A recent report released by Atlas VPN highlighted that in the first half of 2022, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) got over 793,000 complaints against fraudulent activities, including 27 percent of complaints about financial losses.
The data from FTC shows how much cybercrimes are becoming frequent in the United States. The Atlas VPN report reveals that overall a loss of $3.56 billion has been recorded in H1 2022, which is a piece of shocking news. According to the insights shared by FTC, online fraud damages incurred by Americans shows $1.18 billion in the first half of 2020, $2.33 billion in the first half of 2021, and $3.56 billion in the first half of 2022. There is a notable increase of 53 percent during the same time in the previous year. In 2022, the most financial loss took place for investment-related scams. Also, the complaints related to investment fraud increased to 52,000. Compared to 2021, 43,000 complaints were reported by FTC.
The report reveals an average investment strategy lures out forty thousand dollars per victim, whereas other online scams deceive over a 3-digit sum. Cybercriminals received $1.63 billion from U.S investors in the first half of 2022, 2.7 times more than in the first half of 2021. Data from FTC also shows a $143.8 million loss due to fake investment-related schemes in the first half of 2020, while in 2022, the loss is significant, which is doubled to $1.63 billion in H1, 2022.
That said, threat actors can acquire a typical six months’ salary from just swindling a single investment fraud, which is why they continue making schemes to deceive people and get money by making endeavors in this direction.
Cybercriminals usually broadcast global events and issues to convince U.S investors to invest in their schemes to get a handsome amount of money in return. For the safe side, investors pay their utmost attention to such plans and begin to invest in them.
Next, the frequently reported fraud category was imposter scams, with over 361,000 complaints received, 22 percent financial loss reported, and caused a total of $1.33 billion loss this year.
Imposter fraud has been the most prevalent online fraud since 2018. In this type of fraud, an immoral person tricks you into transferring an amount to them. Imposter frauds have caused Americans to lose a tremendous amount of money, and that’s why it is the most devastating kind of fraud.
Furthermore, the data from FTC represents that online shopping and employment opportunities, prizes, and lotteries are the most common online frauds after investment-related and imposter scams, which is $184 million for online shopping, $164 million for employment scams, and lotteries $114 million.
It is essentially important to validate while investing in new technologies such as NFTs and other related projects to keep yourself safe from such frauds. Believe it or not, fraudsters target unaware consumers so that they can trick them easily into believing in their scams and cause them to invest their hard-earned money in their fake schemes.
Read next: Microsoft States That Cryptocurrency Cybercriminals Are Still At Large, Despite The Currency Losing Its Value
The data from FTC shows how much cybercrimes are becoming frequent in the United States. The Atlas VPN report reveals that overall a loss of $3.56 billion has been recorded in H1 2022, which is a piece of shocking news. According to the insights shared by FTC, online fraud damages incurred by Americans shows $1.18 billion in the first half of 2020, $2.33 billion in the first half of 2021, and $3.56 billion in the first half of 2022. There is a notable increase of 53 percent during the same time in the previous year. In 2022, the most financial loss took place for investment-related scams. Also, the complaints related to investment fraud increased to 52,000. Compared to 2021, 43,000 complaints were reported by FTC.
The report reveals an average investment strategy lures out forty thousand dollars per victim, whereas other online scams deceive over a 3-digit sum. Cybercriminals received $1.63 billion from U.S investors in the first half of 2022, 2.7 times more than in the first half of 2021. Data from FTC also shows a $143.8 million loss due to fake investment-related schemes in the first half of 2020, while in 2022, the loss is significant, which is doubled to $1.63 billion in H1, 2022.
That said, threat actors can acquire a typical six months’ salary from just swindling a single investment fraud, which is why they continue making schemes to deceive people and get money by making endeavors in this direction.
Cybercriminals usually broadcast global events and issues to convince U.S investors to invest in their schemes to get a handsome amount of money in return. For the safe side, investors pay their utmost attention to such plans and begin to invest in them.
Next, the frequently reported fraud category was imposter scams, with over 361,000 complaints received, 22 percent financial loss reported, and caused a total of $1.33 billion loss this year.
Imposter fraud has been the most prevalent online fraud since 2018. In this type of fraud, an immoral person tricks you into transferring an amount to them. Imposter frauds have caused Americans to lose a tremendous amount of money, and that’s why it is the most devastating kind of fraud.
Furthermore, the data from FTC represents that online shopping and employment opportunities, prizes, and lotteries are the most common online frauds after investment-related and imposter scams, which is $184 million for online shopping, $164 million for employment scams, and lotteries $114 million.
It is essentially important to validate while investing in new technologies such as NFTs and other related projects to keep yourself safe from such frauds. Believe it or not, fraudsters target unaware consumers so that they can trick them easily into believing in their scams and cause them to invest their hard-earned money in their fake schemes.
Read next: Microsoft States That Cryptocurrency Cybercriminals Are Still At Large, Despite The Currency Losing Its Value
