We’ve been telling you about the scams related to COVID-19. But now we can tell you even more about the scams happening in your neck of the woods. Just today, the FTC released state-specific data on COVID-19-related issues, which you can check out with just a few clicks of your mouse. With user-friendly features, the FTC’s data dashboard lets you click on your state to see what people near you have been reporting. And see how people across the country are being affected, too.
Since January 1, people across the U.S. have made 91,808 COVID-19-related reports to the FTC. Most of these reports involve online shopping, with travel and vacations coming in second. The online shopping reports are mostly about people ordering products that never arrive, while most of the travel and vacation reports relate to refunds and cancellations. So far, people have reported losing $59.27 million on these and other COVID-related fraud reports.
So how have COVID-19-related consumer issues affected your state? Find out for yourself. Then tell your family, friends, and community what to look out for, and how to protect themselves. Also, be sure to visit ftc.gov/coronavirus/scams for alerts, infographics, videos, and more information about COVID-19 scams.
We’re excited to share our data with you — but it’s only as good as what we hear from you. If we don’t know about the issue, we can’t work to stop it. If you’ve experienced or heard about scams of any kind, please tell us at ftc.gov/complaint.
It is your choice whether to submit a comment. If you do, you must create a user name, or we will not post your comment. The Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes this information collection for purposes of managing online comments. Comments and user names are part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) public records system, and user names also are part of the FTC’s computer user records system. We may routinely use these records as described in the FTC’s Privacy Act system notices. For more information on how the FTC handles information that we collect, please read our privacy policy.
The purpose of this blog and its comments section is to inform readers about Federal Trade Commission activity, and share information to help them avoid, report, and recover from fraud, scams, and bad business practices. Your thoughts, ideas, and concerns are welcome, and we encourage comments. But keep in mind, this is a moderated blog. We review all comments before they are posted, and we won’t post comments that don’t comply with our commenting policy. We expect commenters to treat each other and the blog writers with respect.
We don't edit comments to remove objectionable content, so please ensure that your comment contains none of the above. The comments posted on this blog become part of the public domain. To protect your privacy and the privacy of other people, please do not include personal information. Opinions in comments that appear in this blog belong to the individuals who expressed them. They do not belong to or represent views of the Federal Trade Commission.
In reply to Great!!!! by May
In reply to How do you report more scams? by Dyamone
If you’ve experienced or heard about scams of any kind, please tell us at ftc.gov/complaint.
In reply to I recently got the nearly $2k by Eyesopened
If you’ve experienced or heard about scams of any kind, please tell us at ftc.gov/complaint.
The comments you put here on the blog don't go into the database.
In reply to I recently got the nearly $2k by Eyesopened
In reply to Is it illegal to deposit by DawnyDo
If someone wants to deposit money into your account, and asks you to send it on to someone else, they might be using you to help a crime.
They might send stolen money. If you use a cash app or other money transfer service to help a scammer transfer stolen money, even if you didn’t know it was stolen, you could get into legal trouble.
If a scammer deposits a bad check into your account, it might clear. But later, when the bank finds out the check is no good, you will have to repay all the money to the bank.