Real cost of online scams may dwarf official numbers, report finds

(InvestigateTV) — Online scams are costing Americans billions, and a new report suggests the true toll may be far higher than official numbers show.

Ben Winters and his team at the Consumer Federation of America looked at reported losses, then factored in how many cases may never be reported to authorities at all.

“What we really wanted to do in this report is try to show what would happen if everyone was reporting. Just to show the unfathomable amount of losses that Americans are having from these crimes,” said Winters, director of AI and privacy at the Consumer Federation of America.

Using FBI data and a reporting-rate estimate, they projected Americans lost about $119 billion to online scams and crimes in 2024. Winters called that a conservative estimate.

Among the biggest loss categories in the report are investment scams, including fake investment and crypto schemes, business email compromise and tech support scams.

“People are losing more and more each year to scams,” Winters said.

Winters said one of the best ways to protect yourself is to slow down when something does not feel right.

“If you get something that seems a little fishy, independently call the entity. If you get say, ‘this is your car insurance saying this is your last warning,’ you should hang up, pause and find your car insurance own number. Don’t respond to the one you got called from,” he said.

He also says reporting a scam can help authorities better understand the size of the problem, and he wants people to know they are not alone if they have been targeted.

“Just talk about it and make it sort of more normalized. And that also helps sort of catalyze that legislation and regulatory action if the average constituent is talking about it. I think it makes it even higher up on the priority list,” Winters said.

The report says California, Texas and Florida had the highest reported losses in 2024. New York and Illinois were also among the top 10.