Scams Now Make Up 27% of US Banks’ Fraud Losses

Fraudsters are borrowing from growth marketers’ playbooks. They’re segmenting, personalizing and timing their outreach to lure more victims in less time.

A new PYMNTS Intelligence study, “How Scammers Tailor Financial Scams to Individual Consumer Vulnerabilities,” argues that mass personalization has become the defining feature of modern fraud.

Based on a survey of 10,103 U.S. consumers fielded July 26–Aug. 19, 2024, the report finds 3 in 10 adults, roughly 77 million people, lost money to scams in the past five years, with many suffering losses above $500.

Rather than hunting victims at random, criminals align messages with a target’s age, income and habits, then pick the first-contact channel most likely to feel “normal” to that person. The result isn’t just financial damage; it’s erosion of trust in banks, payments and digital commerce.

By the numbers: real‑time perception vs. reality

Channel realism beats consumer intuition. For Gen Z, 21% of successful scams began on social media, a channel younger consumers use daily and may view as routine. Among baby boomers and seniors, email (23%) and phone calls (21%) were the most common first touchpoints, mirroring channels they consider familiar and legitimate.

The first touch matches the scheme. Online platforms accounted for 42% of initial contacts in fake eCommerce scams, while phone calls dominated debt‑collection schemes at 39%, choices that mirror how legitimate sellers and collectors typically engage.

The tactics change as objectives change. In job‑listing scams, 86% of victims said fraudsters posed as trusted employers; in debt‑collection scams, 83% reported trusted‑entity impersonation. Threats and coercion featured in 22% of identity‑theft cases and 42% of government‑benefit scams, a reminder that fear, not just opportunity, drives compliance.

The broader picture is a fraud economy shaped by life stage and circumstance. Early‑career consumers encounter more employment scams; Gen Z victims were three times as likely as boomers and seniors to be hit by job‑listing schemes, with nearly 8% of Gen Z scam victims reporting losses to that category.

Older consumers were more than three times as likely as Gen Z to be targeted by fake eCommerce offers, while sweepstakes scams skewed toward seniors who may feel financially insecure.

Investment scams cluster around higher‑income households seeking yield, and government‑benefit scams show up more among lower‑income and less‑educated consumers.

These patterns reflect both self‑selection, as people run into the scams that match their activities, and deliberate targeting by criminals who study where their messages will resonate.

For financial institutions, the takeaway is less about one new trick and more about an operating model. Scammers are testing messages, optimizing channels and tailoring scripts in real time.

The ever-changing fraud landscape demands dynamic defenses: advanced analytics and behavioral monitoring that flag out‑of‑pattern behavior; customer education that uses scenario‑based training rather than generic warnings; and contact‑channel controls that help customers slow down when a request arrives through a medium that feels “right.”

The study also places scams in sharper relief inside banks’ loss mix: Scams accounted for 27% of U.S. financial institutions’ fraud‑loss dollars in 2024, up from 12% in 2023, a shift that underscores why prevention budgets are moving from static rules to adaptive systems. As criminals refine segmentation, the countermeasure is the same principle, applied ethically: Meet customers where they are, and block scammers before they meet those customers.