Scammers pretending to be representatives of government agencies, such as the IRS or the Social Security Administration, elicited the highest number of complaints. Last year, debt collection complaints dropped to the number two spot after topping the FTC’s list of consumer complaints for the previous three years.
Identity theft, a complaint that has been among the top in the FTC’s list for years, was the third most common complaint in 2018. There was a 24 percent increase last year in identity theft reports that involved credit card fraud on new accounts. At the same time, there was a 38 percent drop in reports involving tax identity theft, the FTC said.
“As in previous years, wire transfers and credit cards were the first and second most widely reported form of payment for fraud,” the report said. “However, a growing number of consumers reported that scammers demanded to be paid with gift and reload cards. The number of consumers who said they paid with a gift or reload card grew from more than 28,000 in 2017 to more than 41,000 in 2018, while the total amount paid using a gift or reload card to scammers nearly doubled to $78 million.”
Also in the top five for frauds were shop-at-home and catalogue sales and prizes, lotteries and sweepstakes scams.