FTC 2020 Data Shows Consumer Fraud Hit 2.2 Million

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) received more than 2.1 million fraud reports from consumers in 2020, according to new data released by the agency on Thursday (Feb. 4).

Imposter scams are still the most common fraud reported, with online shopping the second-most common fraud category. Internet services; prizes, sweepstakes and lotteries; and telephone and mobile services rounded out the top five fraud categories, the FTC said in a press release.

The report indicated that consumer losses due to fraud totaled more than $3.3 billion in 2020, up from $1.8 billion in 2019. Almost $1.2 billion in last year’s losses were due to imposter scams. Online shopping accounted for about $246 million of those losses.

Some 34 percent of people filing a FTC fraud report said they lost money, up from 23 percent in 2019.

“The FTC’s Consumer Sentinel Network is a database that receives reports directly from consumers, as well as from federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, the Better Business Bureau, industry members, and non-profit organizations,” according to the release.

Consumer Sentinel is “a unique investigative cyber tool” that gives members of the Consumer Sentinel Network access to millions of reports, per the FTC website. Twenty-five states now contribute to the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel Network. 

The FTC said Sentinel received more than 4.7 million reports in 2020, with almost 1.4 million reports of identity theft, received through the FTC’s IdentityTheft.gov website, about twice as many as in 2019, the release indicated.

“Of the identity theft reports received in 2020, 406,375 came from people who said their information was misused to apply for a government document or benefit, such as unemployment insurance. That represents a tremendous increase from 2019, when the number was 23,213,” according to the FTC release.

The U.S. Treasury Department’s financial crime unit said there was a rise in imposter scams during the COVID-19 pandemic. In July, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued an advisory to step up efforts by banks and financial institutions to stop suspected illegal activity.

Online fraud hit almost half of all companies worldwide in the past two years. The average business was targeted by six confirmed incidents over that span.

The latest Digital Fraud Tracker by PYMNTS takes a look at how artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are helping retailers better defend their customers. According to the PYMNTS Securing B2B Payments Report, criminals last year successfully made off with $4.2 trillion from the worldwide economy.

According to a new LexisNexis study, overall retail fraud attempts doubled year over year and tripled since 2017.