According to an Atlas VPN investigation, US military personnel lost $379.6 million to various scams from 2015 through June 30, 2020.
Military consumers made more than 680,000 reports about scams, fraud, identity theft, or other consumer issues to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
The FTC uses these complaints as the starting point for criminal investigations. The FTC does not resolve the complaints themselves, but they send out the data to over 2,500 law enforcers in the US.
Veterans were behind the lion’s share of the losses. The veterans & military retirees’ monetary losses encompass 57% of all losses, totaling $217.2 million. Veterans and retirees sent out 417,560 complaints. In other words, 61% of complaints in the last five years have been sent by veterans and military retirees.
Prices/Sweepstakes/Lottery scams lured out most money out of military personnel, with $51.9 million in damages. A total of 10,822 people reported being a victim of lottery or similar scams. Over 22.4% of people who reported scams did lose money. The median loss stands at $2,800.
The second in line in terms of losses are government impostor scams. The monetary damages to military personnel reach $46.5 million. Government impersonation scam is reported most often, with 112,987 reports since 2015.
Over 4.7% of reports did state that they lost money. Impostor scams’ median loss is at $1,000, which is considerably lower than that of lottery scams.
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Post written by: Matt Brown
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