DM News: FTC: More Than 11% Have Been Fraud Victim

For once, the Internet isn't the best medium for a high-growth business: fraud scams. A newly released Federal Trade Commission study found that about one in nine Americans was the victim of one sort of fraud or another over the period of a year. Print advertising was the biggest source of scams, causing a full third of the cases. Telemarketing was responsible for one in six, and the Internet was found to have been used in 14 percent of cases.

The scams tended to hit minorities the hardest, with 14 percent of Hispanics and 17 percent of African-Americans victimized, and only 6 percent of whites. The most common scams were advance fee loans, buyers' clubs and credit card related schemes.