Economics

The estimate builds on numbers from the FBI, which are widely believed to capture only a small fraction of the money lost to scams.

Americans are losing at least $119 billion every year to scams, according to a new estimate from the nonprofit Consumer Federation of America, a consumer advocacy group.

There is no formal U.S. government estimate of how widespread scams are; some indicators show they have steadily risen for years. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center solicits victims to report their losses but admits its figures are a gross undercount, given that many people don’t want to or know to share that information with the agency.

For 2024, the most recent year for which data is available, the FBI found $16.6 billion in reported losses, beating the previous record, $12.5 billion, in 2023.