Internet scammers targeted more than 10,000 Coloradans last year, stealing a total of $187,621,731. That’s according to the FBI’s Internet Complaint Center. Here is a look at the number of complaints, how much money victims lost in scams and the makeup of people reporting scams.
Nationwide, the top three scams most frequently reported were phishing/spoofing, personal data breach and nonpayment/nondelivery. In Colorado, extortion and tech support scams topped the list. Undetermined reports were cases in which the complaint was incomplete and a type of crime couldn’t be determined.
In Colorado, the top three schemes with the largest dollar amount losses were investment fraud, business email compromise (a scam targeting businesses that regularly perform wire transfers) and tech support.
In the last five years, the FBI has seen an average of 758,000 complaints a year in the U.S. Over that same time period, monetary losses continued to go up, totaling $37.4 billion in losses.
People 60 and older were the most victimized by internet scams, and also accounted for the greatest losses. People ages 30-49 were the most likely group to report investment fraud. Within those numbers, investment fraud involving cryptocurrency saw an increase of more than 50 percent by monetary losses. The FBI has warned of an increase in the number of fraudulent cryptocurrency investment schemes.
The number of tech support scams — which most often target those 60 and older — and extortion have seen a slight uptick in the last year. Other top crimes were down slightly last year.
The FBI says if you have been a victim of a scam over the internet or other cyber-related scheme, go to IC3.gov and file a complaint.
