The Consumer Federation of America (CFA) estimates that online scams cost Americans almost $150 billion last year – seven times the amount reported to the FBI.

The organization says that the number of cyber scams is increasing dramatically, and that most victims never report their losses to law enforcement …

Victims of cybercrime can file a report with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, but very few do. CNET notes that a federal survey found that only around 14% of financial fraud victims reported the crime to any law enforcement body.

Applying that ratio to the total sums reported leads to the CFA’s estimate of total losses amounting to $148.2 billion. Unsurprisingly, crypto and other investment scams head the list.

More than half of the losses reported to the FBI involved cryptocurrency. Victims reported losing nearly $11.4 billion in crypto-related incidents, up about 22% from the previous year. The Consumer Federation of America estimates the true cost could be closer to $80.7 billion […]

Investment fraud was the most costly category in the FBI’s data, accounting for more than $8.6 billion in reported losses. Compromised business email and tech support scams followed at roughly $3 billion and $2.1 billion, respectively.

The rapidly growing scale of the problem is in large part driven by AI. Deepfake voice and video calls impersonating family members in an emergency situation is one of the techniques used by scammers to extract money from their victims. It’s also easier than ever to create fake documents.

The top three platforms used by scammers all belong to Meta: Facebook at 57%, Instagram at 22%, and WhatsApp at 8%

We last year outlined nine things you can do to protect yourself against hackers and scammers. We noted at the time that some people are now going as far as agreeing code words with family members to use if they ever really do need emergency help. These code words should be agreed in person, not sent via any form of electronic messaging.

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