What are the Most Common Scams in Texas and Oklahoma?

With the multitude of scams in the world today, which ones do people in Texas and Oklahoma need to be on the lookout for?

Using three years of reports from the Better Business Bureau, security company ADT created a comprehensive breakdown of the biggest scams across the country, covering the ones that have cost its victims the most, which are more prevalent from state-to-state, and so on.

Texas alone reported average losses of $196 per 1,000 people due to scams from 2015 to 2018, whereas Oklahoma averaged a loss of $124 per 1,000 people. Neither amount put Texas or Oklahoma on the Top 10 or Bottom 10 lists, with the top 10 states ranging from $222 to $1,356 per 1,000 people, and the bottom 10 ranging from $62 to $98 per 1,000 people.

Oklahoma fell in with the rest of the Midwest in a prominence of Phishing scams, accounting for 16.3% of the state's reported scams. Texas on the other hand fell victim to tax collecting scams more than anything, with 17.9%.

Phishing, the act of sending emails to get sensitive information or infect the receiving computer with malware, has been the most common scam, making up nearly 15% of total reported scams nationwide, with Tax Collection right behind with 12.6%. However, both scams aren't as lucrative as the perpetrators would like, coming in on the lower end of total money lost. Investment scams and online purchase scams accounted for over nearly $6 million in collective loses last year, while neither phishing nor tax collection scams surpassed half-a-million dollars each.