FBI: Americans aged 60 and older reported losing almost $3 billion to crypto fraud last year. In total, Americans reported being scammed out of around $9.3 billion via crypto, out of a total $16.6 billion in total reported Internet crime losses that year.
@molly0xfff It is beginning to look like, crypto needs policing.
The 60+ category reported $4.885 billion in total Internet crime-related losses to the FBI, and $2.839 billion of them involved crypto (58%).
@molly0xfff I know this is not funny, but I am of the mind that crypto itself is a scam and so the fact that so much has already been ‘scammed out of’ so many Americans has me sort of laughing internally at them for falling for this obvious scheme. Idk if that makes me a bad person or not.
Depressing because, among other things, I would hope when we get this old (I am 61), we would freakin' KNOW BETTER because, you know, experience...
@molly0xfff
No wonder Donnie Numbnuts got involved with it. He is a scammer...
@molly0xfff Given that everybody has known for years now that cryptocurrency is a scam and that its only practical use (other than scamming people) seems to be the laundering of drug dealing profits ...
@molly0xfff Take those numbers with a grain of salt—many victims include fake returns in their reported 'losses.' Scammers often show substantial fake gains to entice them to invest more.
@molly0xfff gensanta! 16 mil millones en timos de shitcoins en un año! Pero el titular parece implicar que los mayores de 60 son más fáciles y no es así. Los demás grupos son de 10 años y este es más grande. Y los jóvenes no son más listos, es que tienen menos pasta que perder.
@molly0xfff poll people definitely shouldn’t be messing with crypto, unless they understand well how it works. I’m being specific abt old people bc it’s harder as you age to learn new things and crypto isn’t simple at all
@molly0xfff quick, have them report this to ic3
https://www.scworld.com/brief/fbi-ic3-impersonated-to-pilfer-financial-information
@molly0xfff I think the differences in losses by age group mostly just speaks to the fact that young people don't have any money to be scammed out of.
@molly0xfff fleecing the 60+ crowd with crypto is like hunting out of season. At least try a GenXer
@molly0xfff
That’s one of the reasons I will never get anywhere near crypto (I’m not in the over 60 group yet, but getting there fast).
The other reason being the amount of electricity required to make just one crypto coin. I consider it unethical to be involved in cryptocurrency in any capacity.
@molly0xfff does this include Trump crashing our 401Ks?
Reading your post that starts off “FBI: Americans aged 60 and older reported losing almost $3 billion to crypto fraud last year...” my first thought is: AND that’s just the people who reported it…. Actual totals are likely to be higher. 😐
@molly0xfff “#Bitcoin (and other #crypto currencies) is like rat poison squared.” - Warren Buffett
@molly0xfff beautiful hockey stick growth chart
@molly0xfff Anyone over 60 with enough money to mess with risky crypto investing is way better off spending it on resort time in Tahiti.
Old people just can't maintain the level of utter paranoia required to interact with an unregulated internet.
Hell, I have trouble with it. I just never lose sight of the fact that anybody I've never met in meatspace is presumed not real.
@molly0xfff they “invested” out of greed and got scammed
@molly0xfff
"Hold my Kaliber", as Trump flushes $5 trillion from the stock market…
@molly0xfff I've had elder people ask me what they think about this investment opportunity that they've been seeing all about on facebook. Facebook is pushing a series of ads to these users that are AI generated impersonations of trusted sources. w.t.h it must be beyond meta incs programming abilities to find and act on this?! They're basically part of the scam.
While what they say is terrible, I love stats like these. Data rocks!
But I'd add a piece of context. I was guessing 60+ was maybe 10% of US population, but looks like it's closer to 20%.
So that pool is large enough that it's "only" (order of magnitude) around $100 average for that group.
Since most folks didn't lose any to crypto scams, we can guess there were fewer, bigger losses for some individuals.
But I think the order of magnitude of mean loss is useful too.
'Over 60' is a bigger sample size than any of the other, single-decade age groups.
So you're saying that P. T. Barnum wasn't wrong after all? I mean, other than underestimating the frequency they'd be born.
@molly0xfff Probably lost more in 3 months with Trump at the helm of the U.S. in 2025 though 🙃
@pseudonym The full report has some additional data, though not always sliced along crypto/non-crypto lines. For the 60+ demographic, average loss was $83,000 (both crypto and fiat)
I don't doubt you, but I wonder how they got that number? 3, 6, or 19 billion is only ~$10 per every American (~330 million) so I don't see how the "average" loss is $18k.
I was assuming "mean" for average, but maybe a mean, median, mode difference of "average"?
Of those over 60, who lost anything from crypto, perhaps the median loss was 18k?
I'll dig into the paper to satisfy my curiosity. Thanks.
