Americans lose millions of dollars to phone scams | USAFacts

The rise in unwanted calls and text scams has led to significant financial losses and numerous complaints to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

USAFacts has a pair of new articles on these modern nuisances.

Americans lose millions of dollars to phone scams Spam phone calls and fraudulent text messages are nearly daily irritations for most Americans. But for many people, they’re not just annoying, they’re financially draining. The rise in unwanted calls and text scams has led to significant financial losses and numerous complaints to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). USAFacts has a pair of new articles on these modern nuisances.

In 2022, text message scams were particularly effective. Americans lost nearly $330 million through these scams, with the median loss per scam being $1,000. The FTC received 2.56 million overall fraud reports last year. Twenty-two percent of them, or 329,599 reports, were about text messages. Business imposters were the most common type of text message fraud, resulting in losses of $35.1 million.

The National Do Not Call Registry reported a five-year low in complaints about unwanted calls last year, with annual complaints down 47% since 2018. Over 2 million spam call complaints from January 2019 to September 2023 were related to people (or robocalls) falsely posing as government representatives or legitimate businesses. In 2022, Delaware had the most complaints per person, with 1,537 per 100,000 people. North Dakota residents reported the fewest complaints per person: 399 per 100,000. There’s more where that came from: See which states report the most fraud overall, and learn how the government collects government about the Do Not Call List.