See how North Dakota is affected by e-commerce fraud

The discovery of credit card skimmers at multiple retail locations in the New England area has prompted local authorities to urge customers to be wary of similar scams. (Getty Images)

Bojan Milinkov // Shutterstock

While economies around the world have suffered, slowed and effectively ground to a halt due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the fraud economy has thrived. Experts have estimated that the annual global cost of fraud in 2020 will be just over $5 trillion, which is more than the gross domestic product of most countries.

However, these were pre-pandemic estimates, obtained in pre-pandemic conditions and according to the old standard. Experts believe the actual total in our new reality coexisting with Covid-19 is much higher. In some areas around the world, fraud rates have increased by almost 20%.

The fraud economy, like any other, is vast, complex, and full of skilled operators that power it. Cybercrime is a major contributor to the fraud economy, and e-commerce fraud is an offshoot of it.

In the first year of the pandemic, U.S. e-commerce sales grew more than 32%, totaling $791.7 billion, as businesses and consumers turned to online shopping amid lockdowns, social distancing restrictions, brick-and-mortar store closures and concerns about diseases . But where prosperity is earned honestly, bad actors also have a chance to make money.

Wicked Reports analyzed 2020 state-by-state data (including Washington, D.C.) from the FBI’s Cyber ​​Crime Complaint Center to identify the states most harmed by e-commerce non-payment and delivery fraud, ranked by loss per victim. Population data as of July 1, 2021 was taken from the U.S. Census Bureau to estimate casualties per 100,000 citizens in each state. Interestingly, the five states most affected by these scams included neither the states that shopped the most online – which could have statistically made them more likely to be affected – nor the states that shopped the least online, which could have indicated a lack of knowledge of e-commerce best practices .

Vigilance and a bit of healthy skepticism can be your greatest asset in protecting your information online, especially in e-commerce. If the site looks suspicious or the offer looks too good to be true, walk away. Or at least take the time to double-check it. E-commerce fraud is expected to increase by 105% by 2025.

Read on to see how your state fared in the face of rampant e-commerce fraud, or check out the country’s history here.

North Dakota in numbers

– Losses per victim: $2,228 (1% more than the national average)
– Victims per 100,000 citizens: 24 (#45 most among all states)
– Total monetary loss: $416,570 (#46 highest of all states)

Over 60% of U.S. Internet users have experienced cybercrime. According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), the five most frequently reported cyber crimes are phishing, non-payment/non-delivery, extortion, data breaches and identity theft. People over the age of 60 are most often the targets and victims of cybercrime. In 2020 alone, this segment of the population lost over $966 million to online fraud.

Non-delivery and non-delivery scams were the second most frequently reported type of cybercrime in 2020. According to the FBI, in non-delivery situations where the victim is a buyer, the payment is sent but the goods and services are never received. In payment fraud where the victim is a merchant, items or services are shipped but payment is never received. Between 2019 and 2020, the number of this type of fraud increased by 76%. Nearly 100,000 Americans have been affected by these types of e-commerce crimes and have collectively lost $217 million.

Read on to see which states were most and least affected by e-commerce fraud.

States most affected by e-commerce fraud

#1. Iowa: $4,858 in losses per victim (121% higher than the national average)
#2. Georgia: $4,431 loss per victim (101% more than national average)
#3. Utah: $3,713 loss per victim (69% higher than national average)

States least affected by e-commerce fraud

#1. Washington: $691 in losses per victim (69% less than national average)
#2. Kansas: $980 in losses per victim (56% less than national average)
#3. Kentucky: $1,085 loss per victim (51% less than national average)

This story originally appeared on Wicked Reports and was produced and distributed in association with Stacker Studio.