Utah Sees Drop In Fraud Cases But Rise In Total Money Scammed
May 12, 2021, 12:09 PM
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – No one loves a crisis more than scammers and we’ve seen much more than our fair share here in Utah during the pandemic. But depending on how you look at the numbers — you might think things are actually getting better on the fraud front.
“The number of fraud cases, fraud reports was actually down,” said Nick VinZant with Quote Wizard. “There was almost a 50% decrease in the number of fraud reports, but still the fraud was actually bigger.”
VinZant said, yes, the number of cases took a nosedive during the pandemic. But Utah actually saw the fourth highest spike in the dollar amount of frauds inflicted on our state to the tune of nearly $24 million — a 157% increase year over year.
“When we looked at the categories that were increasing, it was directly tied to the pandemic, job opportunity scams, credit card bureau scams,” VinZant said.
Here’s where the bad guys are trying to get you.
Identity theft led the way, up 113% to nearly 1.4 million cases from 2019 to 2020.
Credit bureau scams more than doubled up 120% to nearly 365,000 while online shopping scams were up 77% year over year.
Job opportunity scams were up 139% — over 88,000 job opportunity scams hit those looking for work.
