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Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2021, snapshot: Of the 5.7 million reports, the top three categories were identity theft, imposter scams, and credit bureaus, info furnishers and report users. Of the 2.8 million fraud reports, 25% reported a loss.

Every year, people report fraud, identity theft, and bad business practices to the FTC and its law enforcement partners. In 2021, 5.7 million people filed reports and described losing more than $5.8 billion to fraud — a $2.4 billion jump in losses in one year. You can learn about the types of fraud, identity theft, and marketplace issues people reported by state, and how scammers took payment — including $750 million in cryptocurrency — in the FTC’s new Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book. Here are some of the highlights:

  • More than 2.8 million people reported spotting a fraud, and one in four said they also lost money. Their combined losses were over $5.8 billion. Imposter scams, when someone pretended to be a trusted person or business, led to losses of $2.3 billion.
  • Almost 600,000 people filed reports about credit bureaus in 2021, an increase of more than 80 percent over the previous year. This jump in reports made credit bureaus, information furnishers, and report users the #3 most-reported category of 2021, behind imposter scams (#2) and identity theft (#1).
  • People ages 20-29 reported losing money to fraud more often than people ages 80 and over. While younger people lost money 41 percent of the time they experienced fraud, older adults lost money only 17 percent of the time. But when older people did lose money, they lost a median amount of $1,500, or three times the median amount younger people lost.

If you spot a scam, please report it to ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

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scam
Topics
Shopping and Donating
Credit, Loans, and Debt
Jobs and Making Money
Unwanted Calls, Emails, and Texts
Identity Theft and Online Security

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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 won’t post off-topic comments, repeated identical comments, or comments that include sales pitches or promotions.
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  • We won’t post comments that include personal information, like Social Security numbers, account numbers, home addresses, and email addresses. To file a detailed report about a scam, go to ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

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