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Federal Trade Commission is warning that scammers are systematically re-targeting people who have already lost money to fraud, posing as government agents capable of recovering stolen funds.
New data from the Identity Theft Resource Center shows the pattern is worsening: 25.6 percent of identity crime victims in 2026 were managing two or more incidents simultaneously, up from 23.5 percent the year before, as identity crime migrates from isolated events into layered cases spanning multiple accounts and institutions.
The Sucker List Economy Driving Repeat Fraud The mechanism behind serial targeting is a criminal data trade the FTC describes as "sucker lists." These compiled records include a victim's name, address, phone number, the type of scam deployed, and the amount paid.
Criminal groups buy and sell the lists on the premise that someone who paid once is likely to pay again.
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