For the first time since they started tracking the data, the Better Business Bureau says more young people are getting scammed than older Americans.
The bureau’s Bao Vang says consumers between the ages of 18 and 24 suffered the highest median losses — about $150 — to scams last year. Before 2020, Vang says older age groups consistently lost more money to con artists.
“More than 46,000 reports were submitted into Scam Tracker in 2020,” Vang says. “That’s a 25% increase from the previous year.”
Scams related to pets and also to PPE spiked during the pandemic, although she says they weren’t the worst categories.
“The number-one riskiest scams for consumers was online purchase scams,” Vang says. “Perhaps that’s no surprise to some, that’s because the COVID crisis shut down many stores, people were home and spending more time online.”
Online purchase scams made up just over 38-percent of all scam reports.
