Fraud and scams plateaued but got more expensive in 2024

Banks reported slightly more instances of fraud in 2024 compared to 2023, and consumers reported slightly fewer instances of scams. However, scams became costlier as criminals extracted more funds from their pool of victims, and compared to pre-pandemic levels, both scam and fraud rates remain high.

The findings come from data recently released by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or Fincen, an agency within the Department of Treasury, and the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC.

The statistics from the two agencies help to quantify the cost that the scam and fraud economies have inflicted on consumers and the financial services industry. Consumers lost $12.5 billion to scams in 2024 while banks likely lost billions, as well.

The trend of fraud and scams becoming more costly has existed for years. In 2022, data from the FTC, TransUnion and LexisNexis Risk Solutions suggested fraud and scams increased at the start of the pandemic then began receding, yet the cost continued to grow over the same time period. More recent data also suggested fraud and scams were becoming more costly over time.

Here's a breakdown of which categories of fraud and scams grew and shrank:

Banks reported less check, loan, card fraud

Fincen tracks fraud reports from depository institutions and other companies through Suspicious Activity Reports, or SARs, which many institutions are legally obligated to file when a transaction over $2,000 appears to be suspicious. Many of these companies also voluntarily report smaller transactions when they appear suspicious.

Just over a third of the 1.5 million fraud-related SARs filed by depository institutions in 2024 were related to check fraud, according to the Fincen data. However, this category of fraud shrank for the first time since 2020.

Likewise, the number of reports of credit and debit card fraud also decreased slightly in 2024 for the first time since the pandemic, down to 298,000 reports from 300,000 the previous year. The same was true for consumer loan fraud, down to 75,000 reports from 83,000 the previous year.

The form of fraud that increased the most was wire transfer fraud, not to be confused with the broader category of wire fraud. Fincen data on wire transfer fraud specifically regards situations in which a criminal misleads a financial institution into conducting an unauthorized wire transfer. Wire transfer fraud increased from 98,000 in 2023 to 120,000 in 2024.

Fraud related to Automated Clearing House, or ACH, transfers also increased, though slightly, from 200,000 in 2023 to 205,000 in 2024.

Fincen does not release data on the total losses related to SARs. However, if trends in the realm of scams are mirrored at all in the world of fraud, the slight decrease in the total number of fraud reports might be accompanied by an increase in the total cost.

Imposter scams: less frequent, more expensive

The FTC tracks reports of scams from consumers through a network of law enforcement agencies as well as direct reports to the commission.

The number of reports of imposter scams decreased slightly from 860,000 in 2023 to 850,000 in 2024, according to the FTC data. The FTC defines these as schemes in which the scammer claims to be an entity they aren't — for example, a family member of the victim, the Social Security Administration or the victim's bank.

The median loss to imposter scams remained steady, around $800. However, the total money lost to imposter scams increased from $2.7 billion to $3.0 billion. This suggests that the relatively small number of highly expensive imposter scams — those rare events in which a victim loses tens of thousands of dollars — have gotten more expensive.

Investment scams: more frequent, most expensive

Likewise, investment scams — schemes that falsely promise high returns on an investment with little to no risk — led to the largest losses of any category tracked by the FTC, though the category did not have the highest number of reports. This is because investment scams are more targeted and more costly to victims than other types of scams.

Investment scams brought about $5.7 million in losses in 2024, up from $4.8 million in 2023. The median loss also increased from $8,000 to more than $9,000.

The total number of reports of investment scams increased slightly, from 110,000 to 120,000.

Fraud vs. scams

In the financial world, a fraud is financial theft the victim has not authorized. An example is a criminal using a victim's credit or debit card without the victim's knowledge or permission.

A scam is a theft the victim has authorized, usually because they were tricked into doing so. An example is a criminal pretending to be the victim's bank to get information from the victim.

This difference in what the victim has or has not authorized also creates a difference in liability. In cases of fraud, a bank usually must refund the customer for losses, even if the bank has not recovered the funds from the fraudster. In cases of scams, the customer typically cannot recover their losses from the bank; they can only get their money back if law enforcement seizes it from the criminal.