Text scams cost consumers $470M in 2024: FTC

Scammers cost consumers a huge amount in 2024, according to a new report from the Federal Trade Commission, costing them an estimated hundreds of millions of dollars in scams that started off with a text message.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released its report on how much consumers lost to scammers, with losses totaling an estimated $470 million, five times more than they did in 2020, despite the amount of reported scams declining.

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Since 2020, scammers have cost consumers more money each year, with the largest jump coming from 2021, when scammers cost consumers $131 million, to 2022, when they cost consumers $327 million.

Most commonly, the FTC said these scams started with a text message, specifically ones about issues with a fictitious package delivery, followed by ones about “bogus” job opportunities like ones that promise online work and completing online tasks that end up with requests to invest their money.

More common text scams included fake fraud alerts made to look like they’re from the recipient’s bank, unpaid tolls with links attached and wrong number scams that can lead to phony romantic undertones to get the recipient to invest or other scams.

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To avoid being tricked by these scams, the FTC advised consumers to forward those spam messages to 7726 (spam) so providers can filter them out, then report them on the Apple iMessage app or Google Messages app and to the FTC directly.

Additionally, the FTC said to never click on links or respond to these unexpected text messages and to contact the company using one of their numbers you know is legit if you think the text is real, and not to use the information in the text message.