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New BBB Study Reveals Top Ten Scams In Michigan

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The Better Business Bureau is out with its top scams from last year.  Topping the list nationally is “Online Purchase Scams”.  The top one in Michigan is a bit different. Experts talk about the top scams to hit residents in our state.  They also offer tips on how to avoid them.

“Online purchase scams prove to be the riskiest nationally, according to this report.”

That’s John Masterson, Marketing Director for the Better Business Bureau serving Western Michigan. He says the latest report from the BBB shows that in 2017, consumers reported more than 47-thousand scams to their Scam Tracker.  Nationally, online purchase scams were number one in the top ten rankings but, in Michigan, that came in second.  Phishing scams were number one here.

“The top ten scams that affected Michiganders tended to be digitally based.  First being phishing scams, emails that have fraudulent links or attachments, then online purchase scams, where again, you’re buying something online that may not be real or you selling something to someone that pays in a fraudulent way.”

Previously at number ten, vacation scams have moved up to number 3 of the top ten scams.

“Something new to the top ten was also travel and vacation scams; so kind of similar to online purchase scams but it kinda shows different properties for rent or lease that are either not real or when you show up they don’t look like they did online and they’ll take deposits and reservations.”

Masterson says round out the top ten in Michigan are sweepstakes and employment scams, followed by identity theft, tax collection, tech support, debt collection and credit card scams, which is now at number 10.  Believe it or not, there’s good news coming out of all of this.  Masterson says while it’s true the total number of scam reports was up, he says the susceptibility was down…

“More people are kinda becoming aware of some of these more common tactics, so they reported it, but did not lose anything which is great and we’re happy to help keep people informed.”

Masterson says as always, be sure to report potential scams to the BBB scam tracker, which you can find at BBB.ORG.

Jennifer is an award winning broadcast news journalist with more than two decades of professional television news experience including the nation's fifth largest news market. She's worked as both news reporter and news anchor for television and radio in markets from Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo all the way to San Francisco, California.