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Three of the most reported online frauds share one raw material: a stolen photograph. The romance scammer’s portrait, the marketplace listing’s product shots and the puppy advertisement’s pictures were all taken from someone else — and the photograph makes the lie believable long enough for money to move. Statistics cannot show you the faces, but they show where losses concentrate, who is hit hardest, and how the money leaves.
A note on honesty first. This article works from what the reporting bodies — principally the US Federal Trade Commission and the UK’s Action Fraud — publish, described in terms their findings support. Where the message is a trend rather than a precise figure, we describe the trend. That restraint is deliberate: scam statistics are recycled with figures nobody can source, and a page about fraud should not add to them.
Read the numbers with care: what reported data can and cannot show
Every fraud statistic begins as a victim’s report, and that shapes everything. Reported data shows patterns reliably — which fraud types recur, which payment methods dominate, which age groups lose most — because they repeat across reports and years. It is far weaker on totals: nobody knows how many victims never reported.
Definitions also differ, so similar-sounding US and UK categories are not directly interchangeable, and rising reports can partly mean better reporting, not more crime. Treat any single total with caution; the findings that survive year after year are the real information — and on those, the FTC and Action Fraud agree.
Romance scams: fewer victims, the heaviest losses
Romance fraud is where losses concentrate rather than spread evenly. The FTC consistently reports romance scams among the costliest categories of fraud for individual victims — the typical loss per person far exceeds most other reported fraud, with very large reported totals year after year. Action Fraud likewise receives thousands of UK romance fraud reports a year, with average losses that would seriously damage most households.
Two patterns deserve attention. First, reporting consistently shows older victims losing more, as a fake relationship built over weeks of daily messages escalates to life-changing transfers. Second, the photograph is the mechanism throughout — profiles are assembled from images stolen from soldiers, models, executives and social media users, which makes the persona feel documented and real. Where the supposed partner is a serving soldier, the recognisable script that follows is set out in our guide to military romance scams and how to check the photos.
Marketplace scams: volume over value
If romance fraud is deep, marketplace fraud is wide. Online shopping fraud consistently generates some of the highest volumes of reports Action Fraud receives, and is a staple of FTC reporting too — but the typical loss is far smaller than in romance cases: instead of one victim losing a fortune, thousands each lose a deposit on an item that never existed.
The photograph does the selling: listings are dressed in images copied from genuine sellers — the same car, sofa, phone or designer bag at an implausibly good price, sometimes in several towns at once. Because each loss is modest, most victims never report it, so true volume is certainly larger. Our guide to Facebook Marketplace scams and checking a seller’s photos covers the listing warning signs and the thirty-second check that exposes most of them.
Pet-sale scams: small sums, industrial scale
Pet fraud sits between the two patterns. Demand for puppies and kittens surged as remote working spread; reporting bodies on both sides of the Atlantic recorded pet-sale scams surging with it, and they have persisted. The individual loss is usually modest by romance standards — a deposit, or the full price of a puppy — but the scam rarely stops at the advertised price. Once a deposit is paid, invented costs follow in sequence: transport, a special crate, insurance, vaccinations, each small enough to seem worth paying by a buyer now emotionally committed to the purchase.
The imagery is entirely borrowed: advertisements reuse photographs and videos lifted from genuine breeders, so the puppy pictured may really exist — just not for sale, and not with this seller. Poor reporting means recorded figures understate a trade of considerable scale. Our guide to puppy and pet sale scams shows how to check the photographs before any deposit is discussed.
How the money moves — and why it rarely comes back
Across all three fraud types, the payment method decides whether anything can be recovered — the reporting bodies are blunt about it. The FTC’s reporting repeatedly highlights gift cards and cryptocurrency as the methods scammers demand, particularly in impersonation and romance fraud, precisely because such payments are difficult or impossible to reverse. Bank transfers to strangers carry the same problem in the UK, which is why Action Fraud’s guidance steers buyers towards payment methods offering protection.
Read that as a rule rather than a statistic: a demand to pay by gift card, crypto or direct transfer is not a payment preference — it is a structural part of the fraud. No genuine seller or partner needs money in an untraceable, unrecallable form; when that request arrives, it outweighs everything before it.
The reporting gap: why the real figures are worse
Both the FTC and Action Fraud are explicit that their statistics capture only a fraction of actual fraud, and the reasons differ by scam type. Romance victims often do not report — embarrassment, or the difficulty of accepting that the relationship was fabricated; some keep paying long after friends intervene. Marketplace and pet victims skip reporting over small sums.
Two consequences follow. The recorded figures are a floor, not an estimate — the real scale is larger, probably much larger. Reporting is itself part of the remedy: reports are how platforms, banks and police connect a reused photograph, a repeat account or a payment destination across dozens of victims. In the UK, fraud is reported to Action Fraud; in the US, reports to the FTC feed the same pattern-spotting. A report that feels pointless for one small loss may close the same listing at victim forty.
What the numbers teach: the checks that prevent the losses
Strip the statistics back and one lesson repeats in every category: the decisive moment comes before payment, and the evidence is usually already visible in the photographs. The checks are quick:
- Reverse search the photos. A profile, listing or puppy photo that appears elsewhere under another name or town settles it on the spot — run it through our free reverse image search tool, which checks six engines at once.
- Test the person, not just the picture. A short live video call, a selfie holding up a named number of fingers, a question only the person pictured could answer — the standard defences in our guide to how to spot a catfish — cannot be passed by a scammer working from stolen images.
- Treat the payment request as the verdict. Gift cards, crypto or a transfer to a stranger: stop there. Pay for marketplace goods through the platform’s protected route, or not at all.
- Slow down at the emotional peaks. Urgency and secrecy are engineered, and a seller or suitor who will not give you time to check is telling you why.
The FTC publishes its fraud reporting and consumer guidance at consumer.ftc.gov. The statistics will keep changing; the method — borrowed photos, manufactured urgency, irreversible payment — is not, which is exactly why the checks keep working.
FAQs
Which type of photo scam costs victims the most?
Romance scams. Reporting bodies consistently rank them among the costliest frauds per victim: fewer victims than shopping scams, but far larger individual losses, with older victims losing most.
Are online scam figures really rising, or is it just better reporting?
Both effects are present. Reported losses have trended upward over recent years in both FTC and Action Fraud reporting; better reporting explains part of that, but the sustained growth of the underlying categories — impersonation and online shopping fraud in particular — points to a real increase.
Can I trust exact loss figures quoted in articles and adverts?
Be sceptical of any precise figure quoted without a named source and a year. Agency statistics come with definitions attached; numbers circulating without them are often outdated, misattributed or invented. This article describes the published patterns rather than repeating unverifiable totals.
I only lost a small amount. Is reporting it worthwhile?
Yes. Small reports are how repeat listings, accounts and payment details get linked together, and both Action Fraud and the FTC use that data to target enforcement and warn the public. Your modest loss, reported, may close a listing in time.
