Financial safety

A scam targeting Americans over the phone has resulted in millions of dollars lost to hackers. Don't be the next victim.

Pieter Gunst, 34, received what he thought was a credible phone call from his bank. But in a matter of minutes, Gunst realized the call was anything but after he had nearly handed over the keys to his account.

The woman was a scammer, and Gunst was just the latest target in a growing trend that's left thousands of Americans frustrated, broke, and without a clue how to get their money back.

The over-the-phone scheme is a type of phishing scam.

And in the last year, a whopping 26,379 people reported being a victim of some sort of phishing scam. Together they reported nearly $50 million in losses, according to the FBI's 2018 Internet Crime Report.

While the number of reported scams increased slightly from the 25,344 phishing scams reported to the FBI in 2017, the losses skyrocketed by nearly $20 million.