from Hacker News

Scammers Steal $1T a Year – Mostly from Americans

by vinni2 on 3/29/25, 8:39 AM with 90 comments

by vinni2 on 3/29/25, 9:52 AM
I struggled to find the source the fact that $1T is lost to scammers. From the FBI internet crime report in 2023 Americans lost about 12.5 Billion dollars [0]. That is far from 1T$.
Another source reports cost if cybercrime is reported to reach 9.5T$ in 2024 but again no source provided for that number [1]
[0] https://www.ic3.gov/AnnualReport/Reports/2023_IC3Report.pdf#...
[1] https://www.esentire.com/resources/library/2023-official-cyb...
by hasbot on 3/29/25, 12:12 PM
My elderly mother has been scammed twice (that I know of). She fell for one of those "Your computer has been hacked" popup windows a few years ago. Which led to her buying a "protection" service that installed malware on her machine. Every couple of months she'd have an "issue" and have to shell out more money to fix it. She's been using computers since the 80's (Apple ][e) but still is utterly clueless on how to operate a computer. I had her take her computer to a computer shop to have the OS re-installed but he somehow kinda botched it. Fortunately I was able to later re-install Windows myself and she hasn't had an issue since. I've strongly warned her about scammers and now when she doesn't respond to an obvious scammer email she's pleased with herself. Old people really do become children again.
by roenxi on 3/29/25, 8:58 AM
I'm not going to read the "article" because it is a transcript and looks a bit rambly and I don't expect it to be talking about anything interesting. But just going to the headline here; consider the base rate. North America has huge per-capita wealth (by a bit of a margin over most other large players). It is expected that scammers would target them and make the most profit there.
by ggm on 3/29/25, 9:16 AM
Not that there aren't massive downsides, but I do wonder where the spend side of this $1T goes. If it's shifted out of the USA then its being spent somewhere else.
I've never seen a decent write up of how the crooks invest the money, where they accept losses (muling?) and how they re-invest.
by miohtama on 3/29/25, 12:07 PM
Here is a very good podcast on the topic: Scam, Inc.
https://www.economist.com/audio/podcasts/scam-inc
Some highlights
- There are estimated to be 500,000 people working globally as scammers
- It is mostly Chinese Triad led industry
- It is geopolitical: for the government of China it is ok, even desirable, that Americans get scammed
- $1T figure must be too high, as criminal experts estimate the whole global industry to be $200B - $500B

by forinti on 3/29/25, 10:46 AM

The scamming industry in Brazil seems to have grown a lot since the pandemic. I get calls almost daily.

Three types of scam are really common lately:

  1- You get an SMS pretending to be from the Post Office saying that you have to pay tax for your packet to get through customs;
  2- You get a call from someone saying they're from your bank and they need you to confirm that you bought something expensive like a TV;
  3- Someone says they're your lawyer and you need to pay them to get your settlement (this one is nasty, because they look up people who have something going on in the justice system).

by more_corn on 3/29/25, 3:11 PM
We need a federal police in charge of tracking down and stamping out scams. They attack our elderly, and otherwise vulnerable. They steal money from the people who can least afford it and fund various violent, illegal and nefarious organizations.
by the_real_cher on 3/29/25, 9:05 AM
Between scammers, the medical industry, H1Bs showing up just for jobs, these reports from DOGE about the pointless nonprofits, PPP loans, private equity buying up businesses, and landlords, etc
America is just becoming a place to extract.
by pembrook on 3/29/25, 9:44 AM
Certain cities in countries like Nigeria and Morocco have become fraud “Silicon Valleys” where there’s quite literally tens of thousands of people collaborating and sharing best practices on how best to scam Americans and Europeans. This will only get worse with AI.
When I worked for a certain large inbox provider a few years back, I was astonished at the volume of fraud and phishing attempts that actually originate from these countries. And it’s amazing how centralized it is in certain cities.
Most people have no idea that a significant portion of the local economy in places like Lagos is driven by internet fraud, and due to local corruption it’s nearly impossible to prosecute.
If 100,000 Nigerians were physically pillaging a countries land and stealing physical assets that country historically would immediately go to war. The fact that this doesn’t matter as much since its all digital may need to be re-evaluated now that our financial lives are almost entirely digital. Western countries are going to have to finally put their foot down at some point.
by LunaSea on 3/29/25, 8:52 AM
[flagged]
by vednig on 3/30/25, 6:33 AM
Considering that for each scam a transaction fee i.e. 1-2% goes back to one of major US bank or card processor, they should re-calculate the scam amount and impact it has, as all the scams here are supposedly digital.
Plus, since all the transactions go through reputed banks why isn't there a decline, it has been happening since a decade now.
by mg794613 on 3/29/25, 10:03 AM
* No source for the number. * has "mostly from americans" (also no source) * brought to you by the same people suggesting you should get a second job to forget the stress from the first job.
by evilsetg on 3/29/25, 5:03 PM
One thing I have trouble wrapping my head around is blatant scams being advertised on reputable sites and apps. As I understand sites run ads through advertisement networks, but why are those networks not required to vet the ads that are bought for obvious scams. There should be regulation that requires these networks to vet each ad that is bought. With that in place at least the scams would not follow us everywhere on the web.
by spoonjim on 3/29/25, 9:06 AM
Americans are great marks because we are so relentlessly optimistic
by mixologist on 3/29/25, 9:44 AM
I am always confused how someone will fall for the scammer with such poor knowledge of your native language. If you look at the reports from the scams it is always so obvious that they are scams just by looking at the way sentences are structured or the way they speak.
I would expect that easier targets for such scammers would be people who don’t use English as their primary language. Not someone living in US.
It is weird that such things are not an immediate red flags to people. Then again, I have a better grasp on English language than last 3 US presidents so I guess you have to lower your expectations.
I thinks that this is also a reason that Musk, with his ramblings, didn’t reach such cult following here.
by feketegy on 3/29/25, 9:21 AM
1 trillion? (x)doubt...
by a_bonobo on 3/29/25, 12:34 PM
Somewhat related, Western Australia's newest billionaire, Laurence Escalante, got rich by running a sweepstakes betting company that operates only in the US.
https://www.afr.com/companies/games-and-wagering/escalante-r...
The company does not operate its games in Australia, where that kind of gambling is illegal (or rather, there are far more rules before people can enter the draw). Are Americans just easy marks?
by throwaway48476 on 3/29/25, 10:06 AM
It would be so easy to stop scammers if international transactions were insured and reversible. Governments just don't care at all about stopping scammers.
by barbazoo on 3/29/25, 2:58 PM
We’re not talking about all the AI trash people sell for $100/year for what is little more than a system prompt in front of an LLM, are we?!
by labrador on 3/29/25, 9:31 AM
That number is ridiculously high. I can't read the article because it's paywalled but back on the envelope says thats about $4,000 per adult American per year
by tossandthrow on 3/29/25, 9:50 AM
A perspective: redistribution finds it's ways.
People with roughly equal wealth would not scam each other's at this level