WASHINGTON — A pair of newly released national surveys paint a troubling picture of just how often Americans are targeted by scammers — and how rarely those victims seek help from authorities afterward.
An AP-NORC poll conducted in February found that more than half of U.S. adults — 58% — receive suspected scam attempts through texts, phone calls, emails, online messages, or online ads every single day. Meanwhile, a separate survey conducted by Gallup and the Stop Scams Alliance found that roughly 4 in 10 Americans experienced attempted scams on a daily basis last year.
About 3 in 10 U.S. adults told AP-NORC they have personally been tricked into handing over money or personal information, while about half said they personally know someone — a friend or family member — who has lost money to a scam.
The Gallup survey found that about 1 in 10 U.S. adults said they or someone in their household was successfully deceived by a scammer in 2025 alone, with nearly half of those victims losing more than $500. About half of scam-affected households reported losses ranging from $125 to $2,000.
Adam Pratter, 42, said staying safe requires constant vigilance. He encountered trouble on dating apps and once sent money to someone who claimed to be deployed overseas with the military and needed funds for food. He only realized it was a scam when the requests kept coming. “You’ve got to be pretty sophisticated these days,” he said.
Pratter believes both private companies and the federal government share responsibility for helping victims. “If federal regulation wanted to step in and make deals with these companies to get these people their money back, they could,” he said.
Porschel Smith, 22, said she gets multiple scam calls every day along with even more fraudulent emails. While some are obvious — “They mention different types of programs that I know are nonexistent,” she said — others are more convincing. “Some of them hack your account and pretend as if they’re someone that you know,” she said. “But then I get to asking questions and realize they’re scams.”
The AP-NORC poll found that older Americans are more frequently targeted. About 7 in 10 adults aged 60 and older said they receive suspected scam contacts at least once a day, compared to about 4 in 10 Americans under age 30.
Among those who have been contacted by scammers, the AP-NORC poll found that package shipment and banking-related schemes were among the most common. About 4 in 10 people who received scam attempts said at least one came through Facebook or Facebook Messenger, while about 2 in 10 reported receiving them on WhatsApp and a similar share said Instagram was used.
Towonna Harris, 50, said scammers are skilled at what they do. “It’s not easy. They know what they’re doing,” she said. Her son was once promised tuition money by scammers who asked him to authorize a small credit card charge — which quickly ballooned into a much larger series of charges. Harris has also fallen victim to a fraudulent online seller. “I ordered some stuff. I never got it,” she said. “I thought it was a legitimate company. And then I saw all these reviews saying it was a scam.”
Despite how widespread the problem is, most victims never contact law enforcement or federal agencies. The Gallup survey found that among people scammed in 2025, 55% reported the incident to a bank, credit union, or other financial institution — but only 18% contacted state or local law enforcement, and just 13% reached out to federal law enforcement or the Federal Trade Commission.
The main reason victims stay silent: they don’t believe reporting will get their money back. Among those scammed in 2025, 75% said they didn’t report because they felt it wouldn’t make a difference, while 58% said they simply didn’t know where to go.
That uncertainty is widespread. The AP-NORC poll found that while 55% of Americans feel confident they’d know how to report a scam to a bank or credit card company, only about one-quarter feel equally confident about reporting to federal or state law enforcement. The Gallup survey found that only about one-third of U.S. adults said they’d know where to report if they lost $5,000 in a scam today.
Almost all Americans — virtually 100% — view scams as at least a minor threat to individuals across the country, and about 8 in 10 believe the government is doing too little to address the problem. That view was shared by large majorities of both Republicans and Democrats, according to Gallup.
Max Anderson, 23, said his parents, who are small business owners, fell victim to a sophisticated scam in which a fraudster impersonated one of their employees and redirected their direct deposit payments. “This went on for about 3 months. It went to $15,000,” he said. His father eventually received assistance from the FBI.
“I do like that the government stepped in with my parents, and I feel like that’s the way it should be,” Anderson said. “It’s a big enough problem at this point that it falls to the government and companies to do something about it.”
The AP-NORC poll surveyed 1,133 adults from February 19-23 using a probability-based panel designed to represent the U.S. population, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.0 percentage points. The Stop Scams Alliance-Gallup poll surveyed 5,173 adults from January 8 through February 18, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 1.4 percentage points.
