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ZDNET's key takeaways
Online investment scams in the US cost victims $3.5 billion.
The median loss for the first half of 2025 reached $10,000.
Protect yourself from these scams by knowing the warning signs.
Have you ever received a friendly "Hi, how are you?" greeting through a text or social media post from a person you don't know? That could be someone making an innocent mistake, or it could be a cybercriminal looking to run an investment scam on you.
Investment scams are now the fifth most common type of fraud in the US, with more than 66,700 reports during the first half of 2025, according to broker comparison site Broker Chooser. Over that period, unsuspecting victims lost a total of $3.5 billion to such fraud. Scammers earned a whopping $939 million in cryptocurrency, a rise of $261 million from the same period in 2024.
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Savvy crooks who try to pull off this type of fraud know they can exploit people eager to make a quick buck. With that in mind, the median loss for these crimes reached $10,000 during the first half of this year, up from $9,300 for all of 2024. That's the highest median amount among scams recorded by Broker Chooser and 376% higher than the second-highest median loss of $2,100 from business and job scams.
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