In 2021 the Federal Trade Commission logged 378,119 fraud complaints regarding unwanted text messages, including smishing attempts. Smishing scammers often pretend to be large companies in order to trick those receiving the messages into thinking they need to click links to gain access or sort issues with their accounts. Â
But with so many smishing scams circulating, which companies are imitated most by scammers?Â
Our team at Switch On Business has delved into the data to uncover how many reports of fraud were received in the US in the past year (per state and per capita) and how much this has cost each state on average. As well as this, we have used search volume data to find out which large US companies are being impersonated most.Â
Georgia named the state with the highest rate of fraud reports per capita
Our team took the number of reports per 100,000 people in each state, the average percentage of reports that lead to a financial loss (26%) and the median amount lost per scam to calculate the average financial loss each state saw to fraud last year. (2022).Â
According to our calculations, the state of Georgia has the highest number of fraud reports per capita (1,550), resulting in approximately $261,950 worth of losses for residents here in 2022 alone.Â
Delaware comes second in our rankings with the second-highest number of fraud reports per capita (1,506) and an estimated $254,514 lost. Nevada, home to around 3 million people, comes third in our rankings with 1,455 fraud reports last year accumulating to around $245,895 lost to fraud per 100,000 residents.
| State | Reports per 100K population | Number of fraud reports per state | Average loss ($) per 100k population | Average loss ($) per state |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Georgia | 1,550 | 162,957 | $261,950 | $27,539,733 |
| Delaware | 1,506 | 14,570 | $254,514 | $2,462,330 |
| Nevada | 1,455 | 44,081 | $245,895 | $7,449,689 |
| Florida | 1,446 | 306,735 | $244,374 | $51,838,215 |
| Maryland | 1,363 | 82,287 | $230,347 | $13,906,503 |
| Pennsylvania | 1,151 | 147,310 | $194,519 | $24,895,390 |
| South Carolina | 1,128 | 57,447 | $190,632 | $9,708,543 |
| Virginia | 1,108 | 94,288 | $187,252 | $15,934,672 |
| Alabama | 1,086 | 53,153 | $183,534 | $8,982,857 |
| New Jersey | 1,070 | 95,073 | $180,830 | $16,067,337 |
States that got away more ‘lightly’ include North Dakota and South Dakota with less than 550 reports of fraud per capita respectively in the last year. Iowa and Nebraska also saw low levels of fraud reports in comparison to some of their other neighbor states. These were the five states with the lowest number of fraud reports per capita:Â
| State | Reports per 100K population | Number of fraud reports per state | Average loss ($) per state | Average loss ($) per 100k population |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| North Dakota | 536 | 4,075 | $688,675 | $90,584 |
| South Dakota | 549 | 4,829 | $816,101 | $92,781 |
| Iowa | 586 | 18,454 | $3,118,726 | $99,034 |
| Nebraska | 692 | 13,306 | $2,248,714 | $116,948 |
| Wyoming | 700 | 4,068 | $687,492 | $118,300 |
Sources such as the Federal Trade Commission Fraud Report for February 2023 confirm that ‘imposter scams’ is the number one type of fraud category, contributing 725,989 reports per year and costing the US $2,667 million in 2022.Â
Following this discovery, we decided to look into which companies and sectors in the US people are most concerned about becoming victims of business impersonator scams.Â
Online retailers revealed as the sector most impersonated by scammers in the US
To find out the business sectors most impersonated by scammers in the US we took a seed list of 10 of the largest US companies per sector across numerous sectors including banking, social media platforms, TV streaming platforms, online retailers, telecom companies, and the largest companies in the US (by market capitalization). We then checked the search volumes for key terms around phishing/text/SMS scams to find out which companies in the US have the highest numbers of people concerned they are being scammed.
Our study found that online retailers have the highest monthly search volume related to business impersonator scams. Out of the online retailers analyzed, we found 30,750 people are searching for these retailers followed by scam terms every month. Â
Social media platforms were the second most affected sector according to our research with around 26,020 people per month searching for these platforms followed by scam terms.Â
| Sector | Overall search volume per month across the 10 companies analyzed per sector |
|---|---|
| Online Retailers | 30,750 |
| Social Media Apps | 26,020 |
| Largest Companies | 21,080 |
| Banks | 15,230 |
| TV/ Streaming Platforms | 5,900 |
| Telecom Companies | 3,840 |
Compared to online retailers, Telecom companies in the US see considerably fewer people searching for their business name followed by scam terms – that’s just 12.5% of the searches of America’s 10 biggest online retailers.Â
Amazon sees the highest number of searches related to scams per month in the US
From the companies we analyzed, our study reveals that Amazon, which sits within both the top 10 online retailers in the US and overall largest companies in the US, has the highest number of searches per month for ‘Amazon’ followed by a range of search terms relating to impersonator scamming (16,560).Â
This is followed by the social media platform, Instagram, which sees an average of 7,180 searches per month related to scam search terms, and Facebook which sees 6,660.Â
Wells Fargo ranks as the bank with the highest volume of searches around scams (5,330), whilst Netflix is the only streaming platform to land in the top 10 companies for searches per month around company names followed by key scam search terms:
| Rank | Company | Sector | Overall search volume per month for this company+key scam search terms |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Amazon | Online retailers / Largest companies in US | 16,560 |
| 2 | Social media platform | 7,180 | |
| 3 | Social media platform | 6,660 | |
| 4 | Wells Fargo | Bank | 5,330 |
| 5 | Netflix | TV/Streaming platform | 5,160 |
| 6 | eBay | Online retailers | 4,710 |
| 7 | Snapchat | Social media platform | 4,560 |
| 8 | Bank of America | Bank | 4,030 |
| 9 | Walmart | Online retailers | 2,770 |
| 10 | Microsoft | Largest companies in US | 2,730 |
Methodology and sources
To create our state ranking: We used data from the Federal Trade Commission to find out which states received the highest number of reports per 100,000 people. We then used the average loss per fraud report to find out an average of how much was lost to fraud per state in 2022 (26% of all fraud reports per state). We then multiplied that by $650, which is the median loss, to calculate an estimate of how much money has been lost per state.
To find out our sectors/company’s ranking: We collated a seed list of the 10 largest companies in the US in sectors that see the most corporate impersonator scams. These included sectors such as; banks, online retail, social media, TV/streaming services, and the largest overall companies in the US by market capitalization.Â
We then used search volume data to determine which sectors and companies specifically people in the US are most concerned about falling victim to impersonator scams.Â
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/CSN-Data-Book-2022.pdf
https://money.usnews.com/banking/articles/biggest-banks-in-america
https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/most-popular-social-media-in-the-usÂ
https://www.reviews.org/tv-service/top-10-best-streaming-apps/Â
https://www.insiderintelligence.com/insights/biggest-retail-companies-united-states/Â
https://companiesmarketcap.com/usa/largest-companies-in-the-usa-by-market-cap/Â
https://www.costanalysts.com/top-telecom-companies/
https://www.tvinsider.com/1089237/most-popular-tv-streaming-service-netflix-prime-video-hulu/
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