The city of San Francisco launched a new program aimed at spreading awareness about the latest scams and providing support to SF residents who become victims of fraud.San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and Treasurer José Cisneros on Tuesday launched StopScams SF, which the city says is the first coor dinated municipal anti-scam initiative in the country. Funded through a three-year, $3 million grant from JPMorganChase, the program offers free one-on-one financial counseling for scam victims, multilingual scam alerts, real-time monitoring of emerging fraud schemes, and a new payment verification directory to help residents confirm whether requests for city payments are legitimate, according to a news release from the treasurer’s office.The effort reportedly comes as fraud losses continue to climb nationwide. According to the Federal Trade Commission, Americans lost $158 billion to fraud last year, with losses rising 25% in 2024 alone. The FBI also reported an 87% increase in government impersonation scams in 2025, in which fraudsters pose as city agencies to collect fake payments, including parking fines, FastTrak penalties, and parking meter payments, as SFist reported previously.City officials said younger adults are scammed more frequently, but older adults tend to suffer the largest financial losses, with immigrants also disproportionately targeted.The Chronicle reports that 84-year-old Cathedral Hill resident Jonah Raskin lost $30,000 last year after a scammer posing as a payment app representative convinced him to withdraw cash from two banks and hand it to a stranger. Raskin said he only realized he'd been scammed after a friend intervened, and police told him the money was unlikely to be recovered.San Francisco State University student Kamiyah said she lost about $160 in a babysitting app scam after a fake employer persuaded her to buy gift cards with the promise of reimbursement. She refused to share her bank account information after becoming suspicious and reported the incident to the app. Kamiyah told the Chronicle she had encountered another online fraudster three years earlier who stole several hundred dollars from her.“When someone comes in after being scammed, the financial loss is real, but so is the shame. People blame themselves,” said San Francisco Financial Counselor John Luna, per the release. “My job is to help them see this was not a failure of judgment. It was a crime committed against them. And then we get to work on what comes next. There is always a next step.” The city also plans to monitor social media and 311 reports for new scam trends, strengthen protections across city websites and communications, pursue policy changes aimed at reducing fraud, and publish a playbook other cities can use to launch similar programs. “A resident faced with a potential scam should be able to call one number, get real help, and know exactly how to tell a real City payment request from a fake one,” Cisneros said.The program is housed within the Treasurer's Office's Economic Justice Center, which provides financial counseling and debt reduction services. Residents who live, work, or receive services in San Francisco are eligible for free counseling in multiple languages.Related: Beware: Those ‘Unpaid Parking Invoice’ Tickets Texts Are a Complete Scam, EverybodyImage: Treasure José Cisneros/Facebook ...read more read less