This webinar made the case that financial scams are a fast-growing, cross-generational threat to economic security, and that funders — whether or not “scams” appear explicitly in their portfolios — are already positioned to protect the wealth-building progress they’ve helped families achieve. Speakers from FINRA Investor Education Foundation, the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC), and JPMorgan Chase grounded the conversation in new data (including results from a Gallup “United States of Scams” study released the same morning), the legal landscape governing who bears the loss when a scam occurs, and emerging funder strategies. Speakers were clear that scams affected older adults and younger people. Younger people report losing money more often, but older adults tend to lose more in dollar terms. The financial toll of scams is compounded by a severe, long-lasting emotional toll that is only beginning to be well understood.

Key Takeaways for Funders
  • The losses are staggering, and reported numbers likely capture only a fraction of the real total. The FTC recorded $15.9 billion in reported scam losses in 2025, but Gallup’s new probability-based study estimates actual losses closer to $168 billion — a reminder that funders should treat official statistics as a floor, not a ceiling, and that investing in better data collection is itself a high-leverage opportunity.
  • Scams cut across every age group. While older adults remain especially vulnerable because of fixed incomes, larger accumulated assets, and fewer years to recover, younger people report victimization at least as often. Scam prevention belongs in every asset-building portfolio.
  • The emotional and psychological damage is as serious as the financial damage — and it lingers. Research shared during the webinar found that roughly three in four victims report a negative mental health effect, with exhaustion, depression, and fear lingering for nearly a year after being scammed. Funders can support wraparound responses — reporting assistance, financial counseling, legal/tax help, and mental health/peer support — beyond prevention and education.
  • Consumer protection law has significant, exploitable gaps. Legal protections vary sharply by payment type: credit cards are well protected; electronic transfers (Zelle, Venmo, ACH) have moderate federal protection under the EFTA but only for unauthorized (not fraudulently induced) transactions; and wire transfers, checks, and crypto are largely governed by weaker state law (UCC) or sit in legal gray areas altogether. Funders can support policy advocacy to close these gaps — including broadening federal protections, requiring real-time transaction warnings, and holding receiving institutions, telecoms, and social media platforms (where most scams originate) accountable.
  • Consumer education alone is not enough. Multiple speakers emphasized that awareness campaigns, while necessary, are insufficient on their own. Real-time interventions — pop-up warnings at the moment someone is about to send money — and cross-sector coalitions (banks, regulators, legal aid, mental health providers, researchers) show more promise and are areas funders can help scale.
  • Measuring philanthropic impact in this space is still evolving. Funders were encouraged to think about both individual-level metrics (dollars prevented, false-positive rates, self-reported behavior change) and societal-level metrics (overall scam prevalence over time), since individual wins can still coexist with a worsening system-wide trend as scams grow more sophisticated.

The speakers’ message to funders was clear: financial scams are draining billions in hard-won assets and inflicting deep, lasting harm — and philanthropy has multiple roles to play, from funding the data that drives good policy, to real-time prevention tools, to the legal and emotional recovery support victims need long after the money is gone.

Speakers:

Naomi M. Stanhaus, Moderator, Program Consultant, RRF Foundation for Aging
Robert Mascio, Director, FINRA Investor Education Foundation
Carla Sanchez-Adams, Senior Attorney, National Consumer Law Center
Dan Segal, Vice President of Financial Health, JPMorganChase
Speaker Bios

​Resources

We are grateful to RRF Foundation for Aging and FINRA Investor Education Foundation for sponsoring this conversation. The webinar was presented in partnership with Philanthropy of New York.