February 11, 2019 —
New BestVPN.org Study Finds That Catfishing is a $200M Problem Affecting Thousands of Americans Yearly
BestVPN.org has just published a study that analyzes, state by state, how many victims fall prey to catfishing and how much money they’re losing to these false online identities in the process. With Valentine’s Day coming up, BestVPN.org has compiled this report to shine a light on the crimes that are taking place across the country, and to remind everyone who is building virtual relationships to be careful.
Texas, for example, had the second-worst rankings for both how much money catfishing victims lost, but also the sheer number of victims that suffered at the hands of these false identities. However, to get the clearest picture of the harm that catfishing is currently causing, you have to take all of the data points in this study into consideration: cost, victims, and population-adjusted numbers.
To see how your state fared across all categories – as well as other states across the country – click through to our latest study here: https://bestvpn.org/catfishing-statistics/
Catfishing is a particularly cruel and costly crime, one in which a person takes on a false online identity to lure their victims into trusting them, only to later defraud them emotionally and financially. Our study shows that while some states are certainly more victim-prone, others are more likely to involve substantial financial loss (i.e., millions of dollars, in many cases).
The information in this report was obtained from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, which releases an annual report detailing online crimes and the financial damages these crimes cause. It is important to note that while the FBI has included Puerto Rico and outlying islands in their total numbers, BestVPN.org has omitted these areas from the analysis. Furthermore, the population-adjusted numbers were achieved by combining the data provided by the FBI with that of the adult population in the U.S. Census, ultimately resulting in the number of catfishing victims per capita.
