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May 25th, 2023Catfishing is when someone fakes their identity online to scam victims for money, to get revenge on someone, or are insecure about themselves.
These online relationships may last for months or even years!
Victims of romance scams have increased by 50% in 2018 compared to three years ago, despite the increase of awareness on the subject.
[aesop_character img=”https://wp.socialcatfish.cloud/scamfish/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/catfish-mascot-1.png” align=”left” width=”100%” force_circle=”off” revealfx=”fromleft”]- State by State Comparison of Victims
- Top 10 States with the Most Victims
- State by State Comparison of Victim Loss
- Top 10 States with the Most Victim Loss
- Number of Victims by Age Range
- Romance Scam Reports Over Time
- Comparison of Romance Scam Reports from IC3 and the FTC
State by State Comparison of Victims
This list was compiled from the FBI’s IC3 data ranking the states with the highest reported catfish victims:
California is the worst state for getting catfished, with over 2K complaints made in 2018 Click to Tweet
Top 10 States with the Most Victims
The top 10 states with the most catfish victims are: California (2,105), Texas (1,238), Florida (1,191), New York (782), Pennsylvania (577), Washington (493), Virginia (480), Michigan (461), Illinois (463), and North Carolina (432):
California received 2,105 reports of romance scams in 2018 Click to Tweet
State by State Comparison of Victim Loss
This table was compiled from the FBI’s IC3 data ranking the states with the highest reported financial loss from romance scams:
$2,600 – The median reported loss to romance scams is about seven times higher than for other frauds Click to Tweet
Top 10 States with the Most Victim Loss
The top 10 states with the most catfish victims are: California ($214.2M), Texas ($115.7M), Florida ($110.6M), New York ($88.6M), Arizona ($59.4M), Washington ($43M), Illinois ($42.9M), New Jersey ($40.4M), Colorado ($39.9M), and Massachusetts ($39M):
Californians reportedly lost $214.2M from romance scams in 2018 Click to Tweet
Number of Victims by Age Range
This graph, compiled from the FBI’s IC3 2018 report, shows the number of romance scam victims and loss by age range:
People over the age of 60 lost over $342M from catfish scams in 2018 Click to Tweet
Romance Scam Reports Over Time
The line graph below visualizes the number of romance scam complaints and reported losses between the years 2015 to 2018 taken from data by the FTC:
Reports more than doubled and reported losses increased more than fourfold from 2015 to 2018 Click to Tweet
Comparison of Romance Scam Reports from IC3 and the FTC
The table below compares the number of romance scam complaints and reported financial loss made to the FTC and the FBI’s IC3 between 2015 and 2018:
| IC3 | FTC | Totals | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 12,509 | 8,715 | 21,224 |
| $204M | $33.5M | $237.5M | |
| 2016 | 14,546 | 11,242 | 25,788 |
| $220M | $75.1M | $295.1M | |
| 2017 | 15,342 | 16,913 | 32,225 |
| $263M | $88.4M | $351.4M | |
| 2018 | 18,493 | 21,538 | 40,031 |
| $362M | $143M | $505M |
Between 2015 to 2018, romance scam victims reportedly lost $1.3B Click to Tweet
Sources:
- FBI’s Internet Complaint Center (IC3) 2018 Report
- FTC Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2018
- FTC Consumer Protection Data Spotlight
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