Why Most Scam Victims Never Report It to Police
WASHINGTON — Most Americans are inundated with scam attempts on a daily basis, yet the vast majority of victims never report these crimes to law enforcement — a silence that is distorting the true scale of a national fraud crisis, according to new polling from the AP-NORC Center.
The survey, conducted in February 2026, found that 58% of U.S. adults receive daily text messages, phone calls, emails, or online advertisements they suspect are scams. A staggering 92% encounter scam attempts at least once a month. Older adults aged 60 and above are hit hardest, with roughly 7 in 10 reporting daily scam attempts, compared with about 4 in 10 under age 30.
A Crisis of Underreporting
About 3 in 10 U.S. adults have personally lost money or personal information to scams, according to the AP-NORC poll. A separate survey conducted by Gallup and the Stop Scams Alliance found that roughly 1 in 10 adults — or someone in their household — was deceived into losing money in 2025 alone, with nearly half of those victims losing more than $500.
Yet when it comes to reporting these crimes, the numbers tell a troubling story. According to the Gallup survey, only 18% of scam victims contacted state or local law enforcement, and just 13% reported the crime to federal authorities or the FTC. The majority — 55% — reported the incident to their bank or credit union instead.
Why Victims Stay Silent
The polling reveals three primary reasons why victims choose not to report:
1. It won’t make a difference. A striking 75% of victims said they didn’t report because they believed it wouldn’t help them recover their money, according to the Gallup survey. This widespread cynicism reflects a deep erosion of trust in the system’s ability to deliver justice or restitution.
2. Confusion about where to go. More than half of victims — 58% — said they were uncertain where to report the crime. While 55% of Americans feel confident reporting scams to their bank or credit card company, only about 25% are confident about reporting to federal or state law enforcement. Overall, only about 1 in 3 U.S. adults said they would know where to report if they lost $5,000 to a scam today.
3. Embarrassment and distrust. Victims often feel ashamed about falling for sophisticated schemes, and many harbor deep skepticism about whether law enforcement will take their case seriously.
Record Losses Behind the Silence
The underreporting crisis is unfolding against a backdrop of record-breaking financial losses. The Federal Trade Commission reported that Americans lost a record $15.9 billion to fraud in 2025, up from $12.5 billion in 2024 — a surge of nearly 430% since 2020, as USA Today reported.
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reported even higher numbers: nearly $21 billion stolen in 2025, a 25.76% jump from the previous year, according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal. The average loss per victim was $20,699.
Lois Greisman, associate director of the FTC’s Division of Marketing Practices, testified before Congress in March that the spike in losses can be attributed to “a sharp increase in the number of consumers reporting large losses of $100,000 or more.”
Cryptocurrency scams accounted for $11.4 billion in losses, while AI-enabled scams — a new category tracked by the FBI for the first time in 2025 — cost Americans nearly $893 million. The FBI warned that scammers are deploying “fake social profiles, voice clones, identification documents, and believable videos depicting public figures or loved ones.”
The Vicious Cycle
The underreporting crisis creates a self-reinforcing loop: official statistics dramatically understate the true scale of the problem, leaving law enforcement and policymakers without the data needed to allocate resources effectively. Scammers face minimal risk of prosecution, which in turn reinforces public cynicism about the value of reporting.
The FTC estimates that when underreporting is accounted for, the overall cost of fraud to consumers for 2024 could be as high as $195.9 billion.
A Bipartisan Demand for Action
Despite partisan divisions on most issues, scam prevention appears to be a rare area of consensus. Roughly 8 in 10 Americans — including large majorities of both Republicans and Democrats — say the government is doing too little to prevent scams, according to the Gallup survey.
When asked who bears responsibility for stopping scams, 65% of Americans said banks and credit card companies have a great deal or quite a lot of responsibility. Social media companies (58%), individuals themselves (57%), and the federal government (54%) were also seen as bearing significant responsibility.
What’s Next
Victims like Adam Pratter, 42, who was scammed, told the AP that the burden should not fall solely on individuals. “If federal regulation wanted to step in and make deals with these companies to get these people their money back, they could,” he said.
Max Anderson, 23, whose parents lost $15,000 when a scammer changed their direct deposit information, echoed that sentiment: “It’s a big enough problem at this point that it falls to the government and companies to do something about it.”
With scam losses continuing to climb and technology — particularly AI — making fraud schemes increasingly sophisticated, the pressure on policymakers to act is only likely to grow. The question remains whether the political will exists to build the consumer protection infrastructure that millions of Americans clearly need.