ID theft now No. 1 scam

Through April and May, hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs as states cycled through levels of economic shutdown. An astounding increase in unemployment benefits claims resulted across the country.

However, by mid-May, another threat entered the scene: con artists were filing fraudulent unemployment claims using stolen identities. Fraudulent claims were indeed mistakenly paid out, and thousands of people had to file identity theft reports with the government.

Now, we’re able to see the quantifiable impact of this fallout.

The Federal Trade Commission has confirmed that identity theft officially moved up to their number one spot for fraud as of Q3. It quickly outpaced the number of reports they get for imposter scams, such as phone calls and emails claiming to be from a particular company.

So, just how many people were victims of benefits fraud?

The FTC data shows that consumers filed 349,641 ID Theft reports across the United States in the second quarter alone. Of those reports, more than 77,600 were specific to government documents or benefits fraud.

By far, the state most impacted was our neighbor, Washington. For context, Better Business Bureau has highlighted stats for our region, including the number of unemployment filing scams reported and the top-ranking identity-theft scam in each state, if not benefits fraud.

• Washington was at the epicenter of this scam and saw, by far, the highest number of unemployment filing scams. Benefits fraud accounted for 34,246 cases of ID Theft reports.

• Hawaii also saw many reports, with benefits fraud outdoing all other ID theft categories by a long shot — 691 cases were filed.

• Oregon only saw 240 cases of benefits fraud. Instead, the number one spot was employment and tax-related fraud, coming in at 582.

• In Montana, benefits fraud was in the number one spot for ID Theft cases, totaling 217.

• Idaho saw 108 cases of benefits fraud. Credit card fraud was in the number one spot, accounting for 143 cases of reported ID Theft.

• Alaska saw a low number of cases, with only 36 reports filed for benefits fraud. The theft type that ranked highest was credit card fraud at 58 cases.

Critical to all types of identity theft — whether benefits filing fraud or another type — is acting fast to remedy the situation. Victims often don’t know right away they’ve been targeted, so by the time you find out, it’s essential that you alert the appropriate agencies.

BBB offers the following tips:

• Report the fraud to your employer (if unemployment-related)

• Report the fraud to your state unemployment benefits agency, preferably online.

• Report to your banks and credit card companies. This is true across all types. Recovery steps include placing a freeze on your credit and using fraud alerts on all accounts.

• Report to IdentityTheft.gov to alert necessary agencies, including the FTC.

• File a Scam Tracker report with your local Better Business Bureau.

For more consumer protection information, head to https://trust-bbb.org/

BBB is here to help you, so if you have any questions or information about scams you have seen, please let us know, and we’d be happy to help! For more information on businesses, scams, and complaints, you can call 208-342-4649 or find us online at www.bbb.org!

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About BBB: For more than 100 years, the Better Business Bureau has helped people find businesses, brands and charities they can trust. In 2019, people turned to BBB more than 182 million times for BBB Business Profiles on more than 5.6 million businesses and Charity Reports on 11,000 charities, all available for free at www.bbb.org.