You may or may not be aware of it, but we're currently in the middle of National Consumer Protection Week (March 5th through March 11th), a week set aside each year to help people understand their consumer rights and avoid frauds and scams.

Scammers don't have a specific week like that. There's no "National Stand By And Let Yourself Be Conned Out Of Lots Of Money And Personal Information By Us Week," because the folks who do the scamming are out and about doing their thing every week of every month of every year.

Luckily, organizations like the Rockford Regional Office of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) are working just as hard to keep you from being a victim.

Fraud alert digital laptop computer crime warning.
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The BBB Just Released Its Scam Tracker Risk Report, Which Takes A Precise Look At The Danger Levels Of Current Scams

Dennis Horton, director of the Rockford BBB:

It measures the riskiest scams based on susceptibility, the percentage of people who lose money when exposed to a scam, and the median dollar loss. It’s estimated BBB Scam Tracker saved consumers $21.2 million in 2022 by alerting people before they became victims.

Online purchase scams remained the #1 riskiest scam type, but employment scams have moved up and are now the second riskiest, according to the BBB's new report. Employment scam reports submitted to BBB Scam Tracker were up 23.1 percent from 2021 to 2022.

The average loss for all scams individually is around $170, but the average, or median loss for employment scams has reached $1500.

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The BBB Has Also Discovered That For The First Time Ever, The Top Age Group Being Scammed Is The 18-24 Year Old Demographic, And Text-Based Scams Have Increased 39% From Last Year

Let's get to the information you'll need, which would be the top current scams going on in Illinois.

  1. Online purchasing
  2. Employment
  3. Crypto-Currency
  4. Home Improvement
  5. Advance Loan
  6. Investment Scams
  7. Romance Scams
  8. Government Grant Scams
  9. Phishing
  10. Tech Support Scams

Here's more on what to look for.

LOOK: The biggest scams today and how you can protect yourself from them

Using data from the BBB Scam Tracker Annual Risk Report, Stacker identified the most common and costly types of scams in 2022.

LOOK: The 10 largest product recalls of the last decade

Estey & Bomberger, LLP compiled a list of the top 10 product recalls since 2007, ranked based on the number of product units recalled in the U.S.

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