FBI Data Shows Record $20.9 Billion Lost to Online Scams as Banks and Lawmakers Seek New Defenses
Internet-enabled crime cost Americans a record $20.9 billion in 2025, a 26% rise, with older adults losing $7.7 billion. Banks, law enforcement and Congress are weighing new measures against scams that often originate overseas.
Americans reported losing $20.9 billion to internet-enabled crime in 2025, the highest figure ever recorded by the FBI and a 26% increase over the previous year. The surge stands out because most other categories of crime, from homicide to car theft, have declined, according to the latest federal data.
Adults over 60 bore a disproportionate share of the losses, reporting $7.7 billion and an average loss of $38,500 each. The true toll is likely higher: the Federal Trade Commission notes that most victims never file a report, leaving a large share of the damage unrecorded.
What distinguishes many of these cases from conventional cyberattacks is that victims are often persuaded to authorize payments themselves. Rather than breaching a firewall or stealing a password, scammers build trust through social media, phone calls, texts and emails, then convince targets to send money voluntarily. To automated fraud systems, such transfers look legitimate, which makes them far harder to intercept.
The cross-border dimension has drawn growing attention from U.S. officials. The Treasury Department estimates that Americans lost at least $10 billion in 2024 to scam operations based in Southeast Asia, a 66% increase. Many of these operations are concentrated in Burma, Cambodia and Laos, and some are staffed by trafficked workers held in debt bondage or under threat of violence.
Social media has become a primary gateway for the schemes. The FTC reports that scams originating on social platforms cost Americans $2.1 billion last year, eight times the 2020 figure and more than any other contact method. Artificial intelligence has further lowered the barriers for criminals, who no longer need English fluency or genuine photographs to run convincing frauds.
Washington has debated how to respond. In December 2024, the outgoing Biden administration's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued the operator of the Zelle payment network and three of its largest participating banks over scam losses. The suit was dismissed with prejudice three months later, a outcome the source describes as correct. American banks already run real-time risk scoring on outbound payments, warn customers mid-transaction when money is headed to a new recipient, and block transfers that trip their models, often while a customer insists the person on the phone is legitimate.
Juniper Research estimates that financial institutions spent roughly $21 billion on fraud prevention in 2025. Coordinated efforts with law enforcement have produced results: the FBI's Financial Fraud Kill Chain froze $679 million of $1.16 billion in attempted theft last year. But the source argues that banks cannot carry the fight alone, because scams begin long before the payment screen. Reimbursement mandates, it warns, would raise the cost of banking and payment services for millions of households while leaving foreign criminals with their stolen funds.
A source-focused approach has shown more progress. In October, the United States and Britain jointly sanctioned 146 individuals and entities tied to Cambodia's Prince Group, the Justice Department indicted its chairman, and prosecutors moved to seize 127,271 Bitcoin in what would be the largest forfeiture in the department's history. The Scam Center Strike Force has seized more than $401 million for return to victims, and the FBI's Operation Level Up has warned more than 8,000 Americans mid-scam.
The source calls for making temporary executive measures permanent through legislation, expanding private-sector partnerships, and clarifying safe harbor rules so that flagging suspicious activity is not itself a legal risk. It also urges designating scam syndicates as terrorist organizations where they qualify, imposing diplomatic costs on countries that host scam compounds, and pressing telecom, technology and social media firms to remove fraudulent ads rather than profit from them. Congress, the source concludes, should raise penalties for cross-border scams, streamline extradition and give current executive orders a statutory footing that survives beyond a single administration.
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