If fraudsters get their way in how they finish out 2022, Americans will have lost close to $372 million dollars to those cyber creeps. And it’s likely to go higher. For the last two years, the median amount of money stolen from people in online shopping fraud cases has risen every quarter.
Using data from the Federal Trade Commission, All About Cookies – an informational website devoted to helping people with online privacy, identity theft prevention, antivirus protection, and digital security – says that the post-holiday forecast is even scarier because as consumers have moved a lot of their purchasing power online, it’s making them more susceptible to having their money and identity stolen by cyberthieves.
If you live in Virginia or West Virginia, sorry to break the news, but…
Overall, the District of Columbia, Delaware, and New Hampshire are the states with the highest incidence of online fraud, but once St. Nick is out of sight, things change dramatically.
The states where online shopping fraud increases the most after the holidays shake out like this:
-
Virginia: 27.8% increase in fraud
-
West Virginia: 18.7%
-
Wyoming: 18.4%
-
Texas: 17.8%
-
Vermont: 15.1%
-
Ohio: 13.5%
-
Washington State: 12.9%
-
New Mexico: 12.1%
-
South Carolina: 10.8%
-
Mississippi: 10.8%
What to keep an eye out for
According to the FBI, the prevailing champions of holiday scams are non-delivery and non-payment schemes. A non-delivery scam is where a buyer pays for goods or services…
