Jul. 3—Federal Trade Commission data from 2021 shows that Americans lost upward of $5.8 billion to various scams and fraud schemes, an increase of 70% compared to 2020.
Over 2.8 million Americans reported they’d been scammed in 2021, but that number is likely even higher as many scams or fraud schemes can go un-reported, and only half of all U.S. states contribute to the FTC’s tracking efforts.
Community Bank’s associate vice president and corporate security officer Daniel Cardi said it’s only gotten easier to scam people as technology has advanced, with instant money transfers and digital banking platforms becoming more and more common. The DeWitt, Onondaga County-based bank with branches across the north country and the Northeast was recently named the sixth most-trusted company in the country by Newsweek magazine, and Mr. Cardi said a large part of that comes down to the bank’s dedication to protecting its customers from fraud and scams.
“We obviously still have the battery of traditional fraud cases that we deal with, the different scams involving good people receiving counterfeited checks and getting tricked into forwarding those funds, those are still the most common ones we see,” he said. “But lately the toughest ones to deal with are the computer or phone-related scams.”
There are plenty of examples of digital scams used to steal money, and many of them may resemble scams seen throughout history. The most common are called “impersonator scams”, which could be lover…
