Older adult fraud losses reported to the Federal Trade Commission reached approximately $3 billion in 2025, according to a new federal report that also shows how a relatively small number of exceptionally large losses account for much of the financial damage.
The FTC's October 19 report, Protecting Older Consumers 2025–2026, examines complaints involving Americans aged 60 and older and the agency's efforts to address fraud affecting that population.
The headline figure is substantial: reported losses increased from approximately $600 million in 2020 to about $3 billion in 2025.
But the report's most consequential finding may be how unevenly those losses are distributed.
Among older adults who reported losing money to fraud in 2025, reports involving losses exceeding $100,000 represented approximately 6% of loss reports but accounted for 70% of aggregate reported losses.
That concentration helps explain why total losses can increase dramatically without a comparable increase in the number of people reporting financial harm.
Why a small share of cases accounts for most losses
The FTC's 58-page report to Congress shows that six-figure losses have become a major driver of the overall increase in reported fraud losses among older adults.
From 2020 to 2025, the number of reports involving losses greater than $100,000 increased from 1,136 to 6,769, according to the report.
Over the same period, reports involving losses below $10,000 also increased, but much less dramatically.
The distinction matters because aggregate losses and the frequency of fraud are not interchangeable measures.
A single incident involving a large retirement account can contribute more to total reported losses than hundreds of smaller scams. Consequently, an increase in total dollars lost does not necessarily mean that the same percentage increase occurred in the number of victims.
The FTC also found that older adults were more than twice as likely as younger adults, after accounting for population size, to report a six-figure fraud loss.
That finding concerns exceptionally large reported losses. It should not be interpreted as evidence that older adults are more likely to lose money to every kind of fraud.
Investment scams caused the largest reported losses
Investment scams remained the leading category by aggregate reported losses among older adults.
The FTC said reported investment-scam losses increased 42% in 2025, exceeding $1 billion.
Some reports described consumers being directed toward fraudulent cryptocurrency investment platforms after initial contact through social media.
Government-impersonation and business-impersonation scams were also major sources of reported financial harm.
These schemes may begin with a claim that a bank account has been compromised, a government agency is investigating suspicious activity or money must be moved to prevent theft.
The requested action is often the danger itself.
The FTC's consumer guidance on fraudulent bank-security calls warns against transferring money in response to an unexpected instruction to protect an account.
Consumers should independently contact the institution using a verified number or application rather than relying on contact details supplied in the suspicious message.
Social media and telephone scams present different risks
The FTC found that social media accounted for the largest aggregate reported losses and the highest number of loss reports among older adults when comparing initial contact methods.
But telephone scams produced higher median individual reported losses.
The report identifies a median reported loss of $3,000 for fraud originating through telephone calls, compared with $599 for fraud originating through social media.
These measures answer different questions.
Aggregate losses indicate where the largest combined financial harm appeared in the reporting data. Median individual losses describe the middle reported loss among consumers who lost money through a particular contact method.
Neither measure, by itself, establishes the probability that a person using a particular communication channel will be defrauded.
For people aged 80 and older, telephone contact was especially prominent in the FTC's findings.
Why the FTC estimates losses far above $3 billion
The report distinguishes money consumers reported losing from estimates of fraud that never entered the reporting system.
The FTC estimates that total fraud losses among older adults in 2025 could range from $13.3 billion to $119.5 billion, depending on the assumptions used.
This is not a conventional confidence interval. The two figures come from different approaches to estimating losses that may never have been reported.
The higher estimate applies reporting-rate assumptions derived from previous research to different categories of losses.
The lower estimate uses a more conservative assumption that all consumers who lost at least $10,000 reported those losses.
The FTC explicitly acknowledges substantial uncertainty, particularly because the reporting behavior of people who suffer very large losses is not well understood.
The report also notes that the FTC did not receive consumer reports during part of October and November 2025 because of a lapse in funding. Its estimation methodology accounts for that interruption, introducing another consideration when interpreting the results.
The appropriate conclusion is not that investigators have verified $119.5 billion in stolen money. It is that reported losses substantially understate the potential scale of fraud, while the amount of unreported harm remains uncertain.
This distinction complements Unhyd's earlier analysis of why FTC and FBI fraud-loss totals cannot simply be added together. Different datasets and estimation methods answer different questions.
What consumers and families can do with these findings
The report reinforces the importance of recognizing requests that combine urgency, impersonation and instructions to move money.
A caller claiming to represent a bank or government agency should not be treated as verified simply because the caller knows personal information or displays a familiar telephone number.
Independent verification is particularly important before transferring money, purchasing cryptocurrency or granting remote access to a computer.
Consumers who have already transferred money should contact their bank or payment provider immediately and ask whether the transaction can be stopped or reversed.
The FTC's recovery guidance provides different steps depending on how the payment was made and whether personal information or device access was compromised.
People concerned about exposed personal information can also consult Unhyd's guide to removing personal information from the internet, although data removal alone cannot reverse identity theft or recover stolen funds.
Reporting suspected fraud to the FTC can help investigators identify patterns, even when recovering the money is uncertain.
What the new report ultimately shows
The FTC's findings point to two related problems: a sharp rise in exceptionally large reported losses and significant uncertainty about the scale of fraud that remains unreported.
The concentration of losses among six-figure cases makes early intervention particularly important, especially when a scammer is attempting to move substantial savings or retirement funds.
At the same time, the difference between reported losses and modeled estimates should remain visible in public discussions of fraud.
The roughly $3 billion figure describes documented reports involving older adults. The much larger estimates attempt to account for losses outside that reporting system.
Understanding both figures—and the limitations behind them—is essential to interpreting the financial risks described in the FTC's new report.
