With 23% of America’s 52 billion robocalls categorized as scams, I feel like I’m gambling every time I decide to answer a call from an unknown number.

And if it’s not you being taken for a “sucker,” it’s our government institutions being gamed, with deceptive criminals, domestic and abroad, siphoning our hard-earned tax dollars.

Americans’ visceral anger at Minnesota’s alleged rampant health-care and daycare fraud even led former Democratic vice-presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz to suddenly end his re-election bid.

It’s hard to openly admit you’re a victim because in hindsight, the tactics are incredibly clear.

Outsiders with no emotion in the situation see the scheme at hand and consider you a fool instead of a victim.

I’ve never talked about this publicly, but my wife and I were scammed in 2020 on Facebook Marketplace.

My wife had an old item she wanted to sell but doubted she even could. The scammer emailed her, claiming a PayPal payment had been made, so she prepared to ship the item the next morning.

Despite our embarrassment, we’re lucky we didn’t suffer any massive losses.

Many Americans have lost their entire life savings — and some have taken their own lives.

IPX1031’s 2025 Fraud and Identity Theft Report found 28% of Americans were scammed in the last year.

This abundance has created an industry of “scam baiters” who blend aspects of investigative journalism, white-hat hacking and entertainment on their YouTube channels.

Ben Taylor, @PleasantGreen on YouTube, specializes in humor and sarcasm as he exposes various types of scams while teaching people how to avoid them.

“Every year we tend to spend more and more time online . . . and now with AI, the technology is just crazy,” he lamented to me.

“The ones that really stick with me are these sextortion scams that young people go through. I’ve just had so many rattling cases where kids end up taking their lives because they’re afraid these scammers are going to leak their personal photos. These people are so embarrassed to admit they fell for a scam that they just suffer in silence, and it just takes a toll on their mental health.”

Ashton Bingham and Art Kulik, from Trilogy Media on YouTube and hosts of the Fox Nation show “Scammed: Get Even,” saw similar trauma while helping victims over the past decade.

“Talking to victims is 100 times harder than talking to scammers,” Bingham told me.

“We’ve seen people lose their entire life savings. One of the first victims we ever met, Susan, not only had she lost everything, but she hadn’t told her family because she was afraid they were going to judge her.”

With the mountain of evidence it’s able to gather both domestically and abroad, law enforcement still lags in prosecuting these criminals.

“It was already hostile for half a decade to bring attention to law enforcement. They don’t have enough time, money, resources to dedicate things to the cybercrime scams,” said Kulik.

Asked the greatest misconception about cons, every scam baiter said people believe being scammed is an intellect issue.

Highly intelligent and capable people are routinely swindled because scammers specialize in social engineering and use technology to emulate real documents that can trick anybody.

Cyrus Johnson, a Dallas-based 23-year Texas and California corporate technology and finance attorney, almost lost more than $100,000 with a refined scheme targeting law offices setting up corporate deals for potential clients.

The check he got turned out to be counterfeit.

“The scam succeeds with attorneys receiving the check, and then immediately or soon sending over a couple hundred thousand dollars from the attorneys’ operating account. Assuming that the check is going to clear before we do anything else, the funds have been sent out from the attorney’s account, and they’re lost,” Johnson told me.

“This is legit the most sophisticated scam I’ve ever seen.”

In a major bust in India recently, authorities seized more than 100,000 forged certificates from 22 universities.

Clients would spend $2,400 to $4,800 for their fake documents to potentially receive job opportunities domestically and in countries like America.

“We have the same issue here in the United States,” exclaimed Julia Funaki, director of AACRAO’s international division, which helps train higher-education professionals to identify fraudulent credentials effectively.

“Your medical doctor, your OBGYN, is from a legitimate institution. You give them some trust. If that trust is based on a lie or a false credential, then you’re not only jeopardizing that person and their life, you’re jeopardizing that profession, and you’re jeopardizing the trust of the general public.”

Forgeries that place people in undeserved positions undermine our entire system built on trust.

Scammers often attempt to mimic one-time login passcodes, causing people to click links or initiate calls that give them access to financial accounts.

“What has changed over the last couple of years is just the scale of the fraud and the sophistication that goes into these schemes. The greater number of people you can reach, obviously, the more people you can scam,” said Brian Krebs, cybercrime journalist and founder of KrebsOnSecurity.com.

Speaking with these experts has altered my perception of scams and their impact.

Like most people hearing victims’ tales, I hyper-focus on the money lost, but I should pay attention to the trust lost.

When someone cheats you this way, you lose trust in society and yourself.

You begin to doubt you’re trustworthy enough to answer an unknown incoming call or properly interpret emails by yourself.

The greater the loss, the more extreme distrust you have in yourself.

Scamming is an emotional crime just as it is an economic crime.

It’s why victims stay quiet, don’t tell their friends or family and refuse to report it to the authorities, fearing judgment.

We’re all being targeted by “The United Scammers Against America.”

You’re not a fool. Unfortunately, it was just your turn.

Adam B. Coleman is the author of “The Children We Left Behind” and founder of Wrong Speak Publishing.