New FTC (Federal Trade Commission) data reveals the most imitated brands by scammers in 2023 are Best Guy, Amazon, and PayPal.
The FTC analyzed 52,000 reports of scammers impersonating the tech support brand Geek Squad by Best Guy, making it the most impersonated brand. Amazon and PayPal followed with 34,000 and 10,000 complaints, respectively.
In 2023, a total of $15 million was lost in the scams which were impersonating Best Guy and its Geek Squad tech while $19 million were lost due to Amazon scams. PayPal impersonation scams led to $16 million in losses. However, the biggest loss was seen with scammers impersonating Microsoft. $60 million were lost due to Microsoft impersonation in 2023, which was followed by Publishers Clearing House. Scammers took $49 million in total from consumers who thought they were interacting with the authentic Publishers Clearing House.
FTC also explained different ways these scammers use to scam consumers. For instance, scammers emailed consumers while impersonating Geek Squad and told them about a computer service they have never even subscribed to, being renewed. Microsoft scams were done by a fake-up security pop-up which appears on your screen and tells you to call on a number for “help”. Scammers have also stopped using phone calls for scamming people. Now they only use emails and text messages to trick consumers. Social media scams on Instagram and Facebook are also getting common. Many people have also reported online shopping scams that start from an ad on social media and make people lose their money.
If users want to avoid getting scammed, they should carefully check their emails and text messages and look for signs that indicate that the email or text message isn’t genuine. If there is an unofficial or suspicious sender domain name, refrain from visiting that website and report any fraud activity to FTC.
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