A new study on the amount of money lost to “romance scams” in 2022 ranked South Carolina 10th in the country. The rankings came from Social Catfish, a reverse search technology company, and used data from the FBI, FTC, and the website’s own internal data from 10 million of its users.
South Carolina ranked No. 10 seeing a 21% increase in money lost to romance scams from 2021 to 2022. The state has the No. 30 highest average loss per victim at $28,335. For total money lost, the Palmetto State ranks No. 22, losing $8.2 million in 2022, up from No. 29 in 2021 when $6.8 million was lost.
The 10 states that lost the most money were highly populated – led by California, Texas, Florida, and New York – but it was smaller states that saw the biggest increases in money lost year-over-year, led by Arkansas (398% increase), New Mexico (268%), and Maine (216%).
You can see the rankings here.
