FTC Report: Senior Scam Losses Skyrocket 362%—Crypto Wolves Targeting Vulnerable Boomers
Imposter scams are eating seniors alive—and the numbers don’t lie. A 362% explosion in losses since 2020 paints a brutal picture of predators circling retirement funds like vultures.
How? Classic cons got a Web3 facelift. Fake IRS calls now demand Bitcoin payments. "Grandkid in jail" scams request Ethereum bail. Romance frauds drain wallets via "investment opportunities."
The irony? Wall Street spends billions "protecting" investors from crypto volatility while grandma gets robbed blind by some kid with a VoIP line and a Coinbase tutorial.
Bottom line: The real bear market isn’t in your portfolio—it’s in the DMs of every senior who still thinks ‘password123’ counts as security.
Imposter Scams Convince Victims to Transfer Funds for Safety
Victims are persuaded to transfer funds “to keep them safe” or for other fabricated reasons.
In 2024, the FTC received 8,269 reports from Americans aged 60 and older who each lost at least $10,000 to such schemes.
That figure is up 362% from the 1,790 reports logged in 2020. Total reported losses for this age group reached $700 million last year, more than five times the $122 million reported in 2020.
In some cases, the losses wiped out entire life savings, including emptied bank accounts and cashed-out 401(k)s.
Losses among seniors who reported losing $100,000 or more grew even faster, climbing to $445 million in 2024 from $55 million in 2020, a jump of more than 700%.
The FTC notes that these figures likely understate the real damage, as older victims are often less likely to report fraud out of embarrassment, uncertainty over how to file a complaint, or even unawareness that they’ve been scammed.
The trend mirrors a broader rise in elder fraud reported by the FBI. The bureau’s Internet Crime Complaint Center recorded $4.9 billion in losses from nearly 147,127 consumer complaints in 2024, a 43% increase in total losses and a 46% rise in complaints compared with the previous year.
Seniors are often the targets of scams that have become more sophisticated with AI voice cloning.
In 2024, seniors lost over $4.8 billion to fraud — we need rules of the road to protect Americans from high-tech scammers. pic.twitter.com/RZbhTuwtfh
According to the FTC, seniors are three times as likely as younger adults to report losses exceeding $100,000.
The agency urges vigilance: never MOVE money at the request of someone claiming to “protect” it, hang up and verify any suspicious call through official contact details, and explore call-blocking tools to stop scammers before they connect.
Investor Loses $3M in Crypto Phishing Scam
As reported, a cryptocurrency investor has fallen victim to a phishing scam, losing $3.05 million in Tether (USDT) after unknowingly signing a malicious blockchain transaction.
The loss, flagged by blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain on Wednesday, underscores the rising threat of phishing attacks targeting digital asset holders.
The attacker exploited a common habit among crypto users: validating only the first and last few characters of a wallet address while ignoring the middle.
Crypto investors lost over $2.2 billion to hacks, scams, and breaches in the first half of 2025, driven largely by wallet compromises and phishing attacks, according to CertiK’s latest security report.
Wallet breaches alone caused $1.7 billion in losses across just 34 incidents, while phishing scams accounted for over $410 million across 132 attacks.
