Losses From Tech Support Scams Increased by 137% in 2021, Companies Lost $1 Million Every Day

The internet has made a variety of fraudulent practices much easier for malicious actors to take part in, and one of the most popular choices that these hackers make involves scam tech support calls. The way this works is that malicious actors might call a customer pretending to be a customer support agent from a company or brand that they are already familiar with because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up increasing the chances that they would seem trustworthy.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that these scams have increased exponentially these past two years. Scams of this variety cost companies around $54 million in 2019, which was a bump up from the $38 million they lost in 2018. This almost tripled to $147 million in 2020, though, and 2021 saw a further 137% increase in these kinds of scams.

Companies lost almost $348 million in 2021 due to damages claimed by customers who were scammed by people claiming to work for the brand. That means that these companies are facing nearly a million dollars in damages every single day with all things having been considered and taken into account. Around 60% of the victims of these scams were over 60 years old which means that senior citizens are a particular vulnerable target for people that want to steal their valuable information or funds.

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The rise in tech support scams has been quite consistent, and it is only now that the trend has started to seem exponential. The high increase of the past two years means that tech scam damages have been rising at a steady rate of 127% every year, and at a rate like this they may very well cross a billion dollars by 2023. Steps need to be taken to inform consumers about what tech support would actually call them for, although the baby boomers who are more likely to fall for these scams likely can’t be helped.

H/T: Atlas VPN.

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