Record online scams: Americans lost $10.3 billion in 2022

Alert for online scams. In 2022 Americans lost what is so far a new record of $10.3 billion in online theft. This is one of the findings of the Internet Crime Report (IC3), a study prepared by the FBI.

The $10.3 billion stolen online in scams during 2022 represents nearly one-third of the total since FBI records have existed. Compared to 2021, the increase is significant, 49.27% higher. Since 2018, the amounts stolen have been growing, as have the cases. In the whole of 2022, the FBI handled 800,944 reports related to online thefts, which is more than 2,100 cases on average per day.

Phishing, the most common scam

Although its use has decreased compared to 2021, the most common theft technique is phishing. Up to 300,497 of the scams were committed with this ruse. Phishing consists of obtaining the victim's sensitive information by means of deception in order to access their accounts and steal money or contract services. The most typical Phishing attempt consists of impersonating a trustworthy entity or person and asking the victim for his or her password and user name under some pretext.

The FBI study also emphasizes other techniques such as online extortion, non-delivery of contracted services, impersonating a technical service or simply hacking into accounts. In the case of extortion, the FBI recommends never paying criminals regardless of their threats. The majority of extortions affect institutions with the help of some program that compromises their databases and digital services. Medical centers were the main target of this criminal practice, with 210 cases in 2022.

According to IC3, seniors are the group most affected by online scams. Those over 60 lost $3.1 billion in 2022, but they were not the most likely to report. With lower losses, the 30-39 and 40-49 groups reported more of these types of crimes. In turn, the states most affected were, in order, California, Florida, Texas and New York.