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FBI receives nearly 3,000 internet crime complaints a day on average
A retired nurse, Susan Bivins, was tricked into sending more than $200,000 to a scammer who pretended to be a federal agent. Bivins said she reported the fraud to the FBI and local police, but did not receive the help she had hoped for.
The financial damage became even worse when she later received a tax bill from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).The IRS said she owed $80,000 in taxes on money she had withdrawn from her retirement accounts and then lost to the scammer. With no way to cover the bill, Bivins sold her home and moved into a small one-bedroom apartment. “I wanted to drive off a cliff,” she said as quoted by Washington Post. “I didn’t know how I was going to live.”Bivins is among dozens of scam victims interviewed by news agency Associated Press and Frontline as part of an investigation into the growing impact of online fraud in the US. The victims came from different age groups and financial backgrounds. They felt confused and abandoned after losing their money.
Victims can lose more
The investigation found that losing money to a scam can be only the beginning of a victim’s financial problems. Some victims were left with bank fees, loan repayments and tax bills after scammers took their money.
US consumers reported a record $15.9 billion in scam losses to the Federal Trade Commission last year. That was a 25% increase from 2024. However, the actual losses could be much higher because many victims do not report scams due to embarrassment or shame. The FTC estimated actual losses in 2024 to be close to $200 billion in the US.The growth of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency has also made scams more sophisticated.
AI can help scammers operate on a much larger scale, while cryptocurrency can make it difficult to identify who ultimately controls stolen funds.A poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 98% of Americans believed they had been targeted by scammers. Three in 10 said they had personally lost money or information to a scam.AP and FRONTLINE interviewed 58 people in the US who lost money to cyber scams.
Their losses ranged from several thousand dollars to $4 million. The victims included doctors, IT professionals, academics and people struggling to make ends meet.
Tax rules add to burden
For some victims, the financial impact continues even after the scam has ended. The IRS can require people to pay taxes on money withdrawn from tax-deferred retirement accounts, even when that money is later stolen. Tax-deferred accounts are retirement accounts where taxes on certain income are generally delayed until money is withdrawn.Before 2018, victims of theft or fraud could sometimes deduct their losses from taxable income. But a provision in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act removed tax breaks for personal losses from many common scams. That provision was made permanent in 2025. This means victims can be left paying taxes on money that they no longer have. That was what happened to Bivins.After losing more than $200,000 to the scammer posing as a federal agent, she was faced with an $80,000 IRS bill.
She sold her home to deal with the financial pressure and now lives in a smaller apartment. She is still paying off the tax bill by selling handmade quilts.A bill currently before Congress, called the Tax Relief for Fraud Victims Act, would bring back an allowance for victims to deduct losses from certain scams. Kathy Stokes, AARP’s fraud prevention lead, said victims should not be left with financial obligations created by crimes against them.
“Essentially they’re being revictimized by the US government,” Stokes said.
Struggle to recover money
Recovering stolen money can be difficult even when victims report the crime quickly. Victims told AP and FRONTLINE that they often faced pressure from banks and lenders after the fraud. Some said their accounts were frozen or closed, while others were asked to repay loans or cover legal costs.Under current US law, banks are generally not required to reimburse customers when the customers themselves authorised the transactions after being tricked.
Banks are more likely to be responsible when money is taken without the customer's authorisation.Cryptocurrency can make recovery even harder. Unlike bank deposits, crypto assets are not backed by federal insurance. Transfers can also make it harder to identify the people involved, while many cryptocurrency exchanges operate across borders.Brian Glick, who lost $575,000, contacted the FBI, an elder abuse hotline, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the New York State Attorney General’s office.
He also submitted complaints and collected thousands of screenshots.The FBI contacted cryptocurrency company Tether in an attempt to freeze funds connected to Glick’s case. Tether said the funds had already been moved and mixed with other money by the time it was contacted.Congress is considering more than a dozen bills related to scams. Proposals include creating a central website for reporting scams and requiring disclosures for deepfakes and other AI-generated audio and video.The Justice Department has also created a Scam Center Strike Force aimed at targeting criminal networks behind scams and seizing stolen funds. However, victims say these measures have not kept pace with the scale of the problem.The FBI receives nearly 3,000 internet crime complaints a day on average through its IC3 reporting system. Former FBI unit chief Donna Gregory said the agency can investigate only about 10% to 12% of the cases reported through IC3.r.
