Scam City USA: The Scammiest Cities in America

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reports that in 2024 Americans lost more than $12.5 billion to online fraud and scams, with more than 2.5 million people across the country falling victim to these crimes. While national trends are staggering, internet crimes, like traditional crimes, also affect different areas of the country disproportionately.

So which cities across the U.S. are the biggest scam targets, and which are the safest? Our team at All About Cookies reviewed FTC fraud reports, scam call data, search trends, and more across 75 big cities to find the scammiest cities in America.

Key findings

• Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is the scammiest city in America, followed by Miami, Florida.
• Many of the “scammiest” cities in the country are located in states with large populations, such as Florida, Texas, and California.
• Florida is home to three of the top 10 scammiest cities in the country, and five of the top 20.
• From 2024-2025, Seattle, Washington, had the most spam call complaints per capita (715 per 100,000 people), followed by Charlotte, North Carolina (664 per 100K).
• Reports of identity theft rose the most in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, increasing by 55% year-over-year.

How we determined our rankings

To calculate our rankings, we compiled a list of 75 of the most populated cities in America, and compared scam- and fraud-related statistics for each of them. Specifically, we looked at:

• Fraud reports (per capita): A higher proportion of the population reporting fraud victimization indicates places where fraud and scams are a bigger problem.
• Identity theft reports (per capita): Identity theft is one of the most common forms of fraud in the country, affecting 1 in 5 adults at some point in their lives, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Cities with the highest ID theft rates relative to population size indicate a larger ID theft problem.
• Year-over-year change in fraud reports: Raw numbers don’t tell the whole story, as a massive increase in fraud reports from one year to the next can indicate that fraudsters have determined that potential victims in a particular city are better or more desirable targets now than previously.
• Year-over-year change in identity theft reports: Similarly, an increase in identity theft crimes can indicate a shift or trend in the cities criminals are targeting for this crime.
• Search volume data on scams and fraud: If a high number of people in a given city are searching for terms related to identifying, reporting, or fixing a fraud or scam incident, it can be a sign that those crimes are particularly pervasive in that city.
• Spam call complaints (per capita): Spam calls are often attempts to contact and engage potential scam victims, so cities where these calls are detected and reported more often may be top targets for scammers.
• Robocalls per person annually: Robocalls are a well-known tool for fraudsters, so cities where these calls are more common relative to the population can be seen as potential fraud hotspots.

Using each of the factors above, our research team created a scoring index to determine the scammiest cities in the U.S., assigning a value from 1-100 in each city with higher scores indicating cities where scams and fraud are a bigger issue.

America’s scam capitals

Across the country, we saw two major trends among cities with high levels of fraud: warm climates and aging populations. In the U.S., elder fraud accounts for more than one-third of all scam cases, costing the vulnerable elderly population more than $3 billion each year.

1. Baton Rouge, Louisiana

• Fraud reports per 100K: 1,830
• Spam call complaints per 100K: 420

Baton Rouge ranks in the top 15 across all seven fraud factors we examined and in the top 10 for six of them. The city had the nation’s highest average search volume for fraud-related searches, and also led the country in year-over-year increases in fraud reports (60%) and identity theft reports (55%).

2. Miami, Florida

• Fraud reports per 100K: 2,793
• Spam call complaints per 100K: 498

Miami is the second-largest fraud hotbed in the country and has the highest number of fraud reports per capita (2,793 per 100,000 people) and the most identity theft reports per capita (903 per 100K) of any city in America. Miami also ranks second for year-over-year fraud report change, with reports climbing by more than 57%.

3. Orlando, Florida

• Fraud reports per 100K: 2,330
• Spam call complaints per 100K: 569

The second of three Florida cities in the top 10, Orlando ranks high in a number of metrics, including spam calls, fraud reports, robocalls, and identity theft per capita.

4. Atlanta, Georgia

• Fraud reports per 100K: 2,712
• Spam call complaints per 100K: 476

Residents of Atlanta receive the most robocalls of anyone in the country, an astounding 3,457 annually. That is nearly 1,000 calls per year higher than any other city, as Birmingham, Alabama, is second with 2,470 per year.

Georgia’s capital is also second in the nation for fraud reports per capita, at 2,712 per 100,000 people. That rate is a little more than 80 behind first-place Miami (2,793 per 100K). Atlanta is also second to Miami in identity theft reports per capita, though the gap is quite a bit wider: 903 per 100,000 in Miami compared to 690 in Atlanta.

5. Tampa, Florida

• Fraud reports per 100K: 2,051
• Spam call complaints per 100K: 366

The final Florida city in the top 10, Tampa is one of six cities across America with more than 2,000 fraud reports for every 100,000 residents, ranking fifth in that category at 2,051 per 100K. Tampa’s 23% jump in identity theft reports is among the 10 biggest increases in the country.

6. New Orleans, Louisiana

• Fraud reports per 100K: 1,753
• Spam call complaints per 100K: 255

Much like nearby Baton Rouge, fraud and identity theft are on the rise in the Big Easy. Fraud reports rose 42% year-over-year in New Orleans, the fifth-largest increase in the country, while identity theft reports jumped 35%, second only to Baton Rouge.

7. Dallas, Texas

• Fraud reports per 100K: 2,046
• Spam call complaints per 100K: 316

Dallas is another city with more than 2,000 reports per 100,000 people, at 2,046 per 100K, ranking sixth highest among all cities. A big reason Dallas has that unfortunate fraud rate is that fraud reports increased by more than 40% year over year, ranking among the 10 largest increases in the country.

8. Las Vegas, Nevada

• Fraud reports per 100K: 2,122
• Spam call complaints per 100K: 548

Sin City ranks in the top five in the country for spam calls (548 per 100,000 people), fraud reports (2,122 per 100K), and identity theft reports (570 per 100K).

9. Houston, Texas

• Fraud reports per 100K: 1,873
• Spam call complaints per 100K: 344

Houston has the third-highest rate of identity theft reports in the country, with 573 reports per 100,000 people. Those identity theft reports are certainly a contributing factor to Houston’s fourth-place ranking in year-over-year increases in fraud reports (45%).

10. Birmingham, Alabama

• Fraud reports per 100K: 1,748
• Spam call complaints per 100K: 274

Birmingham has the second-highest rate of robocalls per person of any city, with the average resident receiving 2,470 such calls last year. That equates to nearly 7 robocalls per person every single day.

America’s safest cities for digital crime

While there are no cities where fraud is nonexistent, there are certainly places where the problem is less pervasive and more manageable.

In that regard, Sioux Falls leads the way, with the lowest fraud report rate in the country at just 773 per 100,000 people. Sioux Falls also had the second-lowest rate of reported identity theft (120 reports per 100K) and the fifth-lowest rate of spam complaints (110 per 100K).

Nearby, Des Moines, the capital of Iowa, has the second-lowest scam score of any city, thanks largely to a low year-over-year increase in fraud reports (9%, the third-lowest in the country) and a major decrease in identity theft reports (dropping by more than 27%, the second-biggest improvement in the nation).

The bronze medal for scam safety goes to Lincoln, Nebraska, another city with low per capita rates of fraud (804 reports per 100,000 people) and identity theft (124 per 100,000). Lincoln also saw ID theft reports decrease year-over-year, going down more than 11%.

Cities where ID theft is rising fastest

Identity theft is a major subcategory of fraud and has become increasingly common in recent years. Unfortunately for people in the following cities, it is also a crime that saw scammers increase their efforts more than anywhere else last year.

Identity theft reports rose by 55% in Baton Rouge, the highest rate of any city. That rate is at least 20 points higher than in any other city in the country, with nearby New Orleans second at 35%. Corpus Christi, Texas, is third with a 31% jump. Two other cities saw reports for this crime jump by more than 25% year-over-year, with Louisville, Kentucky (29%) and Buffalo, New York (26%) unfortunately clearing that mark.

Cities receiving the most robocalls

Scammers take advantage of modern technology to defraud victims, with a particularly prominent tech tool being the use of autodialers to make robocalls consisting of automated or pre-recorded messages.

Nowhere are these kinds of calls a bigger scourge than in Atlanta, Georgia. There were more than 1.7 billion robocalls recorded in ATL in 2025, which equates to 3,457 calls per person living there. That comes out to nearly 9.5 robocalls every single day.

Birmingham, Alabama, has the second-biggest robocall problem, at 2,470 calls per person last year. While that number is significantly higher than the third-place city of Tallahassee, Florida (1,838 calls per person), it is still nearly 1,000 fewer calls than Atlanta residents received.

Full city breakdown

City	Overall Scam Score	Spam Complaints Per 100K	Average Google Trends Volume for Scam-Related Terms	Fraud Reports Per 100K (2024)	YoY Fraud Report Change	ID Theft Reports Per 100K (2024)	YoY ID Theft Change	Robocalls Per Person (2025)
Albuquerque, NM	34.7	195.4	49.0	1,147	13.6%	170	12.6%	226.3
Anchorage, AK	20.9	194.4	47.5	1,035	15.1%	116	-15.9%	158.0
Atlanta, GA	90.9	476.3	51.1	2,712	36.4%	690	14.2%	3457.1
Austin, TX	60.6	568.2	52.6	1,504	21.8%	317	5.7%	419.1
Baltimore, MD	67.0	258.3	45.1	1,854	34.8%	315	6.8%	1563.1
Baton Rouge, LA	99.0	419.9	64.0	1,830	60.2%	528	54.8%	1744.4
Birmingham, AL	73.7	273.6	46.1	1,748	39.8%	336	16.3%	2469.5
Boise, ID	22.6	187.3	48.9	958	5.2%	148	-0.7%	700.6
Boston, MA	51.6	109.4	49.2	1,218	30.4%	405	11.6%	629.2
Buffalo, NY	46.4	194.0	49.2	1,002	14.5%	194	26.0%	1112.1
Charlotte, NC	57.2	663.8	45.6	1,774	24.8%	374	-1.1%	603.5
Chicago, IL	66.5	278.8	46.4	1,688	37.1%	401	14.6%	563.9
Cincinnati, OH	34.5	363.2	41.2	1,071	16.9%	199	-11.9%	862.3
Cleveland, OH	44.0	193.8	41.6	1,443	25.0%	328	-17.6%	1208.5
Colorado Springs, CO	45.2	258.3	53.1	1,351	19.2%	222	2.3%	304.4
Columbus, OH	43.5	221.8	48.4	1,348	26.9%	316	-17.7%	547.8
Corpus Christi, TX	45.6	102.7	59.8	823	26.0%	216	30.9%	547.1
Dallas, TX	81.1	315.9	48.9	2,046	40.2%	475	8.2%	1257.2
Denver, CO	41.0	345.3	48.7	1,325	15.5%	237	-6.0%	533.0
Des Moines, IA	16.0	138.8	47.1	836	9.0%	159	-27.4%	366.5
Detroit, MI	58.3	164.6	47.2	1,519	32.2%	359	8.1%	1141.0
Fort Wayne, IN	35.9	200.4	47.9	982	22.4%	162	12.5%	376.3
Grand Rapids, MI	30.4	386.6	41.1	902	19.6%	151	-15.6%	654.1
Greensboro, NC	47.3	150.8	43.8	1,420	20.9%	241	11.1%	1436.4
Hartford, CT	38.2	112.8	43.4	1,209	31.7%	228	-51.0%	1634.1
Honolulu, HI	34.1	133.7	50.0	979	20.1%	143	16.3%	322.0
Houston, TX	79.1	344.3	46.5	1,873	44.6%	573	17.4%	617.1
Indianapolis, IN	62.4	292.7	45.4	1,487	40.8%	312	18.2%	588.5
Jacksonville, FL	72.5	307.7	55.4	1,918	25.0%	364	20.1%	337.8
Kansas City, MO	35.5	163.5	50.5	1,115	19.0%	193	3.2%	459.7
Las Vegas, NV	80.7	548.2	53.8	2,122	24.0%	570	16.8%	452.2
Lexington, KY	47.1	169.0	49.1	1,134	31.4%	186	23.2%	443.9
Lincoln, NE	17.7	133.7	47.1	804	15.2%	124	-11.4%	496.3
Little Rock, AR	60.2	166.3	48.5	1,358	24.5%	350	17.1%	1743.9
Los Angeles, CA	63.0	166.5	48.3	1,473	33.8%	550	20.1%	310.7
Louisville, KY	40.8	201.0	48.9	1,065	13.8%	195	29.1%	363.5
Madison, WI	19.5	176.6	44.8	1,002	11.6%	164	-4.7%	410.2
Memphis, TN	70.5	350.3	44.0	1,867	33.2%	410	11.4%	892.7
Miami, FL	95.5	497.9	53.4	2,793	57.4%	903	23.9%	1190.6
Milwaukee, WI	38.7	125.2	45.4	1,233	23.7%	248	12.2%	468.4
Minneapolis, MN	27.2	215.7	47.7	1,033	15.9%	150	-8.5%	609.9
Nashville, TN	35.2	166.9	47.5	1,246	7.2%	219	10.1%	606.3
New Orleans, LA	83.9	255.1	52.1	1,753	41.8%	432	35.0%	1262.3
New York, NY	51.9	66.0	47.4	1,564	41.0%	343	14.3%	157.5
Oakland, CA	46.1	169.3	56.5	1,291	19.0%	250	8.7%	368.0
Oklahoma City, OK	38.3	164.2	47.2	1,065	22.7%	205	9.0%	718.6
Omaha, NE	30.4	247.0	48.1	1,160	19.6%	162	-5.3%	323.7
Orlando, FL	92.4	568.7	46.8	2,330	45.4%	555	24.4%	1716.0
Philadelphia, PA	59.6	305.7	46.8	1,954	28.6%	456	-2.4%	460.3
Phoenix, AZ	55.2	285.4	49.1	1,553	19.5%	338	9.4%	509.0
Pittsburgh, PA	41.5	413.5	47.1	1,241	10.8%	187	-16.1%	1097.8
Portland, OR	35.7	371.5	51.1	1,192	10.4%	181	-7.2%	261.7
Providence, RI	49.4	100.6	53.0	1,042	30.1%	324	17.4%	461.5
Raleigh, NC	47.8	223.7	44.2	1,494	23.3%	286	5.1%	869.2
Reno, NV	39.9	243.0	57.6	1,203	12.6%	192	0.5%	350.6
Richmond, VA	48.2	294.0	48.4	1,518	17.3%	274	-9.0%	1096.1
Riverside, CA	61.3	152.1	48.3	1,324	32.8%	343	22.1%	1187.9
Sacramento, CA	49.3	287.4	49.5	1,372	17.8%	269	7.2%	594.5
Salt Lake City, UT	35.8	322.1	48.4	1,042	16.2%	175	-6.4%	845.4
San Antonio, TX	50.3	261.5	46.1	1,407	28.8%	302	11.0%	295.3
San Diego, CA	59.0	445.6	50.8	1,330	17.8%	313	19.0%	305.9
San Francisco, CA	52.5	372.7	56.5	1,291	19.0%	250	8.7%	1.8
San Jose, CA	44.6	284.9	56.5	1,140	17.2%	229	6.5%	122.5
Seattle, WA	51.1	714.8	55.0	1,258	14.7%	195	2.1%	570.7
Sioux Falls, SD	15.7	110.0	43.6	773	16.1%	120	0.0%	412.4
Spokane, WA	47.6	318.2	54.5	1,086	13.4%	180	13.2%	499.6
St. Louis, MO	56.3	196.3	45.9	1,497	25.6%	258	13.2%	1527.4
Tallahassee, FL	70.6	258.6	52.5	1,639	25.9%	365	10.3%	1838.3
Tampa, FL	85.1	365.9	52.4	2,051	26.4%	431	22.8%	1282.0
Toledo, OH	37.8	165.8	50.0	1,052	26.6%	193	-20.6%	1146.0
Tucson, AZ	49.6	307.7	53.6	1,364	19.6%	204	7.9%	301.8
Tulsa, OK	39.3	203.0	53.1	1,007	13.4%	189	6.2%	757.4
Virginia Beach, VA	48.0	201.3	48.4	1,575	21.5%	263	2.3%	754.0
Washington, DC	60.1	308.4	52.1	1,756	28.9%	314	3.3%	266.0
Wichita, KS	27.2	291.3	46.5	895	9.0%	167	1.8%	258.4
Average	50.6	209.3	49.2	1,392.9	25.4%	291.8	7.5%	560.7

Tips for staying safe from scammers

• Automatically monitor all your personal information. The best identity theft protection tools will keep an eye on all your important data and accounts for you, so you can have your peace of mind back.
• Protect your identity on the internet. Learn the top ways to keep your information safe online to avoid falling victim to identity theft.
• Learn about scam calls. The risks of answering a scam call are varied, but there are common warning signs that consumers can learn to help identify dangerous calls.
• Learn about PII. Your personally identifiable information (PII) can include details such as your name, address, or Social Security number. This is all information that can reveal your identity to online criminals if it’s compromised.

Methodology

All About Cookies collected data on 75 of America's biggest cities. We found data for seven factors relating to scams and fraud in each city.

Factors were compared using a dynamic formula that assigned each city a score of 0-5 relative to every other city. Those factor scores were then weighted to assign each city a final value out of 100, with higher scores indicating cities where scams and fraud are more prevalent.

For each factor, a weight of 2.75 serves as the baseline, with weights above 2.75 having a larger impact on a city's total score and those below 2.75 having a lesser impact. The weights and sources for the individual metrics used are as follows:

Criteria	Source	Weight
Fraud reports per 100,000 people, 2024	Federal Trade Commission	3.25
Identity theft reports per 100,000 people	Federal Trade Commission	3.25
Spam call complaints per 100,000 people, 2023-2024	Federal Communications Commission	3.0
Change in the number of fraud reports from 2023 to 2024	Federal Trade Commission	2.75
Change in the number of identity theft reports from 2023 to 2024	Federal Trade Commission	2.75
Average search volume for 10 different scam-related terms	Google Trends	2.5
Robocalls per person, 2025	YouMail Robocall Index	2.5