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Tax scams are still the top scam says Better Business Bureau

Posted 2/20/17

Reports to the Better Business Bureau Scam Tracker in 2016 confirmed that tax scams are still the top scam, despite a huge drop in reports after a September police raid in Mumbai, India. The BBB …

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Tax scams are still the top scam says Better Business Bureau

Posted

Reports to the Better Business Bureau Scam Tracker in 2016 confirmed that tax scams are still the top scam, despite a huge drop in reports after a September police raid in Mumbai, India.

The BBB created the list on more than 30,000 scam reports filed by consumers on bbb.org/scamtracker, a free online tool launched last year by the BBB Institute for Marketplace Trust.

Not all of those consumers lost money, as many recognized the scam and reported it anyway to help warn others.

The top three scams on the 2016 list – tax scams, debt collection scams, and sweepstakes/prizes/gifts scams – were the same as in 2015. New to the top ten are online purchase scams (#4) and phishing scams (#10).

Online purchase scams were common in 2015 as well, but this scam type was not added as a BBB Scam Tracker category until 2016. Employment scams (#5) are also new to the top ten, but only because work-from-home scams, previously a separate category, were included. Another change was the drop of tech support scams from #4 last year to #7 this year.

Listed below are the types of scams, total number of reports, the percentage of all scams reported and the percentage of all scams reported last year:

• Tax scams (IRS and ) CRA: 7,530; 25; 24

• Debt collections: 2,456; 8.2; 8.3

• Sweepstakes/prizes/gifts: 2,102; 7; 8

• Online purchase: 1,891; 6.3; not available

• Employment: 1,773; 5.9; not available

• Government grant: 1,453; 4.8; 5.7

• Tech Support: 1,382; 4.6; 6

• Advance fee loan: 965; 3.2; 3.8

• Fake check/money order: 872; 2.9; 2.4

• Phishing: 776; 2.6; not available