By Khalil Garriott
With more than one in three Americans having experienced financial fraud or a scam since January 2024 — 37% of whom have lost money — fraud has become pervasive.
According to a new Bankrate survey, baby boomers and Generation X are the most likely to experience financial scams. Additionally, half of Gen Z respondents who said they experienced a scam lost money.
With so many affected consumers across generations, banks need to stay vigilant to help protect them. At the 2025 ABA Conference for Community Bankers, a panel of experts shared anecdotes of customers falling prey to bad actors.
“We’re seeing a lot of scams on a daily basis,” said Laurel Sykes, EVP and chief risk officer at American Riviera Bank in California. “We’re still dealing monthly — if not daily — with romance scam victims.”
The panel covered relationship investment scams, whereby criminals take time and build connections with their targets. They target innocent people, often older in age, through texts, dating sites, social media channels, professional networking platforms and/or other apps. Once trust is established, it’s not likely to end well.
“Fraudsters are nimble,” said Robert Mascio, director at the FINRA Investor Education Foundation. “They’re putting in a lot of time and effort to prey on these [victims].”
The Better Business Bureau, whose scam tracker is a free tool anyone can use to report suspected scams, published new research during National Consumer Protection Week in March. Melissa Trumpower Lanning, executive director of the Better Business Bureau Institute for Marketplace Trust, noted that the Bureau doesn’t only share the doom and gloom reality of these crimes; it also distributes uplifting stories of people who have lived through them and want to help others by sharing their experiences.
Phishing and other financial scams cost consumers more than $12.5 billion in 2024 — a 25% uptick from 2023 — according to the Federal Trade Commission.
“The reality is … you’re going to have [people] who are going to be victimized one way or the other,” said Sam Kunjukunju, VP for consumer education at ABA Foundation and moderator of the panel.
Phishing and other financial scams cost consumers more than $12.5 billion in 2024 — a 25% uptick from 2023 — according to the Federal Trade Commission. Banks should tailor messaging to ensure that educational interventions reduce susceptibility to fraud.
As bankers, awareness of red flags is vital. The panel stressed to listen to your intuition, pause and think first before taking an action. Typically, financial fraud falls into one (or more) of four common themes:
- Unexpected contact
- Emotional manipulation
- Sense of urgency
- Paying in a way that’s difficult to reverse or track
“The most important thing, when it comes to education, is to hit every stakeholder,” said Sykes, adding that banks should tailor messaging to ensure that educational interventions reduce susceptibility to fraud. “The words that we use are so important. When you’re working with your bank staff, make sure that they’re using the right language.”
Scammers not only cause financial loss. They also create a psychological and emotional toll for targeted consumers. Bankers, while focused primarily on rectifying the former, also can help with the latter. The CCB session provided attendees with a dozen banker resources, from the BBB Scam Survival Toolkit and FINRA Foundation to AARP’s Fraud Support Group and the Cybercrime Support Network — plus many more.
Nine in 10 Americans say their bank takes proactive steps to protect them from scams. It’s important for banks to attack the problem from multiple angles.
For example, Sykes said her bank is currently creating a fraud playbook and doing role playing. She suggested developing an escalation process within the bank. Banks also can offer resources like real-time transaction monitoring and customer risk ratings.
As the uphill battle to fight fraud persists, consumer education is essential.
“What works for one group of people doesn’t necessarily work for another group of people,” Mascio said. “This stuff is hard. There’s no simple answer.”
