The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released “more state-level information available to the public about the complaints it receives from consumers related to COVID-19, with reports about online shopping problems topping the list of complaints in most states.” The June 11, 2020 news release entitled “FTC Makes More State-Level Data Available About COVID-19 Related Complaints from Consumers” included “Explore Data with the FTC” with the following comments:
The COVID-19-related online shopping complaints from consumers include reports about items not arriving or not arriving when promised and items that are different than advertised.
The FTC began releasing COVID-19-related complaint data in late March 2020.
So far, the FTC has received more than 91,000 total COVID-19-related complaints between January 1 and June 8, 2020.
Consumers have reported losing a total of more than $59.2 million to COVID-19-related fraud.
California has reported the largest number of COVID-19-related complaints.
Consumers need to be wary eCommerce fraud during Covid-19, and hopefully the FTC report will help!