Almost three million people reported scams to the Federal Trade Commission in 2017 and the agency has released the top frauds of 2017.
Here are some highlights:
- The breakdown of the millions of reports to the Commission looks like this: Debt Collection Reports (23% of all reports), Identity Theft (14%), Imposter Scams (13%)
- With nearly 350,000 Imposter Scam reports, about 1 in 5 people who reported an imposter scam lost money – a whopping $328 million lost to someone pretending to be a loved one in trouble, a government official, tech support, or someone else who’s not who they say they are, but who wants your money.
- For everyone who reported identity theft, credit card fraud tops the list, and continues to grow,
- Reports of tax fraud are down 46%, but it was still reported by nearly 63,000 people.
- $905 million lost due to fraud (an increase of $63 million from 2016).
- People reported that scammers mostly contacted them by phone, and they mostly paid for frauds – once again – by wire transfer.
- More younger people reported losing money to fraud than older people – but when people aged 70 and older had a loss, it was a much higher median loss than other groups.
- Based on reports per 100,000 population, the top states for fraud reports were Florida, Georgia and Nevada. For identity theft, it’s Michigan, Florida and California.
