Fraud Facts, Statistics, & Quotes

General

More than 30 million consumers are defrauded each year.

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3/4 of $ lost in retail fraud is from domestic, rather than international, fraud.

View Source (p. 19)

Communication methods for fraud are fairly evenly distributed over print (27%), internet (22%), and television/radio (21%), with an additional 8.4% by telemarketers.

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1 in 4 investment fraud victims were contacted by the fraudster via the telephone.

View Source (p. 5)

Money Lost

An average of $1.2 million is lost for every workplace fraud committed.

View Source (p 15)

In retail fraud alone, the annual cost is over $100 billion.

View Source (p. 4)

The average cost to consumers from retail fraud was $631 in 2010.

View Source (p. 9)

The Federal Fraud Enforcement Task Force uncovered more than $8billion in securities, commodities, and investment fraud losses alone in 2010.

View Source (p. 3.8)

“An estimated 579 million Euros were lost to fraud in the Netherlands in 2008.”

Reporting

77% of fraud within companies are not publicly reported upon detection.”

View Source (p. 18)

“Only 1 in 3 older fraud victims admit to being scammed — compared to about 1 in 2 victims under age 55.”

View Source (p. 5)

“Less than 1 in 3 fraud victims report their victimization to some authority.”

View Source (p. 5)

“Overall, only 4 in 10 fraud victims admit to being victimized when asked directly.”

View Source (p. 5)

Victims

“The factors that go into making people vulnerable are not well understood.” -Carstensen

“Everyone is an investor, which  means everyone is exposed.” -Shadel

“Every con man I’ve ever interviewed said women ‘ask all these questions, and they want to know stuff.’ Whereas with the men, they get them into an ego play … they’re puffing their chest out.” -Shadel.

More than 30 million consumers are defrauded each year.

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“The most commonly reported consumer fraud victim in 2005 was for fraudulent weight loss products - ~4.8 million adults.”

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“Only 1/2 of known investment fraud victims admit to ever losing money due to being misled or defrauded.”

View Source (p. 5)

Investment fraud victims score higher on financial literacy measures (av. score 58%) than non-victims (av. score 41%).

View Source (p. 17)

Lottery fraud victims score lowest on financial literacy measures (av. score 32%).

View Source (p. 17)

Investment fraud victims are almost twice as likely to hold a college degree than a non-victim.

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Investment fraud victims are 20% more likely to be married than non-victims.

View Source (p. 20)

9 out of 10 investment fraud victims are men.

View Source (p. 22)

3/4 of business opportunity fraud victims are men.

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4 in 10 lottery fraud victims are men.

View Source (p. 22)

Fraudsters

Half of all workplace fraudsters are senior managers.

View Source (p. 4)

8 in 10 investment fraud victims who admitted being defrauded were introduced to the fraudster through a friend or family member.  Of those, more than half were in-person.

Detection

1 in 7 workplace frauds are discovered by chance.

View Source (p. 10)

It takes an average of 4.2 years to detect a workplace fraud in North America.”

View Source (p. 16)