These Are Most Common Types Of Fraud In America
These Are Most Common Types Of Fraud In America
Americans are losing more money to scams than ever before. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) estimates that Americans lost $12.5 billion to fraud schemes in 2024, up $2.5 billion from the previous year.
In 2023, consumers around the world https://www.visualcapitalist.com/global-losses-from-financial-scams/#google_vignette
to scams.
While certain scams were much more commonly reported, other types led to bigger financial losses for consumers.
This visualization, https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-most-common-types-of-fraud-in-america/
shows the 10 most common types of fraud in the U.S. by the number of reports made to the FTC in 2024, and the total dollar value lost from each type of fraud.
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Data comes from the https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/federal.trade.commission/viz/TheBigViewAllSentinelReports/TopReports
and is updated as of March 2025.
What Type of Fraud is the Most Common?
Below, we show the top 10 most commonly reported fraud types to the FTC, the total dollar value lost from each type of fraud, and the median loss per incident.
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Imposter scams—where fraudsters pose as government officials, friends, coworkers, or other trusted parties to steal money or personal information—were the most frequently reported type of fraud in the U.S. last year, with over 840,000 cases filed with the FTC.
This cost consumers almost $3 billion in losses last year.
However, while imposter scams were the most common, investment-related scams led to the biggest financial losses, costing Americans a total of $5.7 billion. The median loss per victim exceeded $9,000.
According to the https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2025/03/top-scams-2024
, scams through email made up the highest number of reports while scams through social media had the highest losses.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/how-much-do-scam-text-messages-cost-americans/
are also common, making up 22% of all fraud reports to the FTC in 2022.
Types of Fraud
A full list of all fraud types can be found on the https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/attachments/data-sets/category_definitions.pdf
website.
Imposter scams: Someone pretends to be a trusted person to get consumer to send money/give personal information
Online shopping/negative reviews: Undisclosed costs, failure to deliver on time, non-delivery, business preventing honest reviews
Business/job opportunities: Fraudulent franchise opportunities, multi-level marketing schemes, job scams
Investment related: Fraudulent investment opportunities in day trading, gold, art, other products
Internet services: Problems with website content, difficulty canceling online account, issues with payment service, undisclosed charges
Prizes, sweepstakes and lotteries: Promotions for free prizes for a fee, foreign lotteries offered through phone or e-mail
Telephone and mobile services: Unauthorized charges, problems with mobile applications
Health care: Fraudulent, misleading or deceptive claims for treatments or products
Travel, vacations, timeshare plans: Deceptive offers for free or low-cost vacations, misleading time share offers
Mortgage foreclosure relief, debt management: Lenders/brokers making false promises to save consumers’ homes from foreclosure, credit organizations charging excessive fees
To learn more about common scams, check out this https://www.voronoiapp.com/technology/The-Companies-Online-Scammers-Impersonate-the-Most-1110
that visualizes companies are impersonated most often in online scams.
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Fri, 04/11/2025 - 23:00
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