This Interactive Map Shows the Most Common Scams in Your Area
When it comes to cheating, knowledge always counts; you are much less likely to fall for the bait if you know it exists. And for some types of scams, you may be more vulnerable to attacks simply because of where you live.
The Consumer Sentinel Network , a member of the Federal Trade Commission, has cyber-investigative tools that help law enforcement access millions of reports of identity theft, unwanted calls, scams, scams, and other illegal activities. One such tool, using the Tableau Public data visualization platform, is an interactive map showing fraud and identity theft by state and city area, and is open to the public.
You can see fraudulent activity in your area in five different views:
- All state reports
- Fraud by state
- Fraud by metro area
- Identity theft by state
- Identity theft by metro area
On the Fraud by State tab, you’ll find the top 10 scam categories in any state you click on. This is the widest level view on the map. If you’re interested in a smaller level, take a look at Metro Area Scam and see the larger version. This will divide the state into urban areas, most of which will group a couple of counties together.
To get a breakdown of an area of interest, simply click on it on the map. You can also compare multiple areas to each other by holding down the Ctrl key (command on Mac) and clicking the areas you want to compare.
As of this writing, it uses FTC data for the fourth quarter of 2022, but they update the cards when a new date becomes available. You can also view previous years and quarters.
The data on the map represents people who reported fraud, scam or unfair business practices to ReportFraud.ftc.gov . Depending on the nature of the scam, this could mean that people in your area are falling victim to the same online scam (for example, this is a scam from Russia targeting your area), or it could mean that people in your area are being scammed by a local scam. . Unfortunately, there is no other way to drill down into the map other than to look at the frequency and category of scams in your chosen area. But you can always check the FTC reports on what kinds of scams or scams you want to look into more deeply.