The coronavirus pandemic has impacted the United States in a number of ways. One of the most rampant changes has been a shocking and frightening increase in fraud across the country.
This interactive infographic reveals the scale and extent of fraud in the United States amid the coronavirus pandemic, COVID-19, with real-time data revealing the amount of money lost due to identity theft, online shopping, and romance scams.
After a detailed analysis of fraud across 18 different sectors and mediums across the United States, the infographic shows the fraud across the continent in real-time. The data shows sectors and industries at the greatest risk of fraud and raises awareness of how COVID-19 increases our risk of financial exploitation.
“COVID-19 has created a background of social isolation that has left people vulnerable to fraud artists – particularly those that operate online. This fraud in real-time infographic enables a clear visualisation of the scale of the issue, the sectors at greatest risk, and aims to encourage awareness and immediate action against this dangerous and evolving form of crime” says Aiden Howe, Author and Chief Editor at scams.info/frauds.
The data was taken from 2019 from January to September 2020.
The full infographic and real-time data is available here.
Further Findngs:
- $535,059 has been lost everyday in the U.S. to COVID-19 related frauds.
- $9,000 has been lost everyday in the U.S. to romance-related COVID-19 scams.
- There are 1,782 identity theft scams everyday in the U.S.
- Credit card fraud amounts to $256 every minute.
- Online shopping scams in 2020 amount to $15 lost every minute.
- U.S. military veterans lose $45 million every year to fraud, while the U.S. Army loses $29 million.
- $1,980 is lost every minute to website, phone, and email scams in the U.S.
- Over $1 billion is lost every year to website, email and phone scams in the U.S.
- $429 is lost to email fraud every minute, compared to $97 by mail or post fraud.