Elder fraud still on the rise, personal data exposure implicated in 72% of cases
Incogni’s research team has analyzed the FBI’s latest Internet Crime Report, focusing on crimes affecting Americans 60 years or older. They combined the newly released 2024 data with previous years’, examining trends and exploring the role of online personal data availability in the commission and severity of internet-based crimes targeting older Americans.
Unfortunately, 2024 saw an increase in both complaints received by the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) and the losses associated with these complaints. In fact, the number of complaints and total losses are the highest they’ve ever been. The only positive outcome is a stabilizing (if not decreasing) reported loss-to-victim ratio.
Incogni’s researchers investigated what potential impact the widespread availability of personal data could have on the crime statistics presented by the IC3. The results are bracing: of the 113,906 crimes involving elders reported in 2024, 72% were identified as being facilitated or exacerbated by the availability of victims’ personal data online. Crimes enabled by data accessibility were associated with $4.2B in losses, accounting for 86% of total losses.
Although sobering, these statistics also point to a way forward. Put another way, 72% of reported internet-based crimes and 86% of reported losses affecting older Americans are solvable through better, preferably federal, personal data protections. In the meantime, vulnerable individuals can take preventive measures, like having their personal information taken out of circulation.
Key insights
- Financial losses increased by 43% YoY (year over year), to almost $4.9 billion in 2024, with data-facilitated crimes contributing to 86% of these losses.
- Out of the total of 113,906 crimes involving older victims (aged 60+ years) reported in 2024, our researchers identified 72% (approx. 82,000 reported crimes) as being facilitated by the availability of victims’ personal data online.
- Phishing and spoofing were the most prevalent types of cybercrime reported by elders in 2024, reported a total of 23.3K times—a 700% increase year over year.
- Investment scams had the highest loss-to-report ratio and were associated with losses amounting to $1.83B, or a staggering $194,100 per complaint.
- In 2024, older victims of cybercrime residing in Texas suffered the greatest average losses per complaint ($51.7K), followed closely by those residing in Georgia and California, where reported losses per complaint averaged over $48.2K and $46K, respectively.
- Arizona saw the highest number of complaints among older residents: 3.5 complaints for every 1,000 elders. It was followed by Indiana, Utah and Nevada, which all have 3 or more complaints per 1,000 residents aged 60+ years (3.3, 3.1 and 3.0, respectively). The average for the US is 1.8 complaints per 1,000 residents aged 60+ years.
- Incogni’s researchers also found a statistically significant correlation between the average retirement income in a given state and the number of complaints per 1,000 elders in that state: People aged 60+ living in wealthier states are more likely to be victims of cybercrime.
Damages and the number of complaints continue to rise
2024 saw increases in both complaints received by the Internet Crime Complaint Center and the losses these complaints indicated. The number of complaints and losses is the highest they’ve ever been (based on the elder-specific reports IC3 started publishing in 2018 and its earlier, non-elder-specific reports).
The amount of losses increased by 43% to almost $4.9B from the previous year’s $3.4B. Similarly, the number of victims increased by 45% to 147K from 101K in 2023. The complaint totals in 2024 and 2023 include cryptocurrency-crime counts, which are the medium through which the crimes took place, and are not recorded as a crime by themselves by the FBI.
In the 5 years between 2019 and 2024, almost $15B has been reported lost, and just over 600K complainants have reported a cybercrime to the FBI.
Interestingly, in spite of increases in both losses and the number of victims, the average loss per victim has been slowly decreasing. So losses, while growing, aren’t growing as quickly as the number of individuals affected. In 2024, the average loss per victim was $33.2K, which is 2% less than the average of $33.9K in 2023.
In 2024, victims of cybercrime aged 60 years or older were most affected in Texas, where the average complaint was associated with a reported loss of over $51.7K (excluding states with fewer than 1,000 complaints to avoid distortion by outliers). A total of 9.5K complaints were filed in Texas, with a total of $489.8M in reported losses.
The second highest average loss per complaint (excluding states with fewer than 1,000 complaints in total) was in Georgia at $48.2K. 3.6K cybercrime complaints from elders were recorded in Georgia with an associated total reported loss of $174.7M. Georgia is followed by California with an average loss per complaint of $46K, New Jersey with $45.7K, and New York with $41.4K.
To understand the ratios of elders living in each state to those affected, Incogni’s researchers cross-checked the total number of complaints versus the population of individuals aged 60+ years for each state.
Overall, across the US, around 1.8 complaints were filed per 1,000 American residents aged 60 years or older. Incogni’s researchers found that some states stood out in terms of the number of elders affected per population (aged 60+ years).
Arizona saw the highest number of complaints relative to the elder population: 3.5 complaints for every 1,000 elders. Arizona is followed by Indiana, Utah, and Nevada, which all have 3 or more complaints per 1,000 residents aged 60+ years (3.3, 3.1, and 3.0, respectively). In these states, elders were most likely to have been victims of cybercrime and fraud.
We also found a weak but statistically significant correlation between average retirement income and the number of complaints per 1,000 elders across the states. People aged 60+ years living in wealthier states are more likely to be victims of cybercrime.
How many people are likely affected by these crimes, and to what extent?
Unfortunately, the FBI’s IC3 data isn’t conducive to determining exact numbers of victims of elder fraud. This is because a single fraud report can both include multiple victims and cover multiple categories of fraud. So in the first case, in which a single complaint pertains to more than one victim, the number of complaints would have to be equal to or less than the number of victims. But in the second case—that of a single complaint touching on multiple fraud types—the number of complaints could only be equal to or greater than the number of victims.
An example of this second case could be a romance scam that starts with a personal data breach and involves cryptocurrency fraud in its latter stages. A single victim is defrauded once, but the crime counts towards three types (romance, personal data breach, and cryptocurrency fraud).
This also impacts the calculation of financial losses associated with specific fraud types: complaints involving more than one crime type make ascribing accurate losses to given fraud types impossible. Regardless, the data nonetheless provides ample scope for relative measures and comparisons.
Phishing and spoofing were the most prevalent types of cybercrime reported by elders in 2024, reported a total of 23.3K times. Last year, this crime type was reported only 2.9K times, representing around a 700% increase YoY.
Also, phishing and spoofing constitute 20% of all crimes reported. In the previous year, the most reported crimes were tech-support scams, at 17.7K times, constituting 18.5% of all reported crimes. Back in 2022, the most popular crime (also tech-support scams) constituted 18% of all crimes reported. This suggests there’s a slow shift towards a select few techniques used by criminals and others who victimize elders.
How might data brokers be contributing to these crime statistics?
Incogni’s researchers identified 11 crime categories (out of 26) that may be made possible or made worse if the criminals have access to the kinds of information data brokers deal with. What follows is a detailed look at these categories, with a focus on some particularly salient examples.
In 2024, like in the previous year, investment scams had the highest loss-to-report ratio and were associated with losses amounting to $1.83B, or a staggering $194,100 per complaint. These were followed by business email compromises (BECs), which were associated with an average loss of $116,700 per complaint. Meanwhile, reports of data breaches accounted for losses of around $95,200 per report on average.
Of a total of around 113,906 crimes involving elders reported in 2024, our researchers identified 72% (approximately 82K reported crimes) as being facilitated or exacerbated by the availability of victims’ personal data online. Crimes enabled by data accessibility were associated with $4.2B in losses, accounting for 86% of total losses.
Methodology
Incogni’s researchers examined the 2024 Internet Crime Report, published by the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a division of the FBI. Our researchers focused on internet crimes committed against people over the age of 60, as described in the Elder Fraud section of the report. This information was collected from people reporting such crimes to the IC3. From these reports, the FBI aggregated yearly losses and complaint counts per crime type. This was supplemented with 2024 data concerning state-level information.
Using the information gathered, Incogni’s researchers explored trends in complaint counts and amounts lost on a per-crime basis. They took particular note of crimes that may be exacerbated by personal information being available through people search sites and other data brokers.
Notes on the data:
The FBI published its Elder Fraud Reports alongside its Internet Crime Reports for the years 2020-2023.
In the sections related to victims per 1,000 residents, the visual and subsequent analysis excludes states and territories with fewer than 1,000 complaints.
For years outside that range (2018, 2019, and 2024), we collected elder fraud data (victims aged 60+ and their associated losses) from IC3’s annual reports.
Furthermore, not all reports made by people and published by the IC3 contain state information.
The data used in this research is available here: public dataset.
Sources
- Federal Bureau of Investigation. “2019 Internet Crime Report.” IC3 Annual Report, 2019. Accessed April 26, 2025. https://www.ic3.gov/Media/PDF/AnnualReport/2019_IC3Report.pdf.
- Federal Bureau of Investigation. “2020 Elder Fraud Report.” Companion report to the IC3 Annual Report, 2020. Accessed April 26, 2025. https://www.ic3.gov/Media/PDF/AnnualReport/2020_IC3ElderFraudReport.pdf.
- Federal Bureau of Investigation. “2021 Elder Fraud Report.” Companion report to the IC3 Annual Report, 2021. Accessed April 26, 2025. https://www.ic3.gov/Media/PDF/AnnualReport/2021_IC3ElderFraudReport.pdf.
- Federal Bureau of Investigation. “2022 Elder Fraud Report.” Companion report to the IC3 Annual Report, 2022. Accessed April 26, 2025. https://www.ic3.gov/Media/PDF/AnnualReport/2022_IC3ElderFraudReport.pdf.
- Federal Bureau of Investigation. “2023 Elder Fraud Report.” Companion report to the IC3 Annual Report, 2023. Accessed April 26, 2025. https://www.ic3.gov/Media/PDF/AnnualReport/2023_IC3ElderFraudReport.pdf.
- Federal Bureau of Investigation. “2024 Internet Crime Report.” Accessed April 26, 2025. https://www.ic3.gov/AnnualReport/Reports/2024_IC3Report.pdf.
