Older Adult Fraud Is Now a Multi-Billion-Dollar Crisis

Every year, the FTC and FBI release data on fraud losses. Every year, the numbers go up. But the 2024–2025 figures represent something different — not just growth, but acceleration. The largest single-year jump on record. And a new category of threat that official reporting hasn't even caught up to yet.

We pulled the key findings together into a structured report. Here's a preview of what's in it.

The headline numbers

Adults aged 60 and over reported $2.4 billion in fraud losses to the FTC in 2024 — up from $600 million in 2020. That's a 300% increase in four years. But the FTC figure is only what gets reported. FBI-linked cybercrime data tells a starker story.

The scam types doing the most damage

Investment scams lead the pack at $1.8 billion in losses in 2024, followed by tech support scams approaching $1 billion. But the breakdown that surprised us most: phone-initiated scams produce a median loss of $2,210 per victim — more than three times the median loss from social-media-initiated scams. Scammers know this. It's why they call.

Call centres overwhelmingly target older adults. In 2023, adults 60+ accounted for 58% of all call-centre fraud losses — roughly $770 million — despite being a minority of the overall victim pool.

The threat that doesn't show up in official figures yet

This is where it gets urgent. AI-powered voice cloning — the technology that lets a scammer clone a grandchild's voice from a 15-second social media clip — doesn't yet appear as its own line item in FTC or FBI data. It gets folded into phone fraud, impersonation scams, and call-centre schemes. The official numbers don't capture what's really happening.

But cross-industry research does.

The "grandkid scam" is the human face of this data. A scammer harvests audio from a grandchild's TikTok or voicemail greeting. They clone the voice. They call a grandparent claiming to be in trouble — an accident, an arrest, an emergency. They need bail money. They need it now. Individual losses typically range from several thousand dollars upward, with some victims sending multiple transfers before anyone spots what's happening.

Three red flags appear in nearly every case: unexpected contact from an unfamiliar number, intense emotional pressure, and manufactured urgency designed to prevent the target from pausing to verify.

What families can do right now

The data points to a small number of high-impact habits that directly counter the way these scams work:

1. Set a family safe word. Agree on a word or phrase only your family knows, and use it to verify any unexpected "emergency" call — even if the voice sounds exactly like your grandchild.
2. Slow down the money. The median phone-scam loss is high because scammers push for speed. A rule like "no wiring money or buying gift cards for a family member until we've spoken on our own terms" defeats the urgency.
3. Pause before acting on any urgent call or text. Hang up, then call the person back on a number you already have — not the one the caller gave you.
4. Report what you can. Even one report to the FTC helps build the picture these numbers come from, and reporting helps others avoid the same trap.

None of this requires technical skill. It requires exactly what scammers are counting on you not to do: slowing down and verifying through a channel you trust.

What's in the full report

The complete report covers all five sections of our research: the executive summary, a full breakdown of losses by scam type, the overall fraud burden on older adults, the AI and voice-based threat landscape, and a comparison of official reported figures against model-based full estimates. It includes data tables, loss-scale graphics, and source citations for every figure.

It's designed to be shared — with family members, community groups, financial advisers, anyone who works with or cares about older adults.

Sources

• Federal Trade Commission — ReportFraud.ftc.gov (report fraud and find official consumer guidance).
• FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center — IC3.gov (annual elder-fraud and cybercrime complaint data).