A study warns teens to be on high alert for online scams this holiday season as they are now falling for scams faster than every other age group.
The money lost by teens grew by 1125% over the last five years compared to 390% for seniors. Teens lost just $8.2 million in 2017 compared to $101.4 million last year. This speaks to the growing sophistication of scammers and the overconfidence of tech-savvy teens online.
Social Catfish released a study on the State of Internet Scams 2022 after analyzing data from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center and the FTC released in 2022.
A record $6.9 billion was lost to online scams in 2021, up nearly double from $3.5 billion in 2019.
California ranked No. 1 with 67,095 victims losing $1,227,989,139 last year, an average loss of $18,302.
3 Online Scams Targeting Teens This Holiday Season:
1) Romance Scams: During the holidays, teenagers who feel lonely — despite being surrounded by family — turn online looking for connection. Romance scammers approach them with stolen photos of an attractive suitor, shower them with love and affection, and begin asking for money.
How to Avoid: Perform a reverse image search to confirm their identity.
2) Social Media Influencer Free Holiday Giveaways: Scammers create fake Tik Tok and Instagram accounts to impersonate popular social media influencers. They offer free product giveaways and include a link to redeem the product. It is a phishing link that steals all of your data.
How to Avoid: Fake accounts have few followers. Never click on any suspicious links.
3) Online Shopping Scams: Teens do most of their holiday shopping online and scammers are creating fake stores and running ads offering holiday discounts. The fraudulent look-a-like website looks may look legitimate at first glance, but any products purchased will never arrive.
How to Avoid: Fake sites have spelling errors in the URL and grammatical errors across the site.
If you are the victim of a scam or attempted scam report it to the FTC, IC3, FBI and IdentityTheft.gov.
