Online Scams May Be Costing Americans 7 Times More Than Reported
A new report estimates that Americans lost nearly $148.2 billion to online scams and cybercrime in 2025, with crypto scams dominating the losses. The true total is likely much higher, as most victims never report their losses to law enforcement.
Intelligence analysis by Llama
Online scams have become a routine part of everyday internet use, with Americans losing an estimated $148.2 billion in 2025. The losses are largely due to crypto scams, which accounted for over half of the reported losses. The true total is likely much higher, as most victims never report their losses to law enforcement.
Online scams are like fake packages or too-good-to-be-true investment offers that you get on the internet. They can be very convincing, but they are actually scams that can cost people a lot of money. It's like someone is trying to trick you into giving them your money.
Analysis
A $60B Vote of Confidence
The fake package text. The too-good-to-be-true investment offer. The stranger in your DMs who quickly starts asking for money. Online scams have become a routine part of everyday internet use, and a new report estimates they may be costing Americans nearly $150 billion a year.
The exact amount is impossible to know, and that is partly the point of the report. Americans reported approximately $20.9 billion in losses to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center last year. The Consumer Federation of America estimates the true total is more than seven times higher because most victims never report their losses to law enforcement. The organization based that calculation on a 2017 federal survey that found only around 14% of financial fraud victims reported the crime to police. Applying that reporting rate to the FBI’s 2025 figures produces the much larger $148.2 billion estimate.
That doesn’t mean every American household lost money to a scam last year. But it does suggest the official figures capture only a fraction of the problem — and that even the FBI’s more conservative estimates show scam losses are climbing rapidly.
Why Cursor?
Crypto scams dominate More than half of the losses reported to the FBI involved cryptocurrency. Victims reported losing nearly $11.4 billion in crypto-related incidents, up about 22% from the previous year. The Consumer Federation of America estimates the true cost could be closer to $80.7 billion.
Crypto is especially useful to scammers because payments can be difficult to reverse, and funds can be quickly moved through multiple wallets. Many victims are first targeted through fake investment opportunities, social media ads, dating apps or messages from scammers posing as businesses or government agencies.
The Road Ahead
The FBI also measured AI-related crime for the first time in 2025, recording 22,364 complaints and $893 million in associated losses. Using the same underreporting calculation, the Consumer Federation of America estimated AI-enabled losses at approximately $6.3 billion.
That doesn’t mean AI has created an entirely new $6.3 billion category of fraud separate from existing schemes. An AI-generated voice clone, for example, may also be classified as an impersonation scam. Instead, the figure provides an early indication of how generative AI is being incorporated into familiar types of fraud.
Scammers can now cheaply create convincing profiles, personalized messages, fake documents and cloned voices at scale, allowing them to launch thousands of tailored attempts until a victim responds.
Key points
- Americans lost an estimated $148.2 billion to online scams and cybercrime in 2025.
- Crypto scams dominated the losses, with victims reporting nearly $11.4 billion in crypto-related incidents.
- The true total of scam losses is likely much higher than reported, as most victims never report their losses to law enforcement.
- AI-generated scams are becoming more common and could make it harder for people to spot and prevent online scams.
- Social media companies need to take responsibility for verifying advertisers and removing fraudulent content to help reduce the number of online scams.
If social media companies take responsibility for verifying advertisers and removing fraudulent content, it could help reduce the number of online scams and protect people's money. Additionally, educating individuals on how to spot suspicious messages and being cautious when receiving unexpected requests for money or personal information could also help prevent scams.
The rise of AI-generated scams could make it even harder for people to spot and prevent online scams. Scammers can now create convincing profiles, messages, and documents at scale, making it more difficult for individuals to distinguish between real and fake. Furthermore, the fact that most victims never report their losses to law enforcement means that the true total of scam losses is likely much higher than reported.
