According to the FTC, there have been 18,235 reports of fraudulent activity or fraud attempts related to the coronavirus since Jan. 1. In total, people have lost $13.44 million to fraud.
The FTC says the top categories of these scams entail travel and vacation-related items, online shopping and bogus text messaging, along with “all kinds of imposters.”
Robocall reports have been down overall, but with the pandemic, several people have reported to the FTC that they’ve received calls pretending to be from the government offering illicit medical or healthcare advice or making other dubious claims.
The FTC stated that no government entity would call to ask for money or personal information like credit card numbers or Social Security numbers, adding that any requests for payment through services like Western Union or MoneyGram are almost certainly scams.