How Americans Lose Billions to Fraud.
The sneaky economics of odometer fraud, credit card fraud and phone scams.
Odometer fraud is a stealthy and a lesser-known form of fraud that is hard to detect but can cost a car buyer thousands. Fraudsters will roll back odometers on cars to hide the vehicle’s mileage in the hope of extracting a better price.
And as used car prices rose during the pandemic, odometer fraud could’ve become a more attractive way to make some extra bucks.
America is the most credit card fraud-prone country in the world. The economic cost of credit card fraud goes far beyond the cost of illegally purchased merchandise; businesses often spend millions to protect themselves from fraud, buying software and hiring security experts to monitor transactions.
Experts say there aren’t enough regulations to help protect the U.S. economy, especially small businesses from card fraud.
And despite the rise of sophisticated crypto frauds and ransomware plots, phone scams continue to trick Americans out of tens of billions of dollars each year. It’s not only older people who fall for such phone scams. Young people and men get tricked the most.