Why Scammers Target Military and Veterans — and the Tactics to Watch For

Active duty, Guard and Reserve, retirees, veterans, and military spouses lost a combined $584 million to fraud in 2024, FTC data shows.

Servicemembers, veterans, and military families have something most other Americans do not: a steady, government-backed paycheck or pension, an obvious online footprint identifying them as military, and a culture that prizes trust in chain of command. To a scammer, that combination is a target list.

The numbers reflect that. According to the Federal Trade Commission’s 2024 Consumer Sentinel data, military-connected consumers reported losing $584 million to fraud last year — nearly a 25% jump in a single year. Veterans and retirees alone accounted for $419 million of those losses, up from $350 million in 2023. The total number of fraud reports from the military community climbed 6% to 99,443 cases.¹

The losses are not evenly distributed. The FTC reports that veterans face a median fraud loss of $700 — roughly 40% higher than the $497 median across all consumer reports. Active-duty members lose even more per report on average: about $920 across roughly 7,300 reports.¹ And on identity theft specifically, the FTC has previously found active-duty servicemembers were 22% more likely than civilians to report a thief opening a new credit card or account in their name.²

This article walks through why the military community is targeted, the seven specific tactics that show up most often in 2025–2026 fraud reports, and the practical things you can do to recognize them before money moves.

Why scammers single out military and veterans

If you ask the FTC, the VA Office of Inspector General, and AARP separately, you get the same four reasons:

1. Predictable income. Active-duty pay, GI Bill stipends, VA disability and pension benefits, and military retirement are dependable. A scammer who hooks a target with reliable monthly income can run a long-tail con.
2. Public-facing identity. Many veterans wear hats, drive cars with service stickers, or post on social media in ways that openly identify them. Scammers cold-call known veteran phone lists, comment on Facebook posts about deployments, and target Gold Star families they find through public obituaries.
3. Trust in authority. A culture trained to act on instructions from official-sounding voices is, by design, vulnerable to imposters who claim to call from the VA, DFAS, the IRS, or a commanding officer.
4. Life transitions create gaps. Permanent Change of Station (PCS) moves, deployments, separation/retirement, and the months around a new VA claim all involve unfamiliar processes, hurried paperwork, and personal data flowing to many new hands. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has flagged PCS moves specifically as elevated identity-theft risk windows.³

Put together, that is a community with money, an identifiable signal, a culturally trained response to authority, and recurring high-stress transitions where mistakes are easy. Of course it is targeted.

An AARP veterans fraud survey released in 2025 found that 39% of veterans — an estimated 7.5 million people — have received a solicitation from someone claiming to be from the VA or another government agency, and 28% (about 5.5 million) said they believed their veteran status was the specific reason they were targeted.⁴

The seven scam tactics that hit military and veterans hardest

1. The VA imposter call (or text, or email)

The most common scam type reported by military consumers, year after year, is the imposter scam. The VA-flavored version goes like this: a call comes in from a number that, on caller ID, looks like a VA medical center or benefits office. The voice on the other end says there is a problem with your benefits — an overpayment you owe back, a claim that needs “verification,” a one-time confirmation of your identity. To resolve it, they need your Social Security number, bank routing number, or your VA.gov login credentials.⁵

The VA does not work that way. Real benefit issues come through the mail, through the Secure Messaging tool inside VA.gov, or through your assigned Veterans Service Organization (VSO). The VA will not call you out of the blue and ask you to confirm your full Social Security number or password.

2. Pension poaching and fake VA-accredited “consultants”

Pension poaching is the term the VA itself uses for a fast-growing scheme that targets older veterans (and their surviving spouses) who may qualify for the VA’s needs-based pension or Aid and Attendance benefits. A “consultant” — sometimes operating out of a financial advisory firm, sometimes a senior-living facility — offers to help the veteran qualify by moving assets into a trust or annuity that the consultant happens to sell.⁶

Two things go wrong. First, the asset transfer often locks the veteran’s money into an illiquid product paying a sales commission to the “helper.” Second, transfers made to qualify for pension can trigger a VA look-back penalty, delaying or denying the very benefit the veteran was trying to claim.

A related variant: a caller claiming to be a “VA-approved consultant” or “benefits expert” offers to fast-track a disability claim or appeal — for a fee paid up front. Real VA-accredited representatives at VSOs (DAV, VFW, American Legion, MOAA, and many more) provide claim help for free. VA-accredited attorneys and agents are allowed to charge a fee, but only on appeals after an initial decision — never for an original claim.⁷

3. Military romance scams (impersonating a deployed servicemember)

The U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigation Division gets hundreds of reports a month about scammers using stolen photographs of real soldiers — sometimes the actual rank and name — to build fake dating-app and social-media profiles. The target is usually a woman aged 30 to 55 who is told she is in a relationship with a deployed American servicemember.⁸

The asks come dressed up in military jargon: money for a special “leave application,” a satellite phone, a customs fee to ship a footlocker home, transportation costs to come visit on R&R. None of these are real military expenses. The U.S. military does not charge soldiers for leave, communication, or transport home.

The FTC has flagged a parallel scam aimed at servicemembers themselves: scammers posing as romantic interests targeting active-duty men and women, often eventually trying to draw them into sending intimate photos that are then used for sextortion.⁹

4. Identity theft around PCS moves and separation

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been raising alarms about a steady increase in identity theft reports from servicemembers, especially around PCS season. Mail forwarded to the wrong address, paperwork left in moving boxes, and apartment applications submitted to dozens of landlords all create exposure. Once a thief has a name, a Social Security number, and a believable address, opening a new credit card in a deployed soldier’s name is straightforward — and the soldier may not notice for months.³

The FTC also reports that in 2024, 19% of military identity-theft reports involved more than one type of identity theft on the same victim — meaning the thief used the stolen information across multiple accounts or product categories before being caught.¹

5. Fake veteran charities and “wounded warrior” clones

Around Memorial Day, Veterans Day, the Fourth of July, and after major news events involving deployed troops, fake veteran charities surge. The pattern is consistent: a name that closely resembles a real, well-known charity (think “Wounded Veterans of America” instead of Wounded Warrior Project), patriotic imagery, military seals or flags used without permission, and high-pressure phone or door-to-door appeals demanding immediate donations.¹⁰

One frequent tell: the caller thanks you for a pledge you don’t remember making, in order to manufacture a sense of obligation and familiarity. Another: the only payment methods accepted are gift cards, wire transfers, or cryptocurrency.

6. Predatory lending and auto-loan scams targeting young troops

Junior enlisted servicemembers, often new to managing a paycheck and stationed near a base lined with car lots and payday lenders, are textbook targets for predatory loans. The Military Lending Act caps the annual percentage rate (APR) on most consumer loans to active-duty members and their dependents at 36%, including all fees — but bad actors find workarounds: rent-to-own contracts, “membership” fees, and forced add-on products like extended warranties or credit insurance bundled into auto loans.¹¹

Common red flags around base communities: pressure to sign “today only,” loan documents you’re not allowed to take home overnight, a payment that consumes more than 20% of your monthly take-home pay, and any lender who is reluctant to put the MLA disclosure in writing.

7. Investment scams — including pig butchering — aimed at retirement nest eggs

The third largest category of military-consumer fraud loss in the FTC’s 2024 data was investment-related fraud, behind only imposter scams and online shopping. Veterans with TSP balances, IRA rollovers from separation, and lump-sum disability back-payments are prized targets for “pig butchering” crypto-investment scams that begin with a friendly text or LinkedIn message and end with the entire balance gone.¹

The pattern is the same one civilians face — we cover it in detail in how the pig-butchering crypto scam playbook works — but the military-specific twist is that the scammer often claims to be a fellow veteran, a military spouse, or a service-academy alum. That shared-affiliation hook (“I served too”) lowers the target’s guard much faster than a cold pitch from a stranger.

The five things to do this week

1. Place an Active Duty Alert (if active) or a credit freeze (everyone). Both are free and can be done online with Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.
2. Save the official VA contact methods. Real account messages live in your VA.gov inbox. The VA Benefits hotline is 1-800-827-1000. The VA Office of Inspector General fraud hotline is 1-800-488-8244 (or va.gov/oig/hotline).
3. Talk to your spouse and parents. Many of these scams reach the veteran via a spouse or aging parent who answers the phone first. Make sure everyone in the household knows the “the VA never calls and asks for your password” rule.
4. Verify a stranger’s military claim before sending money or photos. The Army CID guidance is blunt: if someone you have never met in person claims to be a deployed soldier and asks for money, it is a scam. Period.
5. Report what you see. Even when you don’t lose money. Reports to reportfraud.ftc.gov and ic3.gov are how the federal data above gets built — and how scammers eventually get prosecuted.

Where to report and where to get free, legitimate help

• FTC fraud reports: reportfraud.ftc.gov
• FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center: ic3.gov
• VA Office of Inspector General hotline: 1-800-488-8244 / va.gov/oig/hotline
• AARP Fraud Watch Helpline: 1-877-908-3360 (free, available to veterans regardless of AARP membership)
• Military Consumer (FTC partnership): militaryconsumer.gov
• Free VA claim help (VSO directory): va.gov/get-help-from-accredited-representative
• Identity-theft recovery plans: identitytheft.gov

For related guides on the cross-cutting tactics behind many of these scams, see how the pig-butchering crypto scam playbook works, how to handle an AI voice-cloning emergency call, and how to protect aging parents from scams — the last especially relevant for older veterans living independently.