Imposter scams topped the Federal Trade Commission's fraud charts for the fifth year running in 2025. Fifth. The same scam. Five years in a row. At some point we stop calling this fraud and start calling it a voluntary wealth redistribution program.
The losses hit $3.5 billion. That's not a rounding error. That's not a statistical anomaly. That's the GDP of Moldova getting wired to strangers who claimed to be from Microsoft tech support or the IRS or your grandson who needs bail money right f*cking now.
Total fraud losses reported to the FTC reached $15.9 billion in 2025. Imposter scams accounted for twenty-two percent of that haul. The other seventy-eight percent went to equally preventable schemes that required nothing more than a functioning bullsh*t detector and the ability to hang up a phone.
Here's what imposter scams require to succeed: someone calls you pretending to be someone else and you believe them. That's it. No sophisticated hacking. No zero-day exploits. Just confidence and a phone number. The barrier to entry is lower than a lemonade stand.
For five consecutive years this has been the number one fraud type. Not crypto rug pulls. Not pump-and-dump penny stocks. Not some elaborate Ponzi scheme that requires a whiteboard and three hours to explain. Just "Hello I am definitely your nephew please send iTunes gift cards."
The FTC keeps publishing these reports like they're going to shame people into using critical thinking skills. They're not. You know what stops imposter scams? Not answering the phone. Congratulations to the scammers who figured out the easiest business model in human history is just asking for money while lying about who you are.
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
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