From identify theft to imposter scams, a record amount of fraud reports were filed by American consumers in 2021, resulting in $5.9 billion lost to fraud.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published new data on Tuesday and announced that the agency received fraud reports from more than 2.8 million consumers last year, with the most commonly reported category being imposter scams, followed by online shopping scams.
Other areas like prizes, sweepstakes and lotteries; along with internet services, business and job opportunities rounded out the top five fraud categories.
More than $5.8 billion was lost to fraud in 2021, an increase of more than 70 percent over 2020. Imposter scams accounted for more than $2.3 billion, up from $1.2 billion in 2020, while online shopping accounted for about $392 million in reported losses, up from $246 million in 2020.