People Ages 20 and Younger are Really Getting Scammed on the Internet

By Rachel DePompa
 The amount of money lost to scammers by people ages 20 and younger grew nearly 2,500% in the last five years, according to a study by Social Catfish.

The study showed victims under 20 lost $210 million in 2022. Seniors remain by far the most victimized group, losing $3.1 billion that same year.

But the surge in young victims really speaks to the growing sophistication of scammers.

SocialCatfish outlined the top ways teens fall prey to fraudsters:

Social influencers: The scammers create fake accounts. Then they host a fake brand-sponsored contest and ask the “winner” to pay a fee or provide their bank account to win the prize.

Romance scams: Teach teens how to perform a reverse image search to confirm a person’s identity. Also talk to them about never sending an explicit photo to anyone, sextortion scams are on the rise.

Gaming dupes: Make sure that when making purchases in a popular game they don’t click on random links. Instead make in-app purchases directly from the game’s manufacturer.

Victims of a scam or attempted scam can report it to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Report Fraud site, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) and IdentityTheft.gov.

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David DeMarco