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February 2, 2012<\/p>\n
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Contact: NCL Communications, (202) 835-3323,\u00a0media@nclnet.org<\/a><\/p>\n Washington, DC\u2014The National Consumers League (NCL) has released\u00a0<\/a>its annual compilation of the top scams reported to its national Fraud Center<\/a>, finding that the most frequently reported scam to NCL\u2019s Fraud Center in 2011 involved bogus prizes and sweepstakes, with fake check scams and emotion-based pitches involving scammers posing as loved ones appearing in the top ten.<\/p>\n Another significant finding is that scammers appear to have targeted their scams at particular age groups more than ever in 2011. For example, complaints involving bogus prizes, sweepstakes, and free gifts made up 26.98 percent of complaints overall. However, among consumers ages 56-65 and above 65, these types of complaints made up 40.96 percent and 60.12 percent of the total, respectively. Similarly, fake check scams made up 26.65 percent of complaints overall. Among consumers age 18-25, fake check scam complaints made up 45.74 percent of the total.<\/p>\n New to the Top Ten Scams list this year is the Family\/Friend Imposter Scam, the 9th<\/sup>-most frequently reporter type of fraud. In response to a rash of complaints, NCL\u2019s Fraud Center began tracking this fraud (also known as the \u201cGrandparent Scam\u201d) in 2011. In these scams, a con artist typically poses as a relative in distress or someone claiming to represent the relative (such as a lawyer or law enforcement agent). The scammer frantically describes an emergency situation in which they have found themselves (such as being arrested, in an auto accident, in need of a lawyer, etc.) and asks the victim to send money for bail, lawyer\u2019s fees, hospital bills, or other expenses. The victim is urged not to tell anyone, such as the parent of the \u201cgrandchild\u201d because they do not want them to find out about the trouble they’ve gotten themselves into.<\/p>\n \u201cScam artists will stop at nothing to defraud consumers,\u201d said John Breyault, NCL Vice President of Public Policy, Telecommunications and Fraud. \u201cThe scary part about these scams is that they prey on our natural inclination to want to help a loved one who is in distress.\u201d<\/p>\n According to the consumer group, the majority of money lost was sent via wire transfer, a popular payment method among scammers because of the difficulty to track \u2013 and particularly devastating to consumers because of the improbability of recovering lost funds. Consumers should be wary of any offer that requires wiring of money, said NCL.<\/p>\n The report<\/a>, which is compiled from consumer complaints submitted to NCL\u2019s Fraud Center, examined trends in Internet and telemarketing fraud in 2011.<\/p>\n \u201cFraudulent telemarketers and Web-based scammers are hardened criminals out to take their victims\u2019 life savings,\u201d said NCL Executive Director Sally Greenberg. \u201cThe best way for consumers to fight back is to get educated and not be afraid to report such fraud to law enforcement. Scammers know all too well that their victims are often embarrassed and count on this to continue to perpetrate their crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n For more information on NCL\u2019s 2011 Top Ten Scams report, click\u00a0<\/a><\/a><\/a>here<\/a>. Consumers who wish to report a fraud or potential fraud can do so via the\u00a0online complaint form<\/a>\u00a0at NCL\u2019s\u00a0Fraud.org Web site<\/a>.<\/p>\n ###<\/p>\n About the National Consumers League<\/strong><\/p>\n Founded in 1899, the National Consumers League\u00a0is America\u2019s pioneer consumer organization. Its mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. NCL is a private, nonprofit membership organization. For more information, visit\u00a0www.nclnet.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" February 2, 2012 \u00a0 Contact: NCL Communications, (202) 835-3323,\u00a0media@nclnet.org Washington, DC\u2014The National Consumers League (NCL) has released\u00a0its annual compilation of the top scams reported to its national Fraud Center, finding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1400"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10853,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400\/revisions\/10853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}