FDA findings Last year, scammers stole $40 million from Arkansans

Fayetteville, Arkansas – According to data that was only recently made public by the Federal Trade Commission, there were more than forty million dollars that Arkansans lost to fraud and scams in the year 2023.

A loss of $40 million in 2022 was approximately $5 million higher than the loss of $40 million in 2022, and it was more than twice as much as the loss of $20 million in 2021.

Among the fifty states and the District of Columbia, Arkansas came in at number 37 with 808 reports per 100,000 population, placing it in the 37th position.

Imposter scams, which include callers who pretend to be law enforcement or another authority or try to pass themselves off as workers of a legitimate firm, accounted for 4,403 of the 24,291 reports that were filed in 2023. These imposter scams were responsible for 4,403 of the total reports. It was determined that fraud was the only cause of 14,105 reports.

Negative reviews and online buying led the pack with 2,103, making them the second most popular. There were 1,776 scams involving prizes, sweepstakes, and lotteries, 722 scams involving telephones and mobile services, and 667 scams involving internet service providers.

Northwest Arkansas, the River Valley, Little Rock, Jonesboro, and Memphis were the five metropolitan areas that were highlighted by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in Oklahoma. In each of the five categories, impostor scams were the most common type of fraudulent activity.