By Dorothy Riggs, CFE Reportedly, the Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Sentinel project tallied 3 million consumer complaints received in 2016.   Regarding consumer fraud, identity theft has lost its #1 position.   Impostor fraud has taken the lead.   Last year victims lost $744.5 million collectively to impostor fraud schemes. What is Impostor Fraud? Impostor fraud involves fraudsters impersonating someone else in order to carry out a fraud scheme.   They often contact consumers pretending to be family members, law enforcement, representatives of government agencies, bill collectors and so on.

The massive number of individuals feeling social deprivation, the ease of technological communication and the criminal expertise of savvy fraudsters all set the global stage for a whole lot of hanky-panky. The particular details of romance confidence schemes evolve every year and have little to nothing to do with true romance. Click on the link below to read an article I wrote about romance scams.  It was published as an Online Exclusive by Fraud Magazine.   Fraud Magazine Online Exclusive: A Whole Lot of Hanky-Panky Going On                    The article was also featured on the following site.  Click the link to read the article.                     Fraud Journal: Romance Fraud - A Whole Lot of Hanky-Panky Going On