Every year, the Federal Trade Commission gets millions of fraud reports from consumers and shares information about the top scams. Not surprisingly, imposter scams were the No. 1 scam for the ninth year in a row. What’s the latest on imposter scams?
In 2025, the FTC received more than 1 million reports about imposter scams, with reported losses increasing by nearly 20 percent to $3.5 billion.
Reports of government imposter scams were up 40 percent, due, in part, to messages about overdue tolls. These fake messages may spoof real toll collection programs, such as EZ-Pass, SunPass, FasTrak, and TxTag, to seem more credible. And they threaten to charge you late fees or suspend your vehicle’s registration if you don’t pay right away.
On another trend, romance scams were on the rise, according to reports to the FTC. Reported losses increased by 22 percent to $1.48 million. That comes to a loss of $2,020 per person. Romance scammers play the long game. They build a relationship over time, then one day, the conversation turns to money, and they offer to help you invest yours. However, they don’t want to help you. They just want to rip you off.
Here’s information from the FTC on recognizing and reporting scams:
- Recognize the signs of a scam.
- Develop an action plan to avoid scams.
- Know what to do if you were scammed.
And if you see a scam, tell the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
