Common Scams People Fall For Every Day

Why Imposter Scams Remain the Most Commonly Reported Fraud

Imposter scams — in which a fraudster pretends to be a trusted authority figure, company, or government official — ranked as the most commonly reported fraud category in the FTC’s 2024 data book. Losses from this category reached $2.95 billion, with government imposter scams alone accounting for $789 million, up $171 million from 2023. The mechanics are consistently effective: a caller claims to represent the Social Security Administration, the IRS, Medicare, or even the FTC itself, and tells the target that their identity has been compromised, their benefits are at risk, or that they owe a debt that must be settled immediately.

The FTC has noted that these scams often escalate quickly, with fraudsters directing victims to withdraw cash, deposit money at Bitcoin ATMs, or hand currency directly to a courier who arrives at their home — methods the agency emphasizes no real government body would ever request. The FBI reported that government impersonation complaints nearly doubled between 2024 and 2025, rising from approximately 17,300 cases to nearly 32,500, with documented losses of $797 million in 2025. Part of this surge is attributed to the growing use of artificial intelligence tools that enable scammers to produce phone calls, emails, and even video messages that appear genuinely authentic.

Investment Fraud and “Pig Butchering” Scams Driving Record Losses

Investment scams generated the largest financial losses of any fraud category in 2024, with the FTC recording $5.7 billion in consumer losses — a 24 percent increase from 2023. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center documented even higher figures across its own reporting channels. A significant driver of these losses is a category known colloquially as “pig butchering,” a scheme that typically begins on social media or dating apps, where a stranger gradually builds a personal relationship over days or weeks before steering the conversation toward a supposedly exclusive investment opportunity, most often involving cryptocurrency.

Victims are shown fabricated dashboards reflecting impressive returns on platforms that appear professional and legitimate. When they attempt to withdraw funds, they are told they must pay a tax or fee first — a final extraction before contact disappears entirely. According to the FTC, 79 percent of people who reported an investment-related scam said they lost money, with a median loss exceeding $9,000 per case. The Kansas City Federal Reserve has noted that scammers increasingly direct victims toward cryptocurrencies and payment apps precisely because these methods offer little to no possibility of fund recovery once a transfer is made.

Phishing Attacks and Online Shopping Scams That Target Everyday Consumers

Phishing — the practice of using deceptive emails, text messages, or websites to trick individuals into surrendering personal or financial information — remained the most frequently reported cybercrime category in the FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Complaint Center report, with more than 191,000 formal complaints logged that year alone. The Anti-Phishing Working Group, which tracks phishing attack infrastructure globally, recorded 3.8 million unique phishing attacks in 2025. These attacks have grown measurably more sophisticated, with AI-generated content allowing scammers to craft messages that closely mimic the language, formatting, and branding of legitimate institutions.

Online shopping fraud, separately, was the second most commonly reported category in the FTC’s 2024 data. Fake e-commerce websites — often appearing in paid search results or promoted through social media advertisements — accept payment for products that either never arrive or bear no resemblance to what was advertised. The FTC reported that people contacted through social media were more likely to lose money to fraud than those reached by any other contact method, with 70 percent of victims reached via social platforms reporting a financial loss totaling $1.9 billion collectively in 2024.

Text message scams have followed a similar trajectory. The FTC reported $470 million in losses to text scams in 2024, more than five times the figure from 2020. Common variants include fake package delivery notifications, fabricated bank fraud alerts, and messages from unknown numbers asking the recipient to complete a simple online task — a category the FTC flagged as a growing subcategory with particular appeal to younger adults seeking remote work.

Romance Scams and the Emotional Cost of Confidence Fraud

Romance scams occupy a distinct and particularly harmful corner of the fraud landscape because they exploit trust and emotional vulnerability rather than technical confusion. In these schemes, fraudsters construct detailed fake personas on dating apps, social media platforms, and even in casual messaging threads, cultivating what appears to be a genuine romantic relationship over weeks or months before eventually requesting money — typically framed as an emergency involving medical expenses, travel costs to visit the victim, or a business opportunity.

The FBI’s 2024 Internet Crime Complaint Center report listed romance scams among the top five most financially damaging cybercrime categories. The FTC has also documented that older adults are disproportionately targeted, with the agency noting a four-fold increase since 2020 in reports from adults 60 and older who lost $10,000 or more to impersonation and confidence-style scams. Combined losses reported by older adults who lost more than $100,000 to these categories increased eight-fold between 2020 and 2024, from $55 million to $445 million. In the FBI’s 2025 reporting cycle, AI-related romance scams were specifically flagged as a category responsible for $19 million in documented losses, with investigators noting that synthetic personas are increasingly powered by large language models capable of sustaining months-long conversations.

Job Scams — One of the Fastest-Growing Common Scams in Recent Years

Job and employment scams have become one of the most dramatic growth categories in fraud reporting. According to the FTC, reports in this category tripled between 2020 and 2024, with losses rising from $90 million to $501 million over that same period. These schemes typically present as remote work opportunities, often advertised on legitimate job boards, requiring minimal experience and offering pay that appears competitive but not implausibly high. Once a victim expresses interest, they are asked to complete preliminary tasks — sometimes involving purchasing gift cards, processing fake checks, or providing personal identification documents — before the fictitious employer vanishes.

A particularly dangerous variant identified by cybersecurity firm Moody’s involves employment scams that harvest personal data, including Social Security numbers, direct deposit banking credentials, and copies of government-issued identification. In these cases, the financial harm extends beyond the immediate scam into identity theft and account takeover fraud. The FTC noted in its 2025 reporting that the business and job opportunities category reached $750.6 million in losses during 2024, up nearly $250 million from the prior year.

How Artificial Intelligence Is Making Online Scams Harder to Detect

Artificial intelligence has introduced a meaningful shift in the sophistication of scam operations. The FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report — the first year the agency tracked AI-related complaints as a separate category — documented 22,364 complaints referencing AI, with total reported losses of $893 million. Investment fraud accounted for $632 million of those AI-linked losses, while business email compromise schemes tied to AI cost victims more than $30 million, and romance scams with AI involvement accounted for $19 million.

The Kansas City Federal Reserve’s September 2025 Payments System Research Briefing highlighted two key trends contributing to the acceleration of losses: scammers are increasingly using more interactive and personalized contact methods, including social media, websites, and mobile apps; and they are deploying AI to make those interactions far more convincing at scale. Voice cloning technology allows scammers to impersonate a family member’s voice in distress calls — the so-called “grandparent scam” — while deepfake video has been used to create fake celebrity endorsements for fraudulent investment platforms. The FBI noted in its 2025 report that government impersonation scams nearly doubled year-over-year and that AI was identified as a contributing factor in making those calls and messages more believable.

Practical Steps to Protect Yourself From Everyday Scams

Consumer protection agencies consistently emphasize several behaviors that significantly reduce an individual’s risk of falling victim to fraud. The FTC advises verifying the identity of any caller or sender independently before providing information or sending money, using contact information found on an organization’s official website rather than any number or link provided in the suspicious message itself. This applies equally to calls from people claiming to be from a bank, a government agency, or even a relative in distress.

Confirming the legitimacy of investment opportunities through registered channels is equally critical. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and FINRA both offer free online tools for verifying whether an investment firm or individual broker is registered. The FTC recommends treating any unsolicited investment opportunity — particularly one promising high returns with minimal risk or originating from a social media contact — with sustained skepticism. Avoiding payment through cryptocurrency, wire transfer, or gift card for any transaction with an unverified party remains one of the most reliable protective measures available, as these methods are specifically favored by scammers precisely because the payments are difficult or impossible to reverse.

For text and email-based scams, security professionals recommend avoiding clicking links in unsolicited messages regardless of how authentic they appear, and instead navigating directly to a company’s website through a browser. Reporting suspected fraud to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and to the FBI at ic3.gov helps law enforcement track emerging trends and, in some cases, freeze fraudulent transactions before funds are fully lost.

Frequently Asked Questions About Everyday Scams

Staying One Step Ahead of Those Who Prey on Trust

The common scams people fall for every day do not succeed because their victims are careless — they succeed because they are carefully engineered to exploit the same impulses that make people functional members of society: the instinct to respond to authority, the desire to protect loved ones, and the hope for financial security. With $12.5 billion in documented fraud losses in 2024 and the rapid integration of artificial intelligence into scam operations, the stakes have never been higher. Awareness remains the most reliable defense available to ordinary people: understanding the tactics fraudsters use, maintaining a healthy skepticism toward unsolicited contact, and knowing how to verify claims before acting on them are the habits most likely to keep individuals from becoming part of the next year’s statistics.