Scam trends by year

Scam Trends in 2023: Delivery Smishing, Bank Alerts and Early AI Phishing

2023 saw a sharp rise in package-delivery and bank-alert text scams, the emergence of QR-code phishing (quishing), and growing awareness of long-running pig-butchering romance-investment scams. AI tools began appearing in phishing emails and fake websites.

Scam Trends in 2024: The Text-Scam Explosion and Investment Fraud Surge

In 2024 text-message scam losses reached about US$470 million - roughly five times the 2020 figure, according to FTC data. Task and remote-job scams grew, pig-butchering and crypto-investment fraud surged, and AI voice-cloning awareness rose.

Scam Trends in 2025: AI-Assisted Fraud, Government Imposters and Digital Arrests

2025 brought an explosion of AI-assisted fraud - deepfake voices, AI-generated job ads and websites. Government-imposter scams rose sharply (the FTC noted a 40% increase tied to overdue-toll texts), and Canada's anti-fraud centre recorded about C$704 million in reported losses, led by investment and spear-phishing fraud.

Scam Trends in 2026: AI-Driven, Emotion-Engineered and Multi-Channel Fraud

Early 2026 indications point to AI-driven, emotion-engineered scams that move victims across multiple channels. Digital-arrest and sextortion scams are surging, employment and recovery scams are resurfacing, and AI voice-cloning is increasingly used to impersonate relatives and executives.

Future Scam Trends 2026–2028: Likely Trends and Emerging Risks

Based on the research and expert predictions, these are likely trends and emerging risks for 2026–2028. They are forecasts, not confirmed events - treat each as a reason to strengthen habits like independent verification, not as a certainty.