Every day people report to the FTC the scams they spot. Every year, the FTC shares the information we collect in a data book which tells a story about the top scams people tell us about – so we can all spot and avoid them.
The Data Book tells us that people lost $10 billion to scams in 2023. That’s $1 billion more than 2022 and the highest ever in reported losses to the FTC – even though the number of reports (2.6 million) was about the same as last year. One in four people reported losing money to scams, with a median loss of $500 per person. And email was the #1 contact method for scammers this year, especially when scammers pretended to be a business or government agency to steal money.