Americans lost $88 billion to fraud in 2022, says FTC report

Share post:

According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Americans lost a whopping $88 billion to fraud last year. This represents a 30% increase in total FTC losses reported in 2021, indicating that fraudsters’ tactics are becoming more sophisticated.

According to the report, the most common types of fraud reported to the FTC were imposter scams, in which fraudsters pose as government agencies or businesses in order to steal personal information or money. With over 1.5 million reports of imposter scams in 2022, these scams accounted for 22% of all FTC reports.

In 2022, consumers reported losing more money to investment scams than any other category, totaling more than $3.8 billion. This amount more than doubles the reported loss in 2021. Imposter scams had the second highest reported loss amount, with $2.6 billion reported, up from $2.4 billion in 2021.

Identity theft was another common scam, accounting for 19% of all FTC reports. Personal information, such as Social Security numbers, are stolen and used to open new accounts, apply for loans, or make fraudulent purchases in this type of fraud.

According to the report, younger people were more likely than older generations to report fraud, with those aged 20-29 reporting the highest number of fraud complaints. This could be because younger people are more likely to use online services, which are frequently targeted by fraudsters.

The sources for this piece include an article in BleepingComputer.

Featured Tech Jobs

SUBSCRIBE NOW

Related articles

Cyber Security Today, March 27, 2024 – A botnet exploits old routers, a new malware loader discovered, and more warnings about downloading code from...

This episode reports on a new network of 40,000 infected small and home office routers and other devices that are part of a criminal botnet

Cyber Security Today, March 25, 2024 – A suspected China threat actor going after unpatched F5 and ScreenConnet installations

This episode reports on a new campaign stealing email passwords ,the latest data breaches

A hacker’s view of the civic infrastructure: Hashtag Trending, the Weekend Edition for March 23rd, 2024

What does the civic infrastructure look like through the eyes of a hacker? The legendary general Sun Tzu in the Art of War said that in order to defeat your enemy, you must first understand your enemy. How do you do this? He said, “to know your enemy, you must become your enemy.” If we

Cyber Security Today, Week in Review for week ending Friday, March 22, 2024

This episode features discussion on lessons learned from the ransomware attack on the British Library, advice for managing expectations of IT/security teams, why firms are leaving Google Firebase unprotecte

Become a member

New, Relevant Tech Stories. Our article selection is done by industry professionals. Our writers summarize them to give you the key takeaways