Government Impersonation Scam Losses Nearly Doubled to $798 Million in 2025 [Data]

Picture this: your phone rings. It's a federal agent, and your Social Security number just turned up in a criminal investigation. For a fee, they can make it go away. Or maybe it's the IRS, warning that you owe back taxes and police are already on their way unless you pay right now.

Neither caller is real. Both are running one of the fastest-growing frauds in America: government impersonation scams. These IRS and Social Security scams cost Americans nearly $800 million in 2025 alone.

To get a fuller picture of the world of fraud and scammers, the All About Cookies research team analyzed the last three years’ worth of data relating to government impersonation complaints from the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).

Both complaints and reported losses nearly doubled year over year, the highest totals in recent memory.

Key findings

• Government impersonation losses hit nearly $798 million in 2025, up 96.7% from 2024.
• Complaints nearly doubled too, jumping 86.7% year-over-year to 32,424 reports.
• Adults 60 and older filed 26.6% of complaints but accounted for 51.8% of all monetary losses.
• Victims 60+ lost an average of $47,891 per complaint, nearly double the overall average of $24,610.
• Fraud involving cryptocurrency accounted for more than a third of the money lost (35%) due to government impersonation scams.

Government impersonation scams are surging fast

Government impersonation scams are a type of fraud where criminals pose as a government official or law enforcement officer to extort money from victims. Common examples include claims that the potential victim missed jury duty or that their identity was used to commit a crime. The fake official offers to help but requires some kind of payment or funding to do so.

Complaints to the FBI about government impersonation grew by 22.4% from 2023 to 2024, but nearly doubled in 2025.

In 2023, the FBI logged 14,190 government impersonation complaints in its annual IC3 Report, accounting for $394.1 million in reported losses. The following year, complaints rose 22.4% to 17,367, but total losses grew just 2.9% to reach $405.6 million, suggesting that scammers were reaching more people without necessarily taking more money from each one.

That pattern shifted in 2025 as the scourge of government impersonation scams expanded dramatically in scope. Complaints jumped 86.7% year-over-year to 32,424, while losses nearly doubled to $797.9 million, a 96.7% single-year jump and a 102.5% increase over the full three-year period.

Part of that growth may be due to how efficient cryptocurrency scams were last year. Reports of government impersonation fraud involving crypto made up 18.4% of all 2025 complaints but 35.2% of losses, averaging $47,212 per report, nearly double the overall average of $24,610.

Government impersonation complaints and losses, 2023–2025

Year	Complaints	Losses	Loss per complaint
2023	14,190	$394,050,518	$27,770
2024	17,367	$405,624,084	$23,356
2025	32,424	$797,943,193	$24,610

Adults 60 and older are losing the most money

Younger adults file more government impersonation complaints overall, but older Americans lose far more money to cybercrime. This divide illustrates how vulnerable older Americans are when it comes to these kinds of fear-based scams.

Last year, adults 60 and older filed 26.6% of government impersonation reports but accounted for 51.8% of the losses, making up more than $413 million of the nearly $800 million total. That works out to $47,891 per complaint, nearly double the overall average of $24,610 and more than 3.5 times the average for every age group under 60 ($13,336).

As a result, seniors lost an average of $47,891 per complaint of this type, nearly double the overall average of $24,610 and more than 3.5 times higher than the combined average for every age group under 60 ($13,336).

The gap is widening quickly, too. Complaints from adults 60+ rose 90.8% in 2025, while their losses climbed 98.6%, both faster than the overall increases across the nation. These numbers drive home how important it is to keep seniors and older relatives safe online.

Share of 2025 government impersonation complaints vs. losses, by age

Age group	Complaints	% of total complaints	Losses	% of total losses	Loss per complaint
17 and younger	99	0.3%	$1,412,003	0.2%	$14,263
Adults under 20	420	1.3%	$8,583,219	1.1%	$20,436
20-29	3,401	10.5%	$50,358,843	6.3%	$14,807
30-39	5,446	16.8%	$82,005,707	10.3%	$15,058
40-49	6,136	18.9%	$55,019,630	6.9%	$8,967
50-59	5,636	17.4%	$84,516,785	10.6%	$14,996
60+	8,628	26.6%	$413,206,251	51.8%	$47,891
Unspecified	2,658	8.2%	$102,840,755	12.9%	$38,691
Total	32,424	-	$797,943,193	-	$24,610

Why government impersonation scams are getting more costly

A few forces are driving both the volume and size of these losses:

• Scammers increasingly demand payment in cryptocurrency, which is harder to trace or reverse than a wire transfer or gift card. Cryptocurrency is a common thread in the costliest cases: in 2025, crypto-payment reports accounted for over a third of all losses despite making up less than a fifth of complaints.
• Older scam victims often have more savings and retirement assets on hand, giving scammers a bigger payout to chase. Combined with less familiarity with newer scam tactics, that makes government impersonation an especially lucrative crime against seniors.
• Caller ID spoofing and AI-generated voices make it easier to sound like a real government agent. While AI-related reports are still a small share of the total reports (0.8% of complaints, 0.9% of losses), there are signs that scammers are starting to experiment with generative tools to sound more convincing on the phone.
• Fear-based scripts (a missed jury summons, a warrant, stolen identity) pressure victims into acting before they can verify the claim.

How to protect yourself and your family from impersonation scams

• Sign up for identity theft protection. The best identity theft protection services can catch unauthorized use of your Social Security number, like a new account opened in your name, before a scam drains your savings.
• Remove your personal data from data broker sites. Scammers use publicly available details like your address and phone number to make their calls sound legitimate. Data broker removal shrinks what's out there, and a top data removal service can handle it for you.
• Be cautious with unknown numbers. If you don't recognize the caller, let it go to voicemail. Knowing what to do if you answer a spam risk call can help you avoid giving away information in the moment.

Methodology

All About Cookies analyzed three years (2023–2025) of government impersonation scam data from the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) 2025 Internet Crime Report, including complaint counts, financial losses, and 2025 breakdowns by victim age group, payment method, and AI involvement.