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Inhalt Younger loss reports

Victims and circumstances

Younger loss reports

Age tables describe who reached a complaint system, not who is inherently easier to deceive. The distinction matters because complaint records are incomplete and shaped by what each system accepts. Of the 2,600,678 fraud reports received by the U.S. FTC Consumer Sentinel Network in 2024, 1,177,005, or 45 percent, contained usable age information. These were unverified complaints rather than survey estimates.1

Some carefully defined measures do show more loss reporting among younger adults. In population-normalized 2021 U.S. Consumer Sentinel data that excluded FBI IC3 submissions, people aged 18 to 59 were 34 percent more likely than people aged 60 and over to report losing money. The difference varied sharply by fraud category. Younger adults were especially prominent in reported investment and job-scam losses, and social media began a larger share of their loss reports.2

The pattern changes when the measure changes. In Australian Scamwatch data for 2025, people aged 35 to 44 filed the most reports indicating financial loss, while people aged 65 and over filed the most total scam reports.3 A nationally representative U.S. telephone survey covering approximately mid-2016 to mid-2017 also found its highest surveyed victimization rates among people aged 35 to 54, rather than the youngest adults.4

For someone with a phone and a bank account, the practical lesson is that age alone is a poor guide to which contacts deserve scrutiny. Contact channels and fraud categories differ across age groups, so protections against deceptive social media approaches, investment offers and job offers should not be reserved for one generation. Complaint systems also do not record whether AI created a message, voice or image.5 Their age tables cannot reveal an AI-specific pattern.

Boundary. This judgement does not mean age is irrelevant. Particular age groups can be prominent within a defined category, channel or measure. It means those differences cannot be treated as evidence of gullibility. The records cannot separate exposure, willingness to report, category mix and the probability of losing after contact.

Quellen

  1. [1]FTC Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2024
  2. [2]FTC Data Spotlight: Who experiences scams?
  3. [3]ACCC Targeting Scams Report 2025
  4. [4]FTC Mass-Market Consumer Fraud in the United States: 2017 Update
  5. [5]FTC Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2024, report categories and data fields
Quizze

  1. A complaint table shows one age group filing more loss reports. What is the soundest first interpretation?

    • That group is prominent for that measure
    • That group is inherently less cautious in all contexts
    • That group faces every category equally

    Complaint systems describe particular reporting populations and definitions, not a fixed personal trait shared by an age group.

  2. Which comparison on the page demonstrates that the most prominent age group can change with the measure used?

    • Australian total scam reports and reports indicating financial loss
    • U.S. investment-scam loss reports and job-scam loss reports
    • U.S. complaints with usable age and all U.S. complaints

    In Scamwatch data, one age group led reports indicating loss while another led all scam reports.

  3. The same age group can appear prominent under one fraud measure but not another.

    • True
    • False

    Category, contact channel, population adjustment and the definition of a report can all change the observed pattern.

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