Americans lost $505 million due to COVID-19-related scams

During the pandemic, US citizens lost $505.25 million, which scammers lured from them, one way or another using information related to the spread of COVID-19, follows from the data of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The calculations were first published on June 11, 2020, the data is valid as of 06:45 Moscow time on July 28.

According to this information, the FTC received 561,210 fraud reports, almost 35% were related to the loss of money. On average, one affected American lost $373.

Complaints mainly concerned online shopping (53.3 thousand), leisure and travel (42.8 thousand), as well as lending, diet food and credit card services.

Most often, scammers contacted their victims through email, as well as through websites or applications. In the list of means of communication, in addition to this, phone calls, social networks and regular mail.