Internet crime complaints increased from 859,000 in 2024 to more than one million in 2025, defrauding Americans out of nearly $21 billion, according to the FBI 2025 Internet Crime Report released this week.
Tech and customer support scams, business email compromise, credit card and check fraud, and data breaches continued to surge over the last three years.
What's more, there were 181,565 fraud complaints involving cryptocurrencies, which accounted for $11.3 billion in losses last year, up from $9.2 billion in losses in 2024. Cryptocurrency ATMs/kiosks complaints totaled more than 13,000 and $389 million in losses. In 2024, the number of cryptocurrency ATM/kiosks complaints was 10,593, resulting in $246 million in losses.
For the first time in its nearly 25-year history, the FBI report included a section on artificial intelligence fraud, which accounted for 22,364 complaints, costing nearly $893 million in losses.
The report warned fraudsters could use AI for business email compromise (BEC) schemes because chat generators can quickly create official-sounding emails mimicking a company's CEO or other top executives. These emails can contain phishing links or direction to wire funds, while voice closing can also be used to require wire payments.
Tech and customer support scams, business email compromise, credit card and check fraud, and data breaches continued to surge over the last three years, according to the FBI report.
Tech and customer support scams totaled 47,794 costing $2.1 billion in losses last year. The number of complaints for tech and customer support schemes in 2024 was 36,002, slightly down from 37,560 complaints in 2023.
Although there were 24,768 BEC complaints, ranking ninth among the top 10 internet fraud complaints, BEC was the second costliest and accounted for more than $3 billion in losses. Investment schemes took the No. 1 spot with $8.6 billion in losses, and tech/customer support fraud was third, causing $2.1 billion in losses.
There were 18,744 credit card and check fraud complaints filed in 2025 that accounted for more than $282 million in losses. In 2024, there were 12,876 credit card and check fraud complaints, slightly down from 13,718 in 2023.
Last year, the FBI report recorded nearly 4,000 data breaches compared to 3,204 in 2024 and 3,727 in 2023. Data breaches caused more than $435 million in losses in 2025.
Ransomware complaints have steadily climbed from 2,825 in 2023 to 3,156 in 2024 and 3,611 in 2025. Last year, ransomware schemes resulted in more than $32 million in losses.
Phishing/spoofing complaints accounted for 191,561 fraud complaints, claiming the No. 1 spot of the top 10 complaints and $215 million in losses. However, the number of phishing/spoofing complaints has been falling since 2023 when nearly 300,000 fraud complaints were reported and 193,000 in 2024.
Identity theft has continued to increase. Last year, there were 31,675 ID theft complaints filed that resulted in more than $185 million in losses. In 2024, there were 21,403 ID theft complaints and 19,778 in 2023.
The top 10 states by number of complaints were California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Ohio, North Carolina and Georgia.
READ MORE: The FBI 2025 Internet Crime Report.
Peter Strozniak can be reached at peter.strozniak@arc-network.com.
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