Reporting fraud victimization to the police: factors that affect whether victims report

Fraud against individuals is a growing problem with a major impact on victims and society. For victims, the police are an important actor to turn to. The police can provide help and police reports are a crucial source of information in the fight against fraud. However, victims often do not report to the police. The current study aims to uncover why victims do (not) report to the police. A sample was drawn from a state-of-the-art population panel, comprising 608 fraud victimization events. We modeled the decision to report using 1) fraud characteristics, including severity (amount of money lost, impact on life), self-blame, the event being offline/online, and victims’ relation to the offender, and 2) victim characteristics, including demographic variables, internet use, trust in the police, Big Five personality traits, appreciation of national security, self-control, optimism, and loneliness. Results indicate that only 11.8% of victims report to the police and that only two concepts were consistently related to police reporting: 1) fraud severity, as more impactful crimes were reported more often, and 2) urbanization, as citizens from urbanized areas reported significantly less often. We discuss the implications of our findings and offer recommendations for policymakers.