InvestmentNews reported on October 26, 2026, that elder fraud losses reached $3 billion, based on a Federal Trade Commission report to Congress. According to CNBC's coverage of the same report, that total is up from $2.4 billion in 2024 and $600 million in 2020. The FTC issued the report, titled Protecting Older Consumers 2025-2026, on October 19, 2026, and the Commission voted 2-0 to issue it, according to PPC Land. Only Chairman Andrew Ferguson and Commissioner Mark Meador appear on its title page, PPC Land noted.
The report is mandated under the Elder Abuse Prevention and Prosecution Act of 2017 and defines older adults as people aged 60 and over, according to Gizmodo and PPC Land. The FTC's press release said investment scams drew the largest reported losses of any category, topping $1 billion and rising 42% from 2024. CNBC reported that losses tied to government impersonation schemes totaled $448 million, placing them in the runner-up spot, while business impersonation schemes followed at $422 million. The FTC's category breakdown shows 10,578 loss reports for investment losses, PPC Land reported. As the report sets out, the FTC's investment-scam category takes in catch-all investment offerings, advice-related fraud, and trading in stocks and commodity futures.
Large losses account for a disproportionate share of the total. Complaints involving more than $100,000 were 6% of older adults' filings yet accounted for 70% of all reported dollars, an Accounts Recovery analysis found. Six-figure loss reports rose from 1,136 in 2020 to 6,769 in 2025, PPC Land reported. The FTC report says six-figure losses were often tied to investment scams and romance scams, as well as impersonation of the FTC, banks, Publishers Clearing House and Microsoft.
Social media plays a central role in how these schemes begin. Victims often said they were lured to fake cryptocurrency investment platforms after first being contacted on social media, PPC Land reported. Briefs.co noted that many of these schemes begin with paid social media placements or with individuals impersonating financial professionals, after which targets are directed to fraudulent trading sites. Losses from fraud that began on social media reached $750 million in 2025, up 34%, according to PPC Land. For people 80 and over, phone calls rather than social media produced the highest losses, PPC Land reported.
PPC Land also broke the losses down by how the money was sent: it put bank transfers and payments at $1,033 million, a 24% rise, and cryptocurrency at $603 million, up 33%. Those figures measure reported fraud losses. They are not assets under management, and they should not be read as a measure of advisory client accounts.
The reported totals are likely a floor. According to PPC Land, a funding lapse meant the agency was not taking in consumer complaints between October 1 and November 13, 2025, which leaves the $3 billion total covering about ten and a half months. The FTC's press release does not mention that gap, PPC Land noted. PPC Land said the FTC's own estimate of the actual 2025 harm to older adults falls between $13.3 billion and $119.5 billion, a range that reflects the fact that most victims do not report losses. The agency also reports that just 4.8% of mass-market fraud victims file a complaint with a Better Business Bureau or a government body.
PPC Land reported that the report calls on Congress to reinstate the agency's authority to seek refunds through federal courts. The FTC began connecting older adults who report significant fraud to the Justice Department's National Elder Fraud Hotline in April 2026, the same source said. Bob Blancato, national coordinator of the Elder Justice Coalition, described the numbers and increases as staggering, Briefs.co reported. An April 2026 FTC Data Spotlight had earlier found that Americans of all ages reported $2.1 billion in social media scam losses in 2025, about eight times the 2020 level, PPC Land noted.
Other outlets covering the same report include CNBC, Gizmodo, PYMNTS, Yahoo and Techlicious, and Moneywise. This article relies on the FTC report as summarized in those outlets and on InvestmentNews's headline and summary, and it adds no independent reporting.