Be Ware of Financial Scams

Bogus Weight-Loss Products, Fraudulent Prizes Top List Of Biggest Scams


By Chris Morran

More than 1-in-10 American adults fall victim to some sort of fraud, according to a new report from the Federal Trade Commission. And scams related to fraudulent weight-loss products are by far the most prevalent.
The FTC has just released a detailed survey [PDF] of consumer fraud in the U.S. for 2011. The agency found that in that year alone, 25.6 million adults (10.8% of the adult population) were victims of fraud. In total, the FTC knows of 37.8 million fraud incidents in 2011, meaning some folks were duped at least twice.

Not surprisingly, the most popular medium for luring in consumers was the Internet, where 1-in-3 victims got hooked into a scam. That’s up from 1-in-5 victims back in the FTC’s most recent survey in 2005. The Internet was also where an even larger percentage — 40% — of all fraudulent purchases made.

---After diet and anti-aging products, the rest of the list:

Here are the rest of the top categories, with the estimated number of incidents in parentheses:
-Unauthorized Billing for Buyers’ Club Memberships (1.9 million)
-Unauthorized Billing for Internet Services (1.9 million)
-Work-at-Home Programs (1.8 million)
-Credit Repair Scams (1.7 million)
-Debt Relief (1.5 million)
-Credit Card Insurance (1.3 million)
-Business Opportunities (1.1 million)
-Mortgage Relief Scams (800,000)



Read the full article at Consumerist.com