’s an increase of as much as 47% over 2024.
“These figures reflect a considerable degree of uncertainty because the scale of underreporting, particularly when losses are high, is not well understood,” the FTC says in its new report.
Older adults reported the highest individual losses to the FTC, compared to younger Americans, which is to be expected given the way that wealth is distributed in the U.S.—Baby Boomers, those between 62-80 years old, hold about 51% of the nation’s wealth, while Gen-X holds 26%, and Millennials hold 11%.
Those over 80 years old, known as the Silent Generation, hold about 11% of the country’s wealth but reported the largest individual losses. The median reported loss among those 80 and older was $2,000.
“From 2020 to 2025, combined losses by older adults who reported losing over $100,000 increased nearly sevenfold. While these reports were relatively rare at 6% of older adults’ loss reports in 2025, they accounted for 70% of their aggregate reported losses,” according to the report.
The most common types of fraud reported to the FTC among older adults was investment scams, scams involving impersonation of government officials, and business-impersonation scams, according to the report.
One interesting thing to note is that while the most common way for these scams to be initiated was through social media, median individual losses were much higher for frauds that began with a phone call. Frauds first initiated by text were counted in a separate category from phone frauds.
Older adults were 324% more likely than younger people to report losing money on a scam that was made to sound like a tech support call. Lottery and sweepstakes scams were also much higher among older people.
Older people were also 48% more likely to report losing money to a romance scam, something that’s not altogether surprising. But older people were less likely to report losing money on things like online shopping fraud, though interestingly they had a higher propensity to issue reports on that type of fraud than younger people. Which is to say that older people in general are more likely to report attempted fraud against them even if they didn’t ultimately lose any money.
Bank transfers accounted for the highest aggregated dollar loss (over $1 billion) for older people, but paying through credit card was the most frequently reported payment method for scams among the age group, even if the amounts were much smaller.
Gizmodo has examined a number of complaints to the FTC over the years and romance scams targeting older people can be some of the most heartbreaking. As one example, a Washington woman in her 70s told the FTC she lost $63,000 to an Elon Musk impersonator. She seemed to genuinely believe she was in a romantic relationship with the trillionaire, according to documents obtained by Gizmodo, and needed the money for dental surgery.
Other celebrity names are commonly used for impersonation scams, including actors well past their prime, in order to target older Americans. Scammers will frequently use Johnny Depp, for example, to convince elderly women that he’s really in love with them. The sums are astounding, according to documents we’ve obtained via FOIA. One woman in her 60s in Alabama reported losing $350,000 to a Johnny Depp impersonator, while a California woman over 80 reported losing $200,000.
“There is an impersonator for Johnny Depp who has requested various wire transfers to various individuals and gift cards, and apple cards from my Mom bank accounts,” one 2024 complaint to the FTC read. “This imposter has taken advantage of my mother and is harassing her and manipulating her through social media, phone and messaging services.”
That woman was in her 70s and from Michigan. She lost $175,000, and the scammers told her to keep the payments a secret from her family.
Unfortunately the FTC report doesn’t include any data on scams using AI, about which we currently only have anecdotes. But you can bet AI agents are going to become increasingly common as a way to swindle people out of their hard earned money, elderly or otherwise.
If you’ve been scammed, you can report your experience to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
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