Consumers Lost $7.0 Billion to Fraud in the First 9 Months of 2023, With Social Media Scams Accounting for the Biggest Chunk

In the first nine months of 2023, consumers reported losing $7.0 billion to fraud — on pace to be the highest since the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) started publishing related data in 2019.

The FTC tracks fraud reports across various categories, from imposter scams to investment-related fraud to vacation and time-share scams. The latest LendingTree study offers a deep dive into fraud and related losses in the first nine months of 2023 (the latest data available) and in years past.

Among other conclusions, we found the percentage of victims who lose massive amounts (more than $10,000) in such schemes has risen significantly over the past five years.

Key findings

• Consumers filed 1.8 million fraud reports in the first nine months of 2023, citing losses of $7.0 billion. In 2022 (the latest year with full-year data available), consumers filed 2.6 million fraud reports, citing losses of $9.0 billion. Those losses were the highest since the FTC first published data in 2019.
• Imposter scams accounted for 33.5% of fraud reports in the first nine months of 2023, though they weren’t responsible for the highest amount of losses. Investment-related fraud accounted for $3.2 billion of the losses in the first nine months of the year, even if it represented only 4.2% of fraud reports over the same period. Imposter scams, meanwhile, accounted for $2.0 billion of the losses.
• In the first three quarters of 2023, fraudsters primarily targeted their victims through email, phone calls and text messages. Although social media scams were the fifth most commonly reported contact method, they caused victims to lose $1.0 billion — the highest amount by contact method.
• 1 in 7 consumers (14.2%) who reported fraud in the first nine months of 2023 experienced a financial loss of more than $10,000. This has grown yearly since 2020, when only 5.0% of the reported losses exceeded $10,000. In the first nine months of 2023, the majority of the reported losses (61.5%) were $1,000 or less.
• Per-capita fraud losses in the first three quarters of 2023 were highest in Nevada ($25.58), California ($24.73) and Arizona ($24.00). Per-capita fraud losses were lowest in Louisiana ($7.50), Maine ($7.67) and Kentucky ($8.01). Imposter scams were the most common type of fraud in every state.
• New Hampshire saw the biggest increase in money lost to fraud (55.2%) between the first three quarters of 2022 and the same period in 2023. Indiana (41.8%) and Arizona (35.2%) followed. On the other hand, the District of Columbia recorded the highest decrease (41.3%), ahead of Wyoming (34.7%) and Maine (31.8%).

Consumers report losing $7.0 billion to fraud in the first 9 months of 2023

Fraud is certainly not new, but our findings suggest it’s rising. From January through September 2023 — the latest data available from the year — consumers lost $7.0 billion to fraud across 1.8 million reports. These figures suggest the year’s fraud-related losses could eclipse 2022’s $9.0 billion (across 2.6 million reports) once the FTC tabulates full-year data.

“For fraudsters, it’s a golden age,” says Matt Schulz, LendingTree chief credit analyst. “Very little about our lives isn’t digitized and accessible online. That means most of our important private data, including bank information, is more vulnerable than ever in a lot of ways.”

To his point, many of the reported fraud cases occurred via the internet. During the studied months of 2023, scams were most frequently carried out by email (266,919 instances out of 1.8 million reports), phone call (226,405 instances) or text message (175,497 instances). Other common methods included websites, apps and social media networks.

Fraud reports and losses, 2019 to 2023

Source: Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Consumer Sentinel Network. Note: *2023 data covers the first three quarters of the year — January through September — while the data for 2019 through 2022 covers the full year.

Fraud-related losses are also increasing: 2022’s total loss of $9.0 billion was up 267.1% from 2019, when the FTC first made this data public. Further, median losses from fraud increased from $388 in 2019 to $650 in 2022.

Consumers in their 30s report the most fraud, but those in their 60s report the biggest losses

When imagining fraud victims — particularly those targeted by email and online scams — many may call to mind older Americans who may not have the technological fluency of millennials and Gen Zers.

So it may be surprising to learn the most common age bracket to fall victim to such scams in 2023 was those 30 to 39, who filed 152,946 fraud reports. However, Schulz says, this finding might not warrant such surprise.

The runner-up age bracket, though, was 60 to 69, which is more in line with scam stereotypes. Further, the latter age bracket’s total losses were the highest of any age range studied: $744.2 million, compared with the 30-to-39 set’s $626.4 million.

Fraud reports and losses by age, first 9 months of 2023

Source: FTC Consumer Sentinel Network. Notes: 2023 data covers the first three quarters of the year — January through September. This table only includes fraud reports in which consumers provided their age. The data didn’t show a top fraud subcategory for consumers 19 and younger.

Another age bracket — those in their 50s — suffered the largest average loss per fraud report at $5,189. Those 80 and older were the runners-up, losing $5,108 per claim, despite consumers filing only 34,440 claims (the second-lowest after those 19 and younger). The 60-to-69 bracket came in third at $5,008. Business imposters were the most common type of fraud reported across all age groups 20 and older.

Imposter scams were most common in 2023, but they didn’t result in the biggest losses

Fraudsters go about their tricky business in many ways, but imposter scams were the most commonly reported type in the first nine months of 2023. There were 605,428 imposter scam reports during that time — more than the combined total of the next five categories.

You can break down imposter scams into various subcategories. Business imposter scams, where fraudsters pretend to be trusted businesses that victims might already know and patronize, were the most common subtype in the first three quarters of 2023. Other schemes include family and friend imposters, government imposters, tech support imposters and even romantic imposters targeting lonely hearts.

These scams are often convincing enough to delude even the savviest and most skeptical. “Scammers are pretty darn good at what they do,” Schulz says. “Their texts, emails, phone calls and videos are often made with the same tools legitimate companies use.”

Top 10 fraud categories in first 9 months of 2023

Source: FTC Consumer Sentinel Network. Notes: 2023 data covers the first three quarters of the year — January through September. The order is based on the number of fraud reports.

Even though imposter scams were the most common, they weren’t necessarily the most painful for victims — at least financially speaking. (Being the target of, say, a romantic imposter scam could hurt on various levels.)

While consumers lost $2.0 billion to imposter scams in the first nine months of 2023, they lost a whopping $3.2 billion to investment-related scams — or a median of $7,000 per instance. That’s likely because investors are willing to put up larger sums of money for the opportunity to earn even more of it — though those ambitions never came to fruition for these unlucky victims.

Fraudsters primarily target victims through email, but social media scams lead to the biggest losses

Along with their various scam schemes, fraudsters have access to a wide range of communication channels to enact their crimes. And again, for the first nine months of 2023, there’s a discrepancy between the most common method and the one that caused the most financial damage.

Email-based scams were the most common from January through September 2023, with 266,919 instances reported, and phone-call-based scams came in second at 226,405. But even though they came in fifth by number of reported instances, social media scams led to the largest losses during the studied time frame: $1.0 billion total, with a median of $350 per instance.

This data seems part of a larger trend: Social media has seen a 463.3% surge in reported fraud cases from 2019 to 2022. During the same period, the amount of money lost due to social media fraud increased by 90.8%.

Social media, Schulz says, “leaves people extremely susceptible to fraud because they might feel they know the person on the other side already.” The implicit level of trust we have for our “friends” on social media can make it easier to fall for a scammer’s trick, along with the massive amount of time so many spend on these platforms.

Scams based on text messages or websites/apps also increased substantially over those four years (by 141.2% and 164.2%, respectively), along with their related losses (up 79.7% for text and 77.5% for websites and apps).

Fraud reports and losses by contact method, first 9 months of 2023

Source: FTC Consumer Sentinel Network. Notes: 2023 data covers the first three quarters of the year — January through September. “Other” includes TV or radio, print, fax, in person and other methods consumers write in or that can’t be otherwise categorized. The order is based on the number of fraud reports.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most common payment methods by which fraudulent transactions took place — during the studied 2023 period — were credit cards and debit cards (83,395 and 60,546 reports, respectively). Once fraudsters have their hands on card information, it’s easy for them to run multiple transactions — so it’s always worth thinking twice before providing it.

1 in 7 consumers who reported fraud in the first 9 months of 2023 lost more than $10,000 to a scam

While the vast majority of scams result in relatively small losses — $1,000 or less per instance — a surprising number of consumers lose significant amounts. From January through September 2023, 68,339 reported fraud cases resulted in a loss greater than $10,000, or 14.2% of total instances. (Losses of $1,000 or less were the most common category, accounting for 61.5% of reported cases, or 296,940 instances within the studied 2023 period.)

This also appears to be part of an overall trend that runs toward costlier fraud cases. Between 2019 and 2022, cases resulting in more than $10,000 in damages increased by 125.4%. Over the same period, scams resulting in $1,000 or less in damages decreased by 13.0%.

Percentage of fraud reports with losses

Source: FTC Consumer Sentinel Network. Notes: Totals may not equal 100% due to rounding. *2023 data covers the first three quarters of the year — January through September — while the data for 2019 through 2022 covers the full year.

While it’s difficult to ascertain specific reasons for this trend, the prevalence of higher-impact investment scams and the increase in fraudulent activity may factor in. As fraudsters develop more convincing ways to separate victims from their money, they’re better armed to achieve their aims — and take more money from vulnerable consumers.

Per-capita fraud losses highest in Nevada, lowest in Louisiana

When it comes to per-capita fraud losses, not all of the U.S. is created equally. In the first nine months of 2023, Nevada, California and Arizona residents saw the highest per-capita losses due to scams at $25.58, $24.73 and $24.00, respectively.

Residents in the state that suffered the highest overall fraud-related losses — California — lost a total of $973.3 million to scams in the first three quarters of 2023.

In every state, imposter scams were the most common type.

States with the highest/lowest per-capita fraud losses, first 9 months of 2023

Source: FTC Consumer Sentinel Network. Notes: 2023 data covers the first three quarters of the year — January through September. The number of fraud reports includes those marked as “other.”

Determining why certain states suffered more in this way is, again, difficult without speculating. But Schulz notes that many states toward the top of the list tend to have higher incomes than those toward the bottom. The median household income in California, for example, is $91,905 — substantially higher than the national median household income of $75,149. Meanwhile, Louisiana’s households bring in a median of $57,852.

“It’s possible that fraudsters, looking for the biggest potential scores, might focus their efforts more on states where people tend to have the most money,” Schulz suggests.

New Hampshire saw the biggest increase in money lost to fraud between the first 3 quarters of 2022 and 2023

Just as states differ in per-capita losses, they differ based on total fraud losses over time.

When comparing the first three quarters of 2022 to the first three quarters of 2023, New Hampshire saw the largest percentage increase in fraud-related losses — 55.2%, from 2022’s $12.7 million to 2023’s $19.7 million.

Indiana came in second with a 41.8% increase, while Arizona was third at 35.2%.

States with the biggest increases/decreases in fraud loss

Source: FTC Consumer Sentinel Network. Notes: 2022 and 2023 data covers the first three quarters of the year — January through September. The number of fraud reports includes those marked as “other.”

Meanwhile, other states enjoyed drops in fraud losses across the studied period. The District of Columbia led the way with a 41.3% decrease from $14.0 million in 2022 to $8.2 million in 2023, while Wyoming and Maine saw drops of 34.7% and 31.8%, respectively.

Yet again, specific reasons for these trends are elusive. That said, D.C. came in first for average Google search interest value for “fraud” from January through September 2023. That suggests its residents might have armed themselves with enough information to successfully decrease their vulnerability to scams.

4 ways to protect yourself from fraud

While it’s impossible to render yourself immune to fraud, there are steps to take to increase your security and awareness — and hopefully keep your hard-earned money in your pocket where it belongs.

• Get a password manager. With such a large chunk of our lives conducted online, having strong — and distinct — passwords is nonoptional. “So many people use the same two or three passwords,” Schulz says, “so when a bad guy gets one or more of them, they’ve basically got the keys to the kingdom.” Password managers can help you set a new, secure password for every login — and easily keep track of them.
• Trust your gut. It may sound hokey, but it’s true: Our instincts can help us stay safe if we pay attention when something smells fishy. If you get a call or email that sounds legitimate, but something’s just … off, trust your instinct and hang up or delete it. You can always reach out to your bank or that business directly.
• Check your online statements regularly. Staying informed will give you the best chance of stopping fraudulent activity as soon as it starts, which may make it easier to catch the perpetrator — or at least get your money back. “Make it part of your financial routine that you check your bank and credit card statements at least once a week to make sure nothing looks suspicious,” Schulz says. Some banks automatically alert you of suspicious activity if you sign up for a relevant service.
• Do sweat the small stuff. If you see a charge you don’t recognize, call your bank immediately — even if it seems like no big deal. “Sometimes fraudsters will make a small charge — like a candy bar at a gas station — to make sure the fraudulently obtained card information is valid,” Schulz warns. “Once they’ve seen that it is, they’re likely to set their aims higher next time. Even small amounts matter.”

Methodology

LendingTree researchers analyzed Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Consumer Sentinel Network data on fraud from Jan. 1, 2019, through Sept. 30, 2023 — the latest available at the time of our research.

Our analysis focused on various aspects of fraud, such as:

• The total losses incurred
• The age of the person reporting the fraud
• The contact methods used by fraudsters
• The top 10 fraud categories

Researchers used the U.S. Census Bureau 2022 American Community Survey with five-year estimates to determine per-capita losses for each state.