BeenVerified Study: Over 70% of Americans Report Increase in Phone Scam Attempts in 2023

But 5.83% of Gen Zers were able to recover money lost to scams, according to a survey of over 2,000 respondents. That's more than any other age group.

NEW CITY, NY / ACCESSWIRE / November 28, 2023 / 71.10% of survey respondents reported a rise in scam messages this past year. BeenVerified, a people search company, performed the online survey from Nov. 2-3, 2023, with over 2,000 respondents from the U.S. and Canada.

Phone calls (56.66%) were found to be the top method scammers used to reach out to their potential victims, followed by text messages (23.44%), emails (13.40%), social media (4.11%), and messaging apps (2.38%). When those con artists are able to get some undeserved money, seniors 78 and up lose out on the most cash at an average of $355, while their Baby Boomer counterparts lose the least amount of dough at an average of $200.

"Scam attempts are an unavoidable obstacle that consumers will have to face when using their day-to-day communication methods," Robert Lowry, VP of Security at BeenVerified, said. "Knowing the telltale signs of misspelled words, ‘urgent' calls to action, and requests for payments by gift cards could save you from losing money or information to scammers."

Poor grammar was a top sign respondents looked out for to spot a scam across several age groups, including Generation Z (18-26), Baby Boomers (59-77), and the Silent Generation (78+). Reducing your debt, package delivery, and calls pretending to be businesses are the top three tactics respondents have experienced scammers using to lure them in. Every age group reported receiving these scam attempts every single day.

"I lost $2000 from my CashApp account by fraud," one scam victim commented. "This guy pretended to be a customer service person for CashApp. He tried to steal more money from my bank. Unfortunately, I lost only $2000. Be careful with this phone number."

To keep yourself safe from these ploys, be sure to confirm email addresses of any business or organization that is reaching out to you, don't send money to anyone you don't know personally on peer-to-peer payment apps, and never give in to pressure to act quickly from a stranger. You can also use BeenVerified's reverse phone search tool to try finding out more information about a phone number that is trying to contact you.

About BeenVerified

BeenVerified's mission is to help people discover, understand and use public data in their everyday lives. BeenVerified and our associated websites curate dozens of public data sources and proprietary data sets to give people easy and affordable access to billions of public records, including a people search tool.

For more information, contact Kerry Sherin (kerry@beenverified.com) or Erin Kemp (erin@beenverified.com).

Contact Information

Kerry Sherin
kerry@beenverified.com

Erin Kemp
erin@beenverified.com

SOURCE: BeenVerified