Identity spoofing cheats fraudsters of a net $1.1 billion in a year

Identity fraud losses have tripled in the past three years, topping $1.1 billion in 2023, according to new figures from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The consumer protection agency revealed yesterday that it received 330,000 reports of business impersonation scams and almost 160,000 reports of government impersonation last year – half of the fraud reports submitted to it during that period.

Between 2020 and 2023, the share of email and text scams rose sharply, while those perpetrated over the phone fell just as sharply. Phishing attempts by phone used to be 67% of the total, but that figure is now 32%. Meanwhile, email scams rose from 10 percent to 26 percent over the period, and text-based impersonation fraud rose from 9 percent to 14 percent, the FTC said.

At the same time, losses reported through bank transfers increased from 21% to 40% and through cryptocurrencies from 6% to 21%. The combined methods accounted for $593 million in losses to scammers last year, the FTC said.

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The agency warned that scammers are increasingly impersonating more than one entity in a single scam.

“Reports show an increasingly blurred line between business and government impersonation scams: Many scammers impersonate more than one organization in a single scam – for example, a fake Amazon employee can transfer you to a bank fake or even a fake FBI or FTC employee for fake. help,” the report claims.

The five best impersonation scams of 2023

The FTC warned of the following top five scams, which accounted for nearly half of all reports in 2023:

• Account security alerts, which may come from a fake technology company, bank, or other trusted party. They will usually ask the victim to call a phone number or send a text back which will help them attract them
• Automatic subscription renewals that the victim is forced to “cancel”. Sometimes they’ll try to log into the victim’s computer, claiming it’s the only way to process a “refund”
• fake gifts and discounts, which usually involve the victim being forced to pay a fee to “claim” the money offered
• Problems with the law where the victim is informed that his identity has been used for a serious crime. The fake government official will then claim that the only way to fix the problem is to send money or gift cards
• Delivery issues with a non-existent package that may require the victim to enter their bank details or pay a small fee to resolve