Cybercrime against seniors is surging, with $7.75B reportedly lost in 2025

Americans ages 60 and older filed 201,266 complaints with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) in 2025. And they reported losses totaling $7.75 billion — a 59% increase over the prior year, according to the agency’s annual report.

The average loss per senior victim was $38,500, with more than 12,400 older complainants losing more than $100,000 each. Investment fraud — much of it involving cryptocurrency and fake trading platforms — inflicted the heaviest financial toll on seniors, with reported losses of $3.52 billion in 2025.

Tech and customer support scams ranked second among older victims at $1.04 billion, followed by confidence and romance scams at $584 million, the report explained.

“The scammers typically initiate contact through text messages, social media sites, advertisements, or dating applications and then quickly move the conversation to a messaging platform,” the report said. “Often, the victims are introduced to investment groups representing themselves to be knowledgeable industry insiders offering guidance on trading or investing in cryptocurrency or gold.”

Business email compromises — schemes that frequently target seniors closing on home sales — cost older victims $568 million across 4,566 complaints.

California saw the largest number of senior complaints at 22,157, followed by Florida with 17,147 and Texas with 14,410. California seniors also led in losses by dollar volume at $1.4 billion.

AI powers ‘grandparent scams’

Artificial intelligence (AI) is giving traditional elder fraud new and dangerous sophistication.

The IC3 received more than 3,100 complaints from seniors referencing AI in 2025 — with losses exceeding $352 million.

Voice cloning can also be used to request wire payment in so-called “grandparent” or “distress” scams, in which voice cloning technology is used to mimic the sound of a loved one in distress. Victims claimed losses of more than $5 million in 2025 tied to distress scams.

Data also shows this scam model evolving to mimic other family members or close friends in different types of emergency scenarios.

Seniors filed 42,271 complaints amounting to losses of $4.35 billion involving cryptocurrency in 2025.

Cryptocurrency ATMs and kiosks were a particular vulnerability. Victims 60 and older reported 6,188 such incidents, losing $257.5 million — a 58% increase in losses from 2024.

The FBI said that scammers increasingly direct seniors to physical crypto kiosks, where cash can be converted to digital currency and sent instantly to overseas fraud rings.

To compound problems, the report added that criminals are now impersonating government officials and fake law firms to approach seniors who have already lost money — offering bogus recovery services for an upfront fee.

Seniors reported $540 million in losses to recovery scams in 2025.

Fighting back

The FBI’s Recovery Asset Team froze $32.9 million of the reported $65.4 million in elder fraud cases initiated through the Financial Fraud Kill Chain in 2025.

Officials recommend that older adults and their families take several immediate steps, including;

• Enabling multifactor authentication on all financial accounts
• Never sending cryptocurrency to someone met only online
• Verifying any urgent request for money by calling the alleged family member directly using a known phone number — not the number provided in the suspicious message.

Seniors who have lost money to any cyber-enabled scam are urged to file a complaint at ic3.gov, regardless of the amount.

Jonathan Delozier reported and wrote this article with drafting assistance from HousingWire Automation, an editorial tool that helps transform announcements and industry data into HousingWire-style news coverage.