People Lost Nearly $8.8 Billion to Scams in 2022
More than $3.8 billion vanished in investment scams, the FTC says.
The FTC reported a 30% jump in consumer fraud reports from 2021 to 2022.
Consumers reported losing nearly $8.8 billion to fraud last year, the Federal Trade Commission said Thursday, a jump of more than 30% over 2021.
The majority of the 2.4 million fraud reports it received were linked to imposter scams (where $2.6 billion was lost), the FTC noted, with online shopping scams and prize-related fraud coming in second and third.
Most of the money -- $3.8 billion -- was lost in investment scams, which was the fourth most reported category. Fraudsters apparently saw huge opportunity in this area in 2022, since consumers only reported losing $1.8 billion to investments in 2021.
The data come from the FTC's Consumer Sentinel Network, a database that gets reports directly from consumers, law enforcement agencies, the Better Business Bureau, industry members and nonprofit organizations.