Scammers had a big year in 2024, new data from the Federal Trade Commission shows.
Criminals stole $12.5 billion from Americans, according to official reports filed with the government, amounting to a 25 percent increase over the previous year. But that figure doesn't account for unreported thefts. When accounting for underreporting, the FTC estimates that scammers actually robbed people of at least $158 billion in 2023.
While fraud reports remained stable in 2024, the percentage of people who said they'd been the victim of financial fraud increased from 27 percent to 38 percent (not all who report fraud are successfully separated from their money). That spike could indicate that scammers are becoming even more adept at swindling their victims or more people are admitting to being ripped off — or both.
Regardless of why more people are reporting financial fraud, experts worry that government cuts, including those implemented by Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, will expose consumers to even greater fraud risk.
Reduced staff and fewer resources could hamper the government's ability to respond to consumer reports of fraud, investigate complaints, and regulate products and platforms that scammers rely on to steal from their victims, says John Breyault, VP of Public Policy of the National Consumers League.
"The cuts [from] DOGE [are] making consumers more vulnerable to fraud," Breyault says.
What cuts at federal agencies mean for consumers
DOGE recently attempted to gut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal agency that regulates financial institutions and curbs predatory business practices.
The CFPB was poised to gain oversight of major digital payment apps like Venmo, CashApp, and Zelle that scammers rely on to defraud people, pending Congressional approval. The Senate, however, recently voted to repeal that rule, which had been finalized at the end of the Biden administration.
Even if the CFPB ultimately supervised the apps, it's unclear whether the agency would have the capacity to evaluate and investigate related complaints on behalf of consumers.
A CFPB official recently testified that the agency's Office of Consumer Response handles about 350,000 consumer complaints each month, adding that a stop-work order issued by the agency's new head resulted in a massive backlog. The New York Times reported that the CFPB's consumer response team had been brought back in to deal with 16,000 complaints. Mashable reached out to CFPB for comment but did not receive a response.
Given the upheaval, Breayault says he's no longer confident in directing consumers to file a complaint with the CFPB. Instead, he's directing them to their state attorney general, who also has the authority to investigate predatory business practices and fraud on behalf of consumers.
While the FTC, which spearheads much of the government's consumer fraud work, has been spared of wholesale cuts so far, at least a dozen probationary employees were recently fired, according to The Verge.
Those terminations included Bureau of Consumer Protection employees, who receive complaints about and investigate deceptive and fraudulent business practices. Breyault says it's unclear how many employees FTC lost to DOGE's request for voluntary resignations in late January.
The Federal Trade Commission just asked for a delay in its upcoming trial against Amazon for alleged deceptive practices, citing limited resources and staff following DOGE-related cuts and "Fork in the Road" resignations. The FTC then reversed course and said it faced no "resource constraints."
Joe Simonson, FTC's director of public affairs, told Mashable that cuts amounted to a .3% reduction of staff. He added that cracking down on fraud would be a "priority" under the FTC.
Prior to this story's publication, Trump terminated two Democratic FTC commissioners in a move that the National Consumers League described as "unlawful."
"The firing of dedicated public servants because they belong to the wrong political party will make the FTC’s work even harder," Breayault said in a statement about their removal.
What crytpo and AI have to do with growing scam risk
Breyault worries that government-slashing efforts may embolden criminals if they suspect that agencies won't be responsive to consumer complaints.
But he's also seen an uptick in scammers trying to take advantage of federal workers who've been fired as a result of DOGE's efforts. Some have reported being targeted by fake job offers, which are often a scheme to steal money from victims.
Breyault says that the Trump administration's deregulatory approach toward both cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence could give scammers further advantage if accountability and guardrails for those industries disappear.
Many financial fraudsters rely on crypto to steal from victims without a trace. Scam victims said they lost more money in 2024 to fraud that involved bank transfers or crypto than to all other payment methods, according to the latest FTC data.
Scammers also increasingly rely on AI to generate believable — and widely shareable — scripts for defrauding victims. Think, for example, of a script shared online that anyone can use to execute a romance scam. AI tools also allow scammers to create visual and vocal deepfakes that deceive victims into believing that they're communicating with a real person or legitimate government, bank, or law enforcement official.
Breyault urges consumers to contact their members of Congress if they have concerns about DOGE-related cuts. He also recommends remaining vigilant against fraud attempts, which typically involve a sense of urgency, an unusual payment method, and efforts to isolate the potential victim from people they trust.
"We are not in an environment where we should be depriving our consumer protection agencies of the resources they need to fight the threat that exists," Breyault says.
