About 15 million American adults will be affected by various fraud schemes in 2025, according to Gallup.
An estimated 15 million Americans will be defrauded in 2025, with AI and fake content accounting for the majority of cases, according to a new study. Total losses across the country averaged $68 billion last year, or about $186 million stolen every day.
The findings come from a report called ‘Scamming America: The Financial and Emotional Fallout,’ which was released Tuesday by Gallup and the Stop Scams Coalition and was conducted among more than 5,000 American adults.
While 6% said they were personally cheated on, an additional 4% said another household member was cheated on. Overall, 24% have been cheated at some point in their adult lives, and 10% have been victimized more than once.
More than one in ten victims (12%) said their scam involved AI or fake, although the study’s authors noted that this figure may underestimate the true rate, as AI-generated content can be difficult for victims to detect.
The most common fraud methods generally involved fraudulent websites harvesting financial data (40%), advance payment schemes (24%), and fake investment offers (19%). Fraudsters often pretend to be technical support workers (19%), bank employees (15%), or government officials (14%) to convince victims.
AI-enabled fraud has taken several forms in recent years, including impersonation fraud of a relative or distressed executive, “Love scandals” using AI-generated people and images, and fake real-time videos embedded in corporate fraud.
The latter case produced one of the most expensive cases on record: in January 2024, a finance employee at the British engineering company Arup was tricked into transferring more than $25 million to fraudsters after joining a highly targeted video call where every other. “mate,” including what appeared to be the company’s CFO, was generated by AI.
According to the survey, more than half of frauds last year (56%) involved losses of $500 or less, although the average loss per incident reached $5,578 as some of the schemes allowed fraudsters to make tens of thousands of dollars. Among the affected households, 21% described the financial impact as a “hard trouble,” rising to 28% for those earning less than $80,000 a year.
Beyond the financial damage, the survey also suggests widespread psychological effects: 73% of victims reported a negative impact on their mental health or well-being, with 28% who described such an impact. “very negative.”
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