Reports about travel and vacation problems topped the list of COVID-19-related complaints from consumers in New York, while nationally reports about online shopping top the list of consumer complaints, according to new data released by the Federal Trade Commission.
Most of the COVID-19-related travel and vacation complaints from consumers are about problems with cancellations and refunds. COVID-19-related consumer complaints about online shopping 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 and is now releasing more detail about the types of complaints it has received from consumers in each state.
From January 1 through June 8, 2020, New York consumers reported losing more than $3.8 million to fraud related to the pandemic, with a median loss of $245. In addition to vacation and travel-related complaints, other top COVID-19-related fraud complaints from New York consumers included online shopping problems and a variety of issues with services and activities booked online, especially cancellation of events.
You can find additional complaint data about New York and other states on the FTC’s new interactive COVID-19 complaint data dashboards.
