Scammers posing as government officials, bank representatives, and tech-support agents drained $3.5 billion from Americans in 2025, a nearly 20 percent jump from the prior year. More than one million people filed imposter-scam complaints with the Federal Trade Commission, making this category nearly one in three of all fraud reports the agency received. Older adults bore a disproportionate share of those losses, and a new federal campaign launching today aims to push back.
A 20 percent surge in imposter-scam losses and who paid the price
The scale of the problem is hard to overstate. Business impersonation schemes, where callers or emailers pretend to represent well-known companies, accounted for about $1 billion in losses. Government impersonation, including fake IRS calls and bogus Social Security threats, drove another $920 million. Together those two sub-categories represent more than half the $3.5 billion total, with the rest spread across romance scams, tech-support fraud, and other impersonation tactics.
The FTC’s consumer-facing breakdown of those complaints shows that losses climbed nearly 20 percent year over year, outpacing growth in most other fraud categories. In its latest alert on imposter-scam trends, the agency notes that scammers are constantly revising their scripts to mirror real-world headlines, data breaches, and even legitimate outreach from banks and agencies. That acceleration matters because it signals that existing consumer warnings and call-blocking tools have not kept pace with the sophistication and emotional pressure tactics fraudsters now deploy.
Phone calls, text messages, and email remain the primary contact channels. Scammers lean heavily on caller-ID spoofing, realistic-looking email domains, and polished websites to make their stories feel plausible. People who are most likely to answer unknown numbers or respond to unexpected messages – particularly older adults who rely on landlines and are accustomed to treating official-sounding calls as urgent – face the steepest risk. Once a target is engaged, criminals often escalate quickly, threatening arrest, loss of benefits, or frozen bank accounts if the victim does not comply immediately.
Separate FBI data reported by The Associated Press found that scammers stole more than $3.4 billion from older Americans last year across all fraud types. The overlap between that figure and the FTC’s $3.5 billion imposter-scam total suggests that seniors account for a dominant share of impersonation losses specifically, though neither agency has published a full age-stratified breakdown of the imposter category alone. Advocates say that even these numbers understate the harm, because many older victims never report what happened out of shame, confusion, or fear of losing independence.
Federal enforcement and the Never EVER campaign targeting elder fraud
Regulators are responding on two fronts: enforcement actions against active schemes and a public-education push timed for today. The Administration for Community Living announced its participation in the Elder Justice Coordinating Council’s Never EVER campaign, which launched June 15, 2026. According to the agency, the Never EVER initiative is built around a simple rule: never send money, gift cards, or cryptocurrency to someone who contacts you unexpectedly claiming to be from a government agency or financial institution, no matter how urgent or threatening the request sounds.
On the enforcement side, the FTC has used its new impersonation rule targeting government and businesses to pursue companies and individuals that facilitate these scams, from overseas call centers to payment processors that ignore red flags. The rule is designed to make it easier to shut down websites, ads, and services that mimic official logos or branding, and to seek monetary relief for consumers when those tactics are used. Officials say they are working with other federal agencies and state attorneys general to coordinate investigations and share intelligence about emerging schemes.
The Never EVER campaign is meant to complement those efforts by giving families a clear, repeatable message they can share with older relatives. Outreach materials encourage people to talk in advance about what a legitimate call from Social Security, Medicare, or a bank would look like – and what it would never involve. For example, real government agencies do not demand payment by gift card, cryptocurrency, or wire transfer, and they do not threaten immediate arrest over the phone.
Advocates for older adults stress that prevention hinges on making it socially acceptable to hang up, slow down, and verify. They urge seniors to treat every unexpected request for money or personal information as suspicious, to call back using a trusted number from a statement or official website, and to loop in a family member or caregiver before acting. They also encourage victims to report scams to the FTC and local law enforcement, both to improve the data picture and to help authorities spot patterns before more people are harmed.
For now, the numbers show that imposter scams are moving faster than the defenses built to stop them. Whether the combination of tougher rules, stepped-up enforcement, and a blunt, memorable warning can bend that curve will become clear only in future data. Until then, regulators and advocates are betting that a simple word – “never” – repeated often enough, can keep at least some would-be victims from picking up the phone, clicking a link, or sending money to a thief in disguise.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
