Martha Mendoza/frontline And Juliet Linderman And Erika Kinetz/ap, The Associated Press

When Simon’s wife of 43 years passed away, it felt a bit like he’d died too.

In his overwhelming grief, Simon sought companionship online, like so many other lonely widows and widowers. Almost immediately he met Emily. But over the next few months, Emily, who Simon realized too late was a fake, stole $800,000 from him.

And that was just the beginning.

Simon was stuck paying back $185,000 he had borrowed, and tens of thousands of dollars in additional taxes on money he had withdrawn and lost. He tried to report the crime to his local police and the FBI, he said, but nothing came of it. Instead, he was contacted by yet another scammer — offering to connect him with the Secret Service to recoup his losses in exchange for even more money.

Like Simon, virtually every American has been targeted by scammers in some way, exclusive new polling data shows. Scams in the U.S. have surged to a record high, causing billions in losses for Americans.

But the U.S. still lags behind some other countries in tackling the problem, holding financial and social media companies responsible and regulating the cryptocurrency scammers rely on, an investigation by The Associated Press and FRONTLINE found. And although both the Trump administration and Congress are pursuing new options, victims still have little recourse and sometimes end up losing even more.

In interviews with almost five dozen victims, AP and FRONTLINE found that many faced ridicule and stigma from friends and family, mounting pressure from banks and lenders, additional taxes, dismissive law enforcement and neglect from a government they believed would protect them.

“What happens after the scam might even be worse than the scam itself,” said Erin West, a former prosecutor and founder of the nonprofit Operation Shamrock that provides support for victims of online scams. “It’s a travesty.”

While victims say they seldom get any answers from authorities, AP/FRONTLINE found these crimes can be traceable. With the help of leaked documents and cryptowallet addresses, AP/FRONTLINE tracked Emily and Simon’s stolen funds to a notorious scam compound halfway around the world in Myanmar with thousands of victims.

Simon was stunned to see Emily’s fake profile and hundreds of pages of conversations he thought were encrypted.

“What a fool I was,” he said.

Today, much of the Myanmar compound where his scam originated lies in rubble, destroyed by local authorities. Yet many of the illicit operations simply moved, new sites opened immediately, and Simon is no closer to getting his money back.

He asked not to be identified by his full name because he is too ashamed to tell most of his family about the crime. Local police and the FBI declined to comment on the case.

“(The police) told me right away that, you know, ‘You have to kiss that money goodbye,’” he said, fighting back tears. “Already I experienced something very bad and now I have to pay for the consequences on top of it, and see my money evaporate all over again. You lose two ways.”

As scams surge, fees and taxes pile on

The size of the global scam industry is staggering.

Americans reported a record $15.9 billion in losses last year to the Federal Trade Commission, a 25% increase from 2024. And such estimates are likely a massive undercount because most scam victims are too embarrassed to report their crimes.

The FTC estimates that real losses in 2024 were close to $200 billion; that’s $550 million every day just in the U.S.

The ballooning costs are fueled by huge advances in artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency. AI allows scammers to work at a previously unimaginable scale and level of sophistication, and cryptocurrency, often used in investment scams, is a form of digital cash that can be hard to trace to its real owners.

No one is immune, the AP/FRONTLINE investigation found. Ninety-eight percent of Americans suspect they have been targeted by scammers, many every day, according to a poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Three in 10 said they have personally lost money or information to scams.

AP/FRONTLINE interviewed 58 people in the United States who lost money to cyberscams, aged 32 to 90, across all races and income levels. They said they lost several thousand dollars to $4 million each and included doctors, IT professionals, academics with advanced degrees and people just trying to make ends meet.

All said they felt alone and confused afterward. When they did report the crimes to law enforcement, many felt abandoned by a lack of support. Several victims said they contemplated suicide. Two attempted it.

The only one to get any money back won a rare settlement from her bank, not from her scammer.

Instead, scam victims sometimes owe additional money through bank fees and tax bills. The IRS often demands that retirees, including scam victims, pay taxes on any funds they withdrew from tax-deferred accounts like their retirement savings.

Before 2018, victims of theft or fraud could sometimes deduct losses incurred from their taxable income. But under a provision of the Trump administration’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, made permanent in 2025, personal losses from many common scams are not eligible for tax breaks. That means victims can owe taxes after money was stolen from them.

Retired nurse Susan Bivins said she was tricked into draining her retirement accounts and sending more than $200,000 to a scammer pretending to be a federal agent. The FBI and local police did not help, she said.

Then her tax bill arrived. She owed the Internal Revenue Service $80,000.

“I wanted to drive off a cliff,” she said. “I didn’t know how I was going to live.”

Bivins sold her home and moved into a small one-bedroom apartment. She is still paying off her tax bill, selling handmade quilts.

The FBI said in a statement that it takes scams and fraud seriously but cannot comment on individual cases to protect privacy. Local police did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

A law before Congress, the Tax Relief for Fraud Victims Act, would reinstate an allowance for victims to deduct their losses. AARP fraud prevention lead Kathy Stokes urged Congress earlier this year to help scam victims who are “stuck with a bill they don’t deserve and have no way to pay.”

“Essentially they’re being revictimized by the U.S. government,” Stokes said.

Banks also sometimes blame people who are scammed instead of seeing them as crime victims, or even accuse them of being complicit. Victims described having their accounts abruptly frozen or canceled, along with demands for repayment on loans and legal fees.

Debra Fox in Colorado lost $58,000 in a romance scam, she said. In a meeting with her bank branch, she said, a representative told her that she would be held responsible for anything fraudulent linked to her own accounts and forced to pay any legal fees.

She was in shock for 48 hours, terrified that the little she had left would vanish.

“I thought, I have no control over this process,” she said. “The crime was horrific enough… but it’s what happened next that was really unbelievable to me.”

Her local bank branch declined to comment on her case.

Earlier this year, American Bankers Association Chair Kenneth Kelly said banks spend “time, money and significant resources” trying to stop fraud, which usually refers to unauthorized transactions. But under current U.S. law, financial institutions are rarely liable for transactions their customers authorize.

There are rare workarounds. For example, under new legal protections, a theft from a senior citizen in California might fall under the definition of financial elder abuse.

Alice Lin, now 83, was the only victim AP/FRONTLINE interviewed to get some money back, after she sued her bank, citing this law.

Over their lifetimes, Lin and her husband had put aside a nest egg of about $720,000. After he died, she struck up what she thought was an online friendship with a man who’d also lost a spouse.

Her new friend Justin convinced her to take out money from her bank and invest it in cryptocurrency platforms.

At first, her financial statements showed big wins. But when Justin encouraged her to ask her daughter for a loan to invest more, her family realized it was a scam.

Lin sued JPMorgan Chase for failing to protect an elderly citizen and flag the extraordinarily large and unusual transfers. Earlier this year, they settled for an undisclosed amount, according to her lawyers.

JPMorgan Chase said it has multiple layers of scam protection, from bankers who asked Lin about her transactions to written warnings. Settling the lawsuit “was a business decision weighed with the cost of litigation on this matter,” said the bank in a written statement.

Lin had been targeted by a sophisticated criminal network that ran dozens of different scams and took in at least $800 million from January 2022 to September 2024, blockchain analysis TRM Labs did for AP/FRONTLINE showed. This industrialization of scams makes it even harder for victims to get their money back, said Ari Redford, global head of policy at TRM Labs.

“We have not built out systems in the U.S. in many respects to not only alert victims but to really do restitution in a meaningful way,” he said.

Lin said the grief and embarrassment made her think about taking her own life. But she was infuriated by a question her scammer asked her long after she’d stopped responding.

“Are you still alive?” said the message. Lin shuddered as she read it again.

“I told myself, ‘I’m alive and I’m going to fight back.’”

Global models offer potential answers

The U.S. is taking steps to improve cooperation with the private sector on fighting scams but — unlike a growing number of other countries — has stopped short of requiring companies to do more to protect consumers or face financial penalties.

Eight in 10 Americans across political lines said the U.S. government isn’t doing enough to protect them against scams, according to a new Gallup survey. And more than half said financial institutions, social media and tech companies and the federal government should also share responsibility, new AP-NORC polling shows.

Since late 2024, financial services companies in the United Kingdom have generally had to reimburse clients tricked into sending money to scammers, giving them an incentive to invest in prevention measures. The downside has been slower bank transfers, the need for more employees and sometimes a conversation to explain why a customer might want to transfer money.

The European Union is also rolling out rules that make financial institutions potentially liable for scammed funds if they don’t put in adequate fraud protections. And the EU’s Digital Services Act, which was passed in 2022, requires platforms to quickly act on reported scam content and take broader steps to reduce online fraud.

In the UK, trained social workers are sometimes sent to the homes of scam victims to address the emotional fallout.

“You wouldn’t ever say to a victim, ‘Why did you fall for a mugging? Why did you fall for a burglary?’” said Louise Baxter, who serves on the Home Office Joint Fraud Task Force. “It’s secondary victimization, from a law enforcement perspective and a societal perspective.”

New regulations in Australia also spread the responsibility for preventing scams. Financial institutions, telecommunications companies and digital platforms in Australia can be fined or forced to compensate victims if they don’t do enough to prevent and respond to scam activity.

Singapore’s protections are among the strictest. Under the government’s Shared Responsibility Framework, banks and telecom companies may have to repay victims of certain phishing scams if they fail to implement required safeguards. The country’s Protection From Scams Act passed last year allows police to temporarily restrict bank transfers of someone who they believe to be a victim. Further, staff from banks and e-commerce platforms physically sit in the same office as police in their national anti-scam center.

The U.S. makes piecemeal attempts to teach law enforcement agents how to respond to scams, but requirements vary across agencies. And in the U.S., victims are generally only reimbursed if the money is taken from their accounts without their authorization, not if they were tricked into approving the withdrawals. U.S. law also offers social media companies broad protections from liability for the content they carry, even scams.

There are global differences when it comes to cryptocurrency as well.

China bans crypto-related businesses, while the European Union requires licensing, consumer protections and broad disclosures. But while the Trump administration has backed some cryptocurrency regulation, it has also promised to halt “aggressive enforcement actions and regulatory overreach” to promote innovation. And the GENIUS Act signed by President Donald Trump last year to regulate some cryptocurrencies did not require companies to return stolen funds to fraud victims – a gap that consumer advocates, prosecutors and some lawmakers have criticized.

Law enforcement officials say it’s harder to track, freeze or recover funds because institutional banking safeguards largely do not apply to cryptocurrency.

Unlike bank deposits, crypto assets are not backed by federal insurance, and so if an exchange fails, the money can be lost. Banks also require customers to provide identification, social security numbers and account details when moving cash, while cryptocurrency transfers can obscure the identities of those involved. Most significantly, many cryptocurrency exchanges operate across borders and through offshore entities where U.S. laws may not apply.

Locating stolen cryptocurrency takes time and money. Returning it is even more complicated. A cottage industry of attorneys specializing in tracing cryptocurrency is emerging, but they still need buy-in from overworked officials to obtain warrants.

This means that even if people can locate their stolen funds, it’s unlikely they’ll get them back.

After Brian Glick lost $575,000, he called the FBI, an elder abuse hotline, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the New York State Attorney General’s office, he said. He filed complaints at IC3.org and FightCyberCrime.org. He collected thousands of screenshots as evidence and turned them over to federal investigators. He even kept talking to his scammer to draw out more information.

But when the FBI went to cryptocurrency company Tether to try and freeze and claw back funds linked to Glick’s investment, Tether said it could not. The FBI agent asked Tether to reconsider, according to email exchanges shared with AP and FRONTLINE.

“I respectfully request that Tether take a second look at the below information in regards to freezing funds from bad actors …” said the email.

After being given more details, including Glick’s wallet addresses, Tether told AP/FRONTLINE that Glick’s funds were moved and commingled with other funds just hours after the money was stolen.

“By the time Tether was contacted, the two addresses contained a significant amount of unrelated, unattributed funds belonging to other users,” a statement from the company said. It said Tether could not “arbitrarily freeze funds of unrelated users without proper process.”

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino told AP/FRONTLINE that there are countless examples of their work with law enforcement.

“I think that there is no company, even in the banking industry, in the traditional financial industry, that is so helpful as us,” he said.

Officials at the FBI and Secret Service said Tether works closely with law enforcement to combat crimes related to cryptocurrency. In a joint initiative, Tether, TRM Labs and TRON, a blockchain network, say they have frozen over $450 million in illicit funds worldwide since 2024.

Glick was furious.

“There are so many victims of these cybercrimes,” Glick said. “And we can’t get our money back.”

Steps taken in the US

The U.S. government is waking up to the threat.

Congress is now considering more than a dozen bills to prevent scams. One would establish a centralized website for complaints, ReportScams.gov. Another would require disclosures on deepfakes and other AI-generated audio and visual content.

The Justice Department in November unveiled a strike force to cut off access of Southeast Asian operations to U.S. infrastructure, pursue criminal networks behind the scams and seize stolen funds. The Treasury has levied sanctions in Southeast Asia, and Myanmar and Cambodia have staged high-profile crackdowns on scam compounds.

The Justice Department’s Scam Center Strike Force claimed on its website this summer that it had restrained $832 million in cryptocurrency from Chinese transnational criminals. But a spokesperson told AP/FRONTLINE it was unable to go into any specifics about each seizure, where the funds are held or what, if anything, has been returned to victims.

Trump also signed an executive order in March directing the attorney general to prioritize the prosecution of scammers and to submit a recommendation for a program to restore money to victims.

“President Trump is unleashing every available tool to stop criminal networks that exploit vulnerable Americans through cyber fraud and scams,” the White House said in a statement to AP/FRONTLINE.

However, advocates say funding hasn’t flowed to the federal agencies tasked with combating scams, investigating cybercrime, and developing a cohesive plan for attacking the problem. And the fledgling efforts to help victims get money back aren’t keeping up with the tsunami of those who have lost it.

At least 13 federal agencies touch on different aspects of these crimes, according to a report issued by the Government Accountability Office. Seto Bagdoyan, who runs the office’s Forensic Audits and Investigative Service, said this piecemeal approach results in a sluggish strategy that “falls short.”

“There is no government-wide estimate of the money lost to scams, no common definition of scams, and no national strategy for combating them,” he said.

FBI Financial Crimes Section assistant section chief Rebecca Keithley, who retired earlier this year, said tens of billions of dollars flow out of the U.S. economy through scams. The FBI’s Operation Level Up, an effort to identify victims being defrauded and call them to intervene, has stopped about 8,500 people from falling for scams over almost two years, she said.

But that’s a small fraction of the sheer volume of victims. The FBI said it receives nearly 3,000 internet crime complaints a day on average through the IC3.gov online portal for reporting cybercrime.

“It’s an enormous problem, and one that the FBI is prioritizing,” she said.

Donna Gregory, retired FBI unit chief with the IC3, worked on the portal for 23 years, from its conception in 2000. Gregory said the loss threshold for what law enforcement will pursue varies by jurisdiction, and that the FBI is only able to investigate roughly 10-12 % of cases reported on IC3.

“The empathy you learn to sort of ignore because you would drive yourself crazy,” said Gregory. “All these victims saying, ‘I’ve lost my life savings, I don’t know what to do.’… “My grandmother committed suicide because she lost everything’ or ‘I’m going to commit suicide,’ and it’s like, which one do I have to pick?”

Chris Scott, a casino dealer in Arizona, was scammed out of $400,000 by a man on a dating site, she said. She added that she went four times in person to her local FBI office, begging for help — but was told all she could do was file a complaint through IC3.

She did. But she heard nothing back, she said, not even an acknowledgment of receipt. She began to panic, and searched for help online.

Scott found three companies claiming to have a direct line to the FBI, each promising to recover her funds. Out of desperation she hired them all, she said, handing over a total of $23,000.

None of the companies were real. Scott was forced to sell her home to cover her debts. She is still paying off the $20,000 tax bill she received after draining her retirement accounts, she said.

“I’m just a small fish in a big pond,” Scott said. “All I wanted was to talk to someone and get help, but I’m nobody to them.”

—-

Mendoza reported from Europe, Asia and North America; Linderman, a former Associated Press investigative reporter, reported from Baltimore; and Kinetz reported from Rome; Lisbon, Portugal, and Washington, D.C. Huizhong Wu in Bangkok, Wisdom Howell and Amelia Thomson-Deveaux in Washington, D.C., and Jesse Bedayn in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.

—-

This story is part of an ongoing collaboration between The Associated Press and FRONTLINE (PBS) that includes the documentary “Scammed,” premiering Tuesday, Sept. 29, on PBS and online.

—-

The Associated Press receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

—-

Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/

Learn more about our News Monitoring here.

---