Globally Trending Scams

Most Frequent Frauds and Scams by Region

Prelude

A global increase in financial fraud and scams has occured since the beginning of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The cultural shift created by the pandemic increased the necessity of reliance on various online platforms. Further with a desire to remain connected, social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok grew in usage. As such, many companies have focused on safeguarding their business against cyber fraud attacks and society has sought to raise awareness about internet scams. 

It’s important to note that there is a slight difference between fraud and scams. Fraud is the act of wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain by the fraudster to steal confidential information to create a false identity. Whereas, a scam is generally dishonest and may not necessarily involve stolen information or false identity. Most often the terms are used synonymously.

As a business, the focus on fraud must go beyond the corporate perspective as societal scams impact a community. Here are some of the top trending scams that impact a community in the US, UK and the Caribbean:

United States

In 2023, imposter scams emerged as the most common method of fraud romance scams, a subcategory within imposter scams, accounted for major losses. Imposter scammers may call, text, or email the victim pretending to be someone in authority or someone trustworthy. They are often hard to detect as they appear with seemingly real profiles or phone numbers. Sadly, the ultimate goal is to financially or personally benefit from the interactions.

Another major scam is online shopping scams. These type of scams lure shoppers by pretending to be legitimate online sellers, either with a fake website or a fake ad on a genuine retailer site.

Investment-related include a range of scams. Typically, Investment fraudsters present themselves as telemarketers or financial advisors. The investment is often a matter of urgency, and much effort is made to gain the victims' trust. 

United Kingdom

Phishing scams are generally fake emails, calls, messages or websites that appear legitimate from real organizations but require you to provide personal and financial information.

Trusted organization scams impersonate government organizations, utility companies, banks, and other service providers. Appearing trustworthy, a ruse implying something wrong with your account, a pending penalty or other matter of concern. This will lure you in to provide personal or financial information. 

In close third and fourth position are refund and friend/family scams. Refund scams are simply indicating a refund in exchange for bank details. A friend and family scam presents some money-related matters of urgency.

Caribbean

Although a statistical hierarchy was not available, the Caribbean often experiences advance fee frauds such as lottery scams, online shopping scams, romance scams, and Ponzi schemes (including pyramid schemes).

Summary 

According to Interpol, social engineering fraud is a broad term that refers to the scams used by criminals to exploit a person's trust in order to obtain money directly or obtain confidential information to enable a subsequent crime. There is an increased focus on this type of fraud, given the inappropriate manipulation of people by exploiting their vulnerabilities. Arguably, the most heinous fraudsters pray upon the elderly and the lonely through senior citizen scams and romance scams. Despite the statistical popularity of one scam over another from region to region, all of these crimes have global reach, and our attention is warranted.