The Surprising Truth about the Age Group Most Likely To Fall for Financial Fraud

Over the years, the story around financial fraud is often focused on older adults as primary goals. However, recent data paint a separate picture, as young adults have become an external ratio of people. It is operated in part, by online habits of young generations, where their familiarity with digital platforms makes them a better goal of scams.

Edw Edive, a senior Cyber ​​Safety Advisor to EY, said, “Young adults believe that Tech Sevnes is equal to the scam immunity.” “This over-confidence reduces their guards and makes them ideal targets for fast-money plans,”

In this article, we highlight the scams of the types that target various age groups and psychological factors that make young adults particularly susceptible.

Age-based weaknesses: Myth vs. Data

Over the years, traditional knowledge suggested that old adults were primary victims of financial fraud. However, recent research has emphasized a recurring discovery in recent years: Young adults are losing money to fraud at rates that beat people who are big, even the “success” rate (which receives money) for scam artists is increasing for all age groups.

Nevertheless, scammers are working to take advantage of online habits, social behavior, finance and psychology, which are affected by all ages. FTC data suggests that in 2024, 44% of people aged 20 to 29 who reported fraud were financial losses, while compared to 24% of the age of 70 to 79 years. Similarly, a 2024 pymts Intelligence and featurespace studies found that 83% of young adults were cheated at least once by a suspicious link in a message, with 39% millennium and 36% General Z Zen Z reporting scams compared to domestic loss compared to domestic loss only in comparison to 19% baby boomers and old adults.

Digital victims of digital natives

While youth are often called “digital natives”, this familiarity with technology does not translate into any type of scam immunity. In a study in March 2025, the study of Instagram users between 16 and 29 found that the use of continuous social media is often one of the authors of “Jennifer Clatch, rather than” rather quick, spontaneous decisions. Wall Street Journal,

The study also found that young people are more likely to rely on a sender that they recognize without examining the suspicious links and will be inspired to make decisions inspired by fear of remembering social experiences. This vulnerability aligns everyone very well with scammers’ strategy. The work of the clights and their colleagues in the construction of construction on previous research found that followers (in comparison with the possibilities of impure jobs or relationships) enhanced the sensitivity for young people, where scams apply to those who send valid in emails and texts.

“Social media is given importance as a reliable and habitually used environment, (and) its design also makes it a naturally suited to the effectiveness of (social engineering) attacks,” Clutsch and their colleagues concluded.

Types of scams targeting youth

Young adults face special scams to suit their digital habits and life phase:

• Employment scam“We are seeing an increase in job offering scams, where fake recruiting training fee asks,” said Eddyf. Other general strategies include fake check plans, where the victims submit the cheating investigation and transferred funds to “training” or “equipment”.
• Online purchase scam: Young bank customers are more than double the possibility of using credit cards to pay scammers as more than 40 people. Top products used include event tickets, salon services, jewelry, clothes and eyewear.
• Cryptocurrency scam: Cryptocurrency is the most remuneration for artists of the fraud scam, with a “success” rate of 60% when targeting the youth.
• Social media scam: Social media platforms have become the primary area for frauds targeting young adults. “(Scammers) pose as affected or friends, add urgency with fake hazards such as’ your account will be closed,” said Eddyf. Since 69% of General Z claims that “always connected” to the Internet (compared to 32% baby boomers), scammers have far more access than other generations. In addition, on platforms such as Instagram, it is believed that the messages of the followers can take advantage of the trust of users in the platform itself.

Bottom line

“Young adults are a susceptible user groups that are likely to be targeted by Fisher’s, taking advantage of their needs and expectations,” Clutsh and their colleagues wrote in March 2025 study. This access to scamsters operating worldwide means that young adults are being cheated at far higher than other generations. “Many people think that scams mostly affect old adults,” FTC has noted. “But report to FTC … Tell a different story: Anyone can be scammed.”