FTC Issues Annual Report to Congress on Agency’s Actions to Protect Older Adults
October 19, 2026 / Source: FTC
The Federal Trade Commission issued its latest report to Congress on protecting older adults, which highlights key trends based on fraud reports submitted by older adults and the FTC’s efforts to combat the problem.
The report, Protecting Older Consumers 2025-2026, details the FTC’s efforts to stop unfair or deceptive acts or practices that impact older Americans through law enforcement actions, consumer education campaigns and outreach, and coordination with partners. It also highlights data analysis of consumer reports on fraud targeting older adults, including estimates that the overall cost of fraud to older adults in 2025 could be as high as $119.5 billion,
“The FTC is committed to protecting older Americans from scams, including by taking every action necessary to shut down fraud operations,” said Christopher Mufarrige, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “This latest report showcases our enforcement actions, outreach efforts and other initiatives the FTC has undertaken to defend older adults from fraudulent enterprises and educate Americans on how best to protect themselves from scams.”
Older Adult Fraud Reporting Findings
The report outlines key findings from reports submitted in 2025 to the Consumer Sentinel Network, which collects reports from consumers about fraud and other consumer problems. Key findings include:
- Total fraud losses reported by older adults (ages 60 and over) increased about fivefold from 2020 to 2025, skyrocketing from about $600 million in 2020 to approximately $3 billion in 2025. This increase was driven largely by growing reports of extraordinarily large individual losses.
- Total reported fraud losses by older adults to investment scams jumped 42% in 2025 to over $1 billion, with consumers reporting that scammers often reach them on social media.
- In 2025, older adults continued to report much higher median individual dollar losses than younger adults. The disparity remained particularly large among people 80 and over, whose median reported loss was $2,000.
- Older adults continued to report losing money to fraud at lower rates than younger adults and filed no-loss fraud reports at much higher rates.
- Older adults continued to be more likely than younger adults to report losing money on tech support scams; prize, sweepstakes and lottery scams; romance scams; government impersonation scams; and scams impersonating friends or family members.
The report also details the FTC’s law enforcement actions that had an impact on older adults, which included matters involving debt relief services, health insurance fraud, government and business impersonation schemes, money-making opportunities and tech support scams.
The report also details the FTC’s outreach and education efforts through such programs as the Never Ever campaign, a public-private coordinated consumer education effort to raise awareness about government and business imposter scams. The report highlights the FTC’s collaboration with key partners, including government, academia and a wide array of partners from the nonprofit, financial services, retail and technology sectors. It also highlights the FTC’s efforts to coordinate with our criminal law enforcement partners to provide support and resources to older adults harmed by fraud, including referring older adults who suffered significant fraud losses to the DOJ’s National Elder Fraud Hotline for extra assistance.
The Commission vote authorizing the issuance of the report to Congress was 2-0.
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