Study estimates US online scams cost $148 billion in 2025

A new analysis estimates that online scams cost Americans nearly $150 billion in 2025, a figure that dwarfs official reports and underscores a vast gap between actual losses and what is reported to authorities. The Consumer Federation of America (CFA) released a study this week projecting total U.S. losses at approximately $148.2 billion, a sum it derived by applying a multiplier to account for widespread underreporting.

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) recorded $20.9 billion in reported losses from over one million complaints in 2025, a 26 percent increase from the previous year. However, citing a 2017 federal survey which found only about 14 percent of financial fraud victims contact law enforcement, the CFA applied a 7.1-times multiplier to that official data. The resulting $148.2 billion estimate translates to roughly $1,009 per U.S. household. The CFA described its multiplier as conservative, noting other studies suggest the real financial impact could be 20 to 25 times higher than reported figures.

Cryptocurrency-related fraud constituted the single largest component of these losses. The IC3 reported $11.4 billion in crypto scam losses for 2025, representing...