Why do Floridians lose $7.7 billion a year to online scammers? Here’s what we know
Floridians were scammed out of $7.7 billion in 2024, one of the largest figures of any state in the U.S., according to a new report from the Consumer Federation of America.
And the scammers aren’t here by accident, said the report; they’re partially after the state’s senior population.
“People target older adults because they are more likely to have built up resources that you can scam,” said Jeff Johnson, state director of AARP Florida.
The cost? For Florida, said the report, it’s billions of dollars that include “thousands of retirees’ life savings evaporating into the hands of criminals.”
Nationwide, scammers in 2024 conned Americans for $119 billion, an amount similar in size to the economy of New Hampshire, according to the report.
Just over 6% of online scams perpetrated nationwide are against Floridians, the Consumer Federation of America found. Spread across the state’s population, the $7.7 billion in annual losses equates to roughly $330 per resident. Florida is behind only California and Texas in overall losses.
Driving the uptick in online scams are technological advancements. AI has dramatically increased the sophistication of online fraud, said Ben Winters, director of AI and privacy at the Consumer Federation of America. At the same time, he said, the government agencies tasked with combatting online scams have been hamstrung by funding cuts.
Winters said Florida’s seniors are particularly vulnerable.
“They get Social Security benefits,” said Winters, “so there’s a guaranteed amount of money coming in every month.”
Johnson, of the AARP, noted a striking rise in scam concern among the organization’s members in recent years.
“It’s not only that the quantity [of scams] has gone up; it’s that they can be much more compelling and alluring than perhaps previous iterations,” he said of online scams.
Fraud is now the second-biggest financial concern, after the solvency of Social Security, among Florida AARP members, the organization reports, and one in six state members say they were a victim of fraud in the last two years.
Many of their losses occur on popular social media platforms — especially those owned by Meta. Facebook accounted for 57% of reported scams accessed through social media platforms, followed by Instagram at 22% and WhatsApp at 8%, according to the Better Business Bureau’s 2024 Scam Tracker Risk Report.
A Reuters investigation last year found that internal Meta documents projected roughly 10% of the company’s 2024 revenue — about $16 billion — would come from ads promoting scams and banned goods. Meta disputes the figure.
Those ads help fund a sprawling fraud economy. Investment scams accounted for the largest share of victims’ losses, with an estimated $46.6 billion in losses nationwide, followed by business email phishing at $19.7 billion, tech support scams at $10.4 billion, delivery fraud at $5.6 billion, romance scams at $4.7 billion and government impersonation at $2.9 billion.
But it’s not just older Floridians who are at risk.
“We’re seeing a really concerning rise of scam losses from people that are more in the 18 to 30 range, especially as they deal with crypto and sports gambling,” said Winters.
Investment scams, which often take the form of crypto investment opportunities, have become especially troubling, he emphasized. And they might be helped by pessimism, particularly in young people, about one’s ability to get ahead financially.
“There feels a little bit like this [hopelessness] to be able to operate in the normal economy and actually succeed, so there is an increased risk tolerance to think maybe [these investment scams] will work,” said Winters.
What’s behind the uptick in online scams?
Overlapping forces have allowed the scam economy to bloom. The first is artificial intelligence. Generative AI tools, like text and image generators, voice clones and video deepfakes, have allowed scammers to produce convincing, personalized content at scale, said Winters.
And then there are data brokers, who peddle targeted lists of people, sorted by demographic and online behaviors, allowing scammers to more effectively target victims.
That technological advancement has coincided with cuts to the government agencies tasked with protecting Americans from such scams.
The consumer protection agencies most equipped to fight fraud, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, whose budget was nearly halved, have seen massive funding and staff cuts, curtailing their ability to enforce rules and actively target scammers.
“We’re seeing everything backsliding in the wrong direction in terms of the agencies that are not only responsible for reporting on some of this stuff, but more importantly, are the ones that would sue some of the bad actors,” Winters said.
“It’s 100% spot-on to say that the cuts to these agencies are making this problem worse and will continue to make it worse.”
What can be done?
The CFA report calls on the federal government to require social media companies to increase transparency surrounding scam activity on their platforms and take steps to verify advertiser identities before approving ads.
And at the state level, Florida legislators could pass more stringent restrictions on the sale of consumer data by strengthening privacy laws, said Winters, or restrict the sale and use of certain AI tools commonly used in scams.
But the Legislature did take a concrete step last week in passing HB 505, a bill aimed at regulating cryptocurrency ATM operators, which are one of the most common tools used to irreversibly and quickly take money from scam victims.
The bill is awaiting Gov. Ron DeSantis’ signature.
This story was produced with financial support from supporters including The Green Family Foundation Trust and Ken O’Keefe, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.
