A new American Bankers Association (ABA) podcast episode discusses a recent Federal Trade Commission report showing a dramatic increase in older adults reporting significant financial losses to scams.

The FTC report, Protecting Older Consumers, 2024-2025, A Report of the Federal Trade Commission, reveals key findings from the Consumer Sentinel Network, which collects reports from consumers about fraud and other consumer problems. Among the takeaways, older adults reported losing far more money to investment scams than to any other fraud type in 2024, with scammers frequently targeting victims on social media. In fact, consumers of all ages reported social media as the most common method of contact for investment scams.

Additional findings reveal:

• Older adults were much more likely than younger adults to report losing money on tech support scams; prize, sweepstakes, and lottery scams; romance scams; and government impersonation scams.
• Overall fraud losses reported by older adults increased about fourfold from 2020 to 2024, skyrocketing from about $600 million in 2020 to $2.4 billion in 2024.

In ABA’s Fraudcast episode, Paul Benda, ABA’s executive vice president of risk, fraud, and cybersecurity, interviews Lois Greisman, associate director of the FTC’s division of marketing practices, about the findings.

Access the episode and ABA’s resources to help banks prevent, identify, measure, and report fraud.