Most Americans are inundated with scam attempts on a daily basis — and about 3 in 10 have personally lost money or personal information to scams, according to a new AP-NORC survey. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Associated Press.
The poll, conducted in February, highlights the obstacle course that U.S. adults navigate daily as they screen calls, ignore messages or try to puzzle out if that urgent request from their cellphone provider is legitimate.
A separate survey conducted by Gallup and the Stop Scams Alliance found that last year alone, about 1 in 10 U.S. adults said they or someone else from their household was deceived by a scammer into losing money or providing access to a financial account, with nearly half saying they lost more than $500.
That leaves many Americans feeling like they're constantly at risk of falling for a scam, often without a sense of recourse. In both surveys, few victims said they reported the scam to the federal government or local law enforcement. Many victims didn't report the scam, Gallup found, because they didn't think it would make a difference in getting money back.
"You've got to be pretty sophisticated these days," said Adam Pratter, 42. He has run into problems on dating apps — and once ended up sending money to a person who claimed they were overseas because of a military deployment and needed money to buy food. He realized it was a scam when the requests didn't stop.
Pratter thinks banks and social media companies have a responsibility to help people who have been scammed, but also believes the government needs to do more.
"If federal regulation wanted to step in and make deals with these companies to get these people their money back, they could," he said.
Americans are flooded with scam attempts, according to both surveys. More than half, 58%, of U.S. adults in the AP-NORC poll said they receive daily text messages, phone calls, emails, online messages or online advertisements that they suspect are scams, while the Gallup survey found last year that about 4 in 10 experienced attempted scams on a daily basis.
Porschel Smith, 22, gets multiple scam calls every day, and receives even more scam emails. Some of the scams are easy for her to identify: "They mention different types of programs that I know are nonexistent," she said. But sometimes she ends up engaging with the scammer before realizing that something is wrong: "Some of them hack your account and pretend as if they're someone that you know. But then I get to asking questions and realize they're scams."
Older people are more likely to say they receive scam attempts daily, according to the AP-NORC poll. About 7 in 10 U.S. adults ages 60 and older say they are contacted by a suspected scammer at least once a day, compared to about 4 in 10 Americans under 30.
The impact of scams is far-reaching. About half, 51%, of U.S. adults know someone personally — such as a friend or family member — who has ever lost money as the result of a scam, the AP-NORC poll found, while about 3 in 10 U.S. adults say they have personally been scammed into giving away money or personal information.
The Gallup survey found that about 1 in 10 U.S. adults said they or a member of their household was scammed out of money in 2025, with 6% saying they had been personally scammed.