Shocking Fraud Losses: 2023 Statistics

The U.S. victims lost unbelievable $10 billion to fraud in 2023

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released its annual fraud statistics for the last year and the numbers are shocking. The fraud losses increased 14 percent compared to 2022 and hit the new benchmark of $10 billion.

Altogether, more than 2.5 million fraud reports were recorded by the FTC last year. We know that a lot of scams go unreported so the real number might be significantly higher. The median money loss in scams was $500 and in more than 98 thousand cases victims lost more than $10,000.

24 percent of victims were contacted over email, with the other 20 percent who was scammed over phone calls. The majority of fraud initiated over emails was business imposters, and phone calls are the most popular among government imposters.

The most amount of money lost

• Investment scams took the first place among other types of fraud with $4.6 billion in total losses, and most of the victims were contacted on social media. The FTC doesn’t have a special category for pig butchering, but this trend seems to be included in this category.
• Imposter scams are the second in the loss category. Victims lost $2.5 billion and the majority of them were contacted via email.
• Job scams took third place with $490.7 million in losses and with email as a contact method.

The most prevalent scams

• Imposter scams were reported to the FTC 853,935 times in 2023. This category is broad, and includes IRS scams, romance scams, fake charities, fake computer support, and grandparent scams.
• Online shopping scams and negative reviews had 368,379 reports. The most prevalent scam here is non-delivery, but the category also includes failure to deliver on time, undisclosed costs, and refusal to provide refunds.
• Fake prizes, sweepstakes, and lotteries were reported 157,520 times. This category includes all types of contests where people have to pay something upfront.

More fraud categories with a number of total reports and losses are shown below:

Victims of 30-39 years old provided 18 percent of reports with $840 million in losses, followed by the 60-69 age category with another 18 percent of reports and $980 million lost.

The FTC doesn’t provide any statistics about using AI in scams, but we should expect it to become a new reporting category in the next few years.

Interesting Reads This Week:

• Walmart Bought a Finance App and Reduced Fraud Protections. Guess What Happened Next?
• How Fraudsters Break Into Social Security Accounts and Steal Benefits
• The Day I Put $50,000 in a Shoe Box and Handed It to a Stranger

Find more about fraud and investigations in the Investigator Blog