FTC’S ANNUAL FRAUD REPORT:
The FTC takes in reports from consumers about problems they experience in the marketplace. The reports are stored in the Consumer Sentinel Network (Sentinel), a secure online database available only to law enforcement.
The good news on the scam front is that fewer people reported loss by con artists last year. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says there were 2.4 million scam reports in 2022, compared to 2.9 million such reports in 2021.
The bad news is that con artists stole more money. The FTC's newest data book issued on February 23 reports $8.8 billion lost to scams in 2022. That's 2.6 billion more reports than the previous year.
One reason for the dramatic increase in the amount of scammed dollars is the growth of investment scams. These schemes were huge in 2022, according to the FTC, with reported losses of $3.8 billion. That's more than people lost to any other type of scam, and more than double the loss to investment scams reported in 2021.
Impersonator scams, however, continued to be the most-reported type of scam. In 2022, impersonators pretending to be someone else made off with $2.6 billion from their victims.
Since 1997, Sentinel has collected tens of millions of consumer reports about fraud, identity theft, and other consumer protection topics. During 2022, Sentinel received over 5.1 million consumer reports, which the FTC has sorted into 29 top categories. The 2022 Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book (Sentinel Data Book) has aggregated information about what consumers told us last year on the full range of fraud, identity theft and other consumer protection topics. The Consumer Sentinel data is also available online in an interactive format at ftc.gov/exploredata, with updates provided quarterly. The Sentinel Data Book is based on unverified reports filed by consumers. The data is not based on a consumer survey. Sentinel has a five-year data retention policy, with reports older than five years purged biannually.
For more information about the Consumer Sentinel Network, visit www.FTC.gov/Sentinel. Law enforcement personnel may join Sentinel at Register.ConsumerSentinel.gov.
