Credit Card Fraud Victims By State
Merchant processors know fraud comes in various shapes and sizes, but higher populations means more fraud. Predictably, California, Texas, Florida and New York (the highest populated US states) generate the most merchant revenue and the most fraud counts.
So is any one state more suspicious than another? When evaluating fraud versus the population of each state, only Nevada can be awarded a significant outlier status with victims representing 0.6% of their state population. The District of Columbia and Iowa have a 0.3% ratio while Alaska, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, Colorado, Washington, Arizona, California, Indiana, Kentucky and Missouri all have a 0.2% ratio. All other states registered a 0.1% victim fraud rate versus their populations. Except Guam and Samoa, which while represented, don’t quite qualify for 0.1% making them (nearly) fraud free tropical paradises.
Not all fraud across demographics was equal. Senior citizens were the most frequent victims (26.1%) and had a disproportionate 38.7% of the total funds stolen.
| Age | Victims | Stolen | % Victims | % Stolen |
| 60+ | 92,371 | $1,680,000,000 | 26.1% | 38.7% |
| 40-49 | 89,184 | $1,190,000,000 | 25.2% | 27.4% |
| 30-39 | 88,448 | $937,300,000 | 25.0% | 21.6% |
| 20-29 | 69390 | $431,100,000 | 19.6% | 9.9% |
| Under 20 | 14919 | $101,400,000 | 4.2% | 2.3% |
| Total | 354,312 | $4,339,800,000 |
Key focuses of the FBI’s report focused on things that directly impact merchant processors like Phishing, non-payments, personal data breach and identity theft.
| Crime Description | Number | % Crimes |
| Phishing/Pharming | 323972 | 41.7% |
| Non-Payment/Non-Delivery | 82478 | 10.6% |
| Personal Data Breach | 51829 | 6.7% |
| Identity Theft | 51629 | 6.7% |
| Extortion | 39360 | 5.1% |
| Confidence Fraud/Romance | 24299 | 3.1% |
| Tech Support | 23903 | 3.1% |
| Investment | 20561 | 2.6% |
| BEC/EAC | 19954 | 2.6% |
| Spoofing | 18522 | 2.4% |
| Credit Card Fraud | 16750 | 2.2% |
| Employment | 15253 | 2.0% |
Source: Federal Bureau Of Investigation Internet Crime Report 2021
How do merchants best identify fraud? Even if Nevada senior citizens present a unique segment outlier in the FBI’s data, identifying fraud in volume means validating would-be buyers against identities and behavioral flags.
Process For Less helps merchants identify key commonalities in fraud transactions and consults on ways to drive higher quality traffic streams. Talk to us about fraud prevention and how to save on merchant processing.