The Better Business Bureau has identified the top scams in the nation using its new Risk Index, a sophisticated analysis that goes beyond volume to look at the risk each type of scam poses. The BBB Institute for Marketplace Trust kicked off National Consumer Protection Week in the U.S. and Fraud Awareness Month in Canada with its inaugural BBB Scam Tracker Annual Risk Report, which provides comprehensive insight into scams based on more than 32,000 reports made to BBB Scam Tracker in 2016. Although there is no doubt that scams have gone high tech, the riskiest scam is the face-to-face home improvement scam, with fake check scams running a close second. As with earlier BBB Institute research, there were some real surprises within the data: men were more vulnerable than women in seven of the top ten scam categories; and consumers 18-24 are the most likely to lose money to a scam. New information uncovered in this analysis is that younger consumers have a lower median loss than people in their top earning years, partly because the types of scams aimed at older consumers tend to have higher median losses. While seniors also tend to lose more money than Millennials when they are scammed, they fall for scams far less often. And the biggest takeaway is that no one is immune from the risk posed by scams. Consumers and businesses are urged to report all scams to the Better Business Bureau Scam Tracker at bbb dot org slash scamtracker, whether or not money was actually lost. The complete report is available online at the Better Business Bureaus website, at bbb.org.
