SCAMS BULLETIN Host Jay White is a volunteer attorney who serves low income seniors in San Mateo County, California.

March 4, 2019

TOP FRAUDS OF 2018

Every year, millions of victims tell us (Federal Trade Commission) – and our partners – about the frauds they spotted. Last year, we heard from 3 million.

 Here is some of what we learned from their reports:

We collected more than 1.4 million fraud reports. In 25%, victims said they lost money to fraud.  Victims reported losing $1.48 billion (with a ‘b’) to fraud last year – an increase of 38% over 2017.

The top scam reports in 2018 were: imposter scams, debt collection, and identity theft.

Younger people reported losing money to fraud more often than older people. Think about that.

It’s what the data have been telling us for a while, but it’s hard for people to grasp. Last year, of those people who reported fraud and their age, 43% of people in their 20s reported a loss to fraud, while only 15% of people in their 70s did.

When people in their 70s did lose money, the amount tended to be higher: their median loss was $751, compared to $400 for people in their 20s.

Scammers like to get money by wire transfer – for a total of $423 million last year. That was the most of any payment method reported, but we also saw a surge of payments with gift and reload cards – a 95% increase in dollars paid to scammers last year.

Tax-related identity theft was down last year (by 38%), but credit card fraud on new accounts was up 24%. In fact, misusing someone’s information to open a new credit card account was reported more often than other forms of identity theft in 2018.

The top 3 states for fraud and other reports (per 100K population) are Florida, Georgia and Nevada. The top 3 states for identity theft reports (also per 100K) are Georgia, Nevada and California. You can check fraud activity in your state.

 Meanwhile, keep reporting fraud activity to the FTC at ftc.gov/complaint. We can use the reports to investigate and bring legal cases against the scammers. We might be able to recover money for scam victims.