Study Maps America's Elder Fraud Landscape: Losses, State Patterns, Scam Types, AI and the Response

With $7.748 billion reported lost by Americans 60 and older in 2025, HCSK's Stolen Trust reads federal data and 1,910 news items together to show the scale, mechanics, and human cost of the crisis.

LEWES, Del., June 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- HCSK today released Stolen Trust: A Special Study on America's Elder Fraud Landscape, an independent nonprofit landscape study of scams targeting Americans 60 and older: the numbers, geography, criminal methods, AI escalation, news coverage, response ecosystem, legislative activity, recovery limits, and human cost.

Americans 60 and older reported $7.748 billion in internet-enabled fraud losses in 2025, up 59% from 2024 and roughly 360% from 2021. The Internet Crime Complaint Center received 201,266 complaints from adults in that age group. The average reported loss was about $38,500; 12,444 complainants reported losses above $100,000.

The visible loss is only part of the crisis. Federal Trade Commission data cited in the study show older adults reported nearly $2.4 billion in fraud losses in 2024, while its underreporting analysis estimates the true cost at $10.1 billion to $81.5 billion.

Stolen Trust brings together complaint data, consumer-protection data, financial-intelligence reporting, enforcement records, recovery research, legislative tracking, and HCSK's monitored corpus of 1,910 news items from August 2025 through May 2026. The study examines state-by-state loss patterns; four senior-targeted scam families, including investment, tech support, romance/confidence, and government impersonation scams; AI-enabled fraud; the role of banks, platforms, law enforcement, families, caregivers, and state and federal agencies; and the impact of fraud beyond the dollar loss.

AI is now part of the landscape: adults 60 and older reported 3,143 AI-related complaints in 2025, with $352.5 million in losses, likely an undercount because AI involvement is captured only when identified or reported.

In 2025, recovery data cited in the study recorded 642 Financial Fraud Kill Chain incidents involving complainants over 60. Roughly half the money at risk was frozen in those incidents. Measured against all reported 60+ losses, less than half of one percent was frozen before it moved.

"Older adults are not facing one scam. They are facing a fast-changing ecosystem of impersonation, manipulation, payment pressure, and AI-enabled deception" said Yuksel Aydin, HCSK founder and director. "Stolen Trust was built to put that landscape in one place".

Key findings, the full study (PDF), and the companion timeline, Ten Months in Two Columns, are available free at https://seniors.hcsk.org/special-study-2026/

HCSK (Human Cybersecurity Knowledge for Seniors) is an independent nonprofit protecting older adults from online scams and AI-enabled fraud.

Media contact:
Yuksel AYDIN
(562) 512-5580
[email protected]

SOURCE HCSK - Human Cybersecurity Knowledge for Seniors