Americans are inundated with suspected scams. New polls show why few victims report them

By — Amelia Thomson-Deveaux, Associated Press Amelia Thomson-Deveaux, Associated Press Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/americans-are-inundated-with-suspected-scams-new-polls-show-why-few-victims-report-them Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Americans are inundated with suspected scams. New polls show why few victims report them Nation Jun 26, 2026 7:41 PM EDT WASHINGTON (AP) — Most Americans are inundated with scam attempts on a daily basis — and about 3 in 10 have personally lost money or personal information to scams, according to a new AP-NORC survey . The poll, conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research in February, highlights the obstacle course that U.S. adults navigate daily as they screen calls, ignore messages or try to puzzle out if that urgent request from their cellphone provider is legitimate. WATCH: How to recognize and block AI-powered scam attempts A separate survey conducted by Gallup and the Stop Scams Alliance that was provided exclusively to the AP found that last year alone, about 1 in 10 U.S. adults said they or someone else from their household was deceived by a scammer into losing money or providing access to a financial account, with nearly half saying they lost more than $500. That leaves many Americans feeling like they're constantly at risk of falling for a scam, often without a sense of recourse. In both surveys, few victims said they reported the scam to the federal government or local law enforcement. Many victims didn't report the scam, Gallup found, because they didn't think it would make a difference in getting money back. "You've got to be pretty sophisticated these days," said Adam Pratter, 42. He has run into problems on dating apps — and once ended up sending money to a person who claimed they were overseas because of a military deployment and needed money to buy food. He realized it was a scam when the requests didn't stop. Pratter thinks banks and social media companies have a responsibility to help people who have been scammed, but also believes the government needs to do more. "If federal regulation wanted to step in and make deals with these companies to get these people their money back, they could," he said. For many Americans, scam attempts are constant Americans are flooded with scam attempts, according to both surveys. More than half, 58%, of U.S. adults in the AP-NORC poll said they receive daily text messages, phone calls, emails, online messages or online advertisements that they suspect are scams, while the Gallup survey found last year that about 4 in 10 experienced attempted scams on a daily basis. Porschel Smith, 22, gets multiple scam calls every day, and receives even more scam emails. Some of the scams are easy for her to identify. "They mention different types of programs that I know are nonexistent," she said. But sometimes she ends up engaging with the scammer before r