Last year, at least 12,400 Americans age 60 and older each lost more than $100,000 to online scammers, according to the FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Complaint Center report. Total losses tied to elder fraud topped $7.7 billion across more than 201,000 complaints. The payment methods scammers demand, including gift cards, cryptocurrency, and wire transfers, have become the clearest warning sign that a caller or message is fraudulent.

Billions stolen through three payment channels

The scale of financial damage to older adults has reached a level that federal agencies now treat as a distinct enforcement priority. The FBI’s IC3 recorded more than 201,000 complaints and $7.7 billion in losses from scams targeting people 60 and older. Within that group, at least 12,400 victims reported individual losses of $100,000 or more, a figure that represents retirement savings, home equity, and years of accumulated wealth disappearing in days or weeks.

Scammers funnel stolen money through channels that are fast, hard to trace, and nearly impossible to reverse. Victims are often directed to pay using cash, wire transfers, or gift cards. In tech-support schemes, criminals also instruct targets to wire or transfer funds to cryptocurrency exchanges or move crypto between wallets, according to a warning from the FBI’s Boston field office. Once a gift-card PIN is read aloud over the phone or funds hit a crypto wallet controlled by the scammer, the money is effectively gone.

The FBI has stated the rule plainly. “Neither the FBI nor any legitimate law-enforcement agency will ever demand cash or gift cards or ask you to move money ‘for safekeeping,'” the FBI Albuquerque field office said in a public alert about government impersonation scams. The Federal Trade Commission has echoed that guidance: when someone demands to be paid with a gift card, it is a scam. Legitimate businesses and government agencies do not demand immediate payment through any of these three channels.

What remains uncertain about the full toll

The 201,000-plus complaint figure almost certainly understates the true scope. Many fraud victims never file a report, whether out of embarrassment, confusion about where to report, or a belief that recovery is impossible. The IC3 data captures only complaints submitted to that specific portal, not cases reported to local police, state attorneys general, or the FTC separately.

Several gaps in the public data limit how precisely analysts can measure the problem. The 2025 IC3 report does not break out elder-fraud losses by state and payment method simultaneously, so it is difficult to determine whether crypto-based scams concentrate in certain regions or whether gift-card schemes hit rural areas harder than urban ones. No published FBI or FTC dataset isolates how many of the $100,000-plus losses involved remote-desktop access tools, which tech-support scammers use to take direct control of a victim’s computer and banking sessions. The FBI’s Boston office has described this tactic in detail, but aggregate numbers linking remote-desktop intrusions to six-figure losses have not been released.

The FTC has published national-level data on which gift-card brands scammers most frequently demand, but complaint-level detail on how those brands correlate with victim age or loss size is summarized only at a high level. Without granular breakdowns, it is hard to tell whether specific retail chains could do more to intercept suspicious purchases at the point of sale. That leaves policymakers and consumer advocates relying on broad patterns rather than precise targeting when they design interventions.

How to separate hard evidence from red-flag guidance

Two types of information anchor this story, and readers should weigh them differently. The first is statistical: the 201,000-plus complaints, $7.7 billion in losses, and 12,400 victims losing $100,000 or more all come from the FBI’s own annual crime report, drawn from direct victim submissions to IC3. These are counts of self-reported incidents, not projections or estimates. They carry the authority of a federal law-enforcement database but also its limitations, since unreported fraud does not appear.

The second type is guidance-based. Statements from the FBI and FTC about payment-method red flags, such as the rule that no legitimate entity will demand gift cards, crypto, or wire transfers, are official advisories rather than data points. They reflect patterns investigators have observed across thousands of cases, and both agencies have issued them repeatedly through field offices and consumer alerts. These warnings are well-supported by complaint trends, but they function as behavioral signals rather than statistical findings.

Readers who receive an unexpected call, email, or pop-up message demanding urgent payment should treat the payment method itself as the diagnostic test. If the caller insists on a gift card, a wire transfer, or a cryptocurrency transaction, that demand alone identifies the interaction as a scam, regardless of what agency or company the caller claims to represent. The FBI and FTC have framed this as a bright-line rule precisely because it is simple enough to remember under pressure, when a scammer is trying to provoke panic.

Practical steps older adults and families can take

While the aggregate numbers are daunting, individual households can reduce their risk with a few concrete practices. Families can start by having explicit conversations about money requests. Agree in advance that no one will send large payments, buy gift cards, or move funds to a new account based solely on a phone call or pop-up message. Instead, they will hang up, independently look up the organization’s official number, and call back.

Older adults who use computers or smartphones should be encouraged to treat unsolicited tech-support alerts as suspicious by default. Pop-up windows claiming that a device is infected and providing a phone number to call are a common entry point for scammers. Users should close the browser, restart the device if needed, and contact a trusted local repair shop or the device manufacturer using contact information from their own records, not from the pop-up.

Families can also set up simple verification routines. For example, if someone receives a message from a relative asking for urgent money, they should call that person on a known number or arrange a quick video chat before sending anything. Scammers increasingly spoof caller ID and mimic voices, so relying on a familiar number or face-to-face confirmation is more reliable than trusting what appears on the screen.

When in doubt, slowing down is one of the most powerful defenses. Nearly all of the schemes described in official alerts hinge on urgency: a supposed grandchild in jail, a threatened arrest by “federal agents,” or a claim that a bank account will be frozen within minutes. Simply pausing to consult a family member, financial advisor, or local law-enforcement non-emergency line can interrupt that pressure and expose the fraud.

Why payment-method rules matter more than the story

Scammers constantly change their scripts, cycling through tech-support ruses, fake investment opportunities, romance scams, and government-impersonation calls. What changes far less often is how they demand to be paid. That is why federal agencies emphasize payment channels as the most reliable warning sign. A caller may sound convincing, know personal details, or spoof an official number, but if they insist on gift cards, crypto, or a wire transfer, they have revealed their true intent.

For older adults who may feel overwhelmed by evolving online threats, this focus on payment methods offers a practical takeaway. They do not need to memorize every new scam variation. Instead, they can remember a short rule: if someone you do not know well asks you to move money in a way that cannot be easily reversed, stop and verify before acting. Families and caregivers who reinforce that message can help ensure that the billions currently flowing through these three payment channels do not grow unchecked in the years ahead.