More Than Half of Adults Encountered a Scam Last Year

Researchers at Bitdefender warn that scams are seeing a steady increase globally.

Citing a recent report from the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA), the researchers note that 57% of adults worldwide have reported encountering a scam in the past year, and 13% encounter a scam at least once per day. One in four adults lost money to a scam, and annual global scam losses now exceed  $1 trillion.

“Shopping scams topped the list, affecting 54% percent of victims, while investment scams impacted 48%, charity scams 40%, and employment scams 39%,” Bitdefender says. “And while online fraud once relied on crude fake emails, today’s scams often use AI-generated voices and deepfake videos to mimic loved ones or trusted brands.

Additionally, the researchers found that almost half of all spam messages are malicious, representing a staggering amount of social engineering attacks targeting people around the world.

“Impersonation scams abound in the United States,” the researchers write. “Criminals pose as companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Costco, or American Express, and nearly 45% of all spam messages have been found to contain fraudulent or malicious content, according to our latest report. Some even go a step further, sending fake texts that look like delivery notifications or government updates designed to make you click before you think.”

Users can decrease their chances of falling for scams by following security best practices and learning to recognize the hallmarks of social engineering.

“Behind every percentage is a decision — to click, to trust, to reuse a password ‘just this once,’” Bitdefender says. “Statistics show that even as scams evolve, our habits often stay the same. Writing passwords on sticky notes or using the same one for multiple logins may seem harmless, but it quietly increases the odds of becoming a victim.

“Cybercriminals rely on predictability. They know that a percentage of people will fall for phishing emails, or that millions of users still recycle passwords across banking, shopping, and streaming services. For scammers, statistics turn into opportunities.”

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Bitdefender has the story.