Federal Trade Commission Reports Nationwide Fraud Losses Topped $10B in 2023

Consumers reported losing more than $10 billion to fraud in 2023, marking the first time that fraud losses have reached that benchmark, and a 14% increase over reported losses in 2022, Newly released Federal Trade Commission data shows.

Consumers reported losing more money to investment scams—more than $4.6 billion—than any other category in 2023, a 21% increase over 2022. The second highest reported loss amount came from imposter scams, with losses of nearly $2.7 billion reported. In 2023, consumers reported losing more money to bank transfers and cryptocurrency than all other methods combined.

The FTC received fraud reports from 2.6 million consumers last year, nearly the same amount as 2022. The most commonly reported scam category was imposter scams. Online shopping issues were the second most commonly reported in the fraud category, followed by prizes, sweepstakes, and lotteries; investment-related reports; and business and job opportunity scams, according to the report.

Another first was the method scammers reportedly used to reach consumers most commonly in 2023: email. Email displaced text messages, which held the top spot in 2022 after decades of phone calls being the most common. Phone calls are the second most commonly reported contact method for fraud in 2023, followed by text messages.

The commission monitors these trends carefully, and is taking a comprehensive approach to detect, halt, and deter consumer fraud, including in 2023 alone:

A full breakdown of reports received in 2023 is available on the FTC’s data analysis site.