New Jersey consumers reported losing more than $251M to scams last year
New Data Shows FTC Received 52,478 Fraud Reports from New Jersey Consumers in 2023
NEW JERSEY – The Federal Trade Commission received 52,478 fraud reports from consumers in New Jersey in 2023, according to newly released data.
New Jersey consumers reported losing a total of $251,740,615 to fraud, with a median loss of $521.
The FTC’s Consumer Sentinel Network is a database that receives reports directly from consumers, as well as from federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, the Better Business Bureau, industry members, and non-profit organizations. Reports from around the country about consumer protection issues—including identity theft, fraud, and other categories—are a key resource for FTC investigations that stop illegal activities and, when possible, provide refunds to consumers.
Across all types of reports, the FTC received a total of 128,177 reports from consumers in New Jersey in 2023.
The top category of reports received from consumers in New Jersey was Identity Theft; followed by Credit Bureaus, Information Furnishers and Report Users; Imposter Scams; Online Shopping and Negative Reviews; and Banks and Lenders.
A full breakdown of reports received in 2023 is now available on the FTC’s data analysis site at https://ftc.gov/exploredata. The data dashboards there break down the reports across a number of categories, including by state and metropolitan area.
Fraud Losses Up Nationwide
Nationally, consumers reported losing more than $10 billion to fraud in 2023, up from $8.8 billion in 2022. Consumers reported losing more money to investment scams—more than $4.6 billion—than any other category in 2023. The second highest reported loss amount came from imposter scams, with losses of $2.7 billion reported.
The FTC received fraud reports from 2.6 million consumers last year, with the most commonly reported being imposter scams, followed by online shopping scams. Prizes, sweepstakes, and lotteries; investment related reports; and business and job opportunities rounded out the top five fraud categories.
Sentinel received 5.4 million reports overall in 2023. Of these, more than 1 million were identity theft reports received through the FTC’s IdentityTheft.gov website.
The FTC uses the reports it receives through Sentinel as the starting point for many of its law enforcement investigations, and the agency also shares these reports with approximately 2,800 federal, state, local, and international law enforcement professionals. While the FTC does not intervene in individual complaints, Sentinel reports are a vital part of the agency’s law enforcement mission.
